Music, like water.

Whenever we explain the theory behind CDizz to people in the music industry, we use the water allegory:
Years ago, people used to go to the well to fetch water. They carried heavy buckets to their homes for drinking, cooking and hygiene. Then came indoor plumbing and people had free, unlimited water available at the end of their tap.
Nowadays, people are carrying water in heavy bottles and paying money to get bottled water. What happened?

Several things happened:

1. The quality of bottled water is not that different from tap water (in most countries), but it doesn't hurt to hint again and again that tap water has all sorts of unwanted components. Hurting the competition is a useful tactics.

2. Added value - Bottled water were said to contain essential minerals and all sorts of ambiguous virtues. It doesn't hurt to claim your product has values, even if they're trivial.

3. Creating a buzz - Bottled water are "cooler", "better", "exclusive". You know the drill.

The music industry used to sell physical music, but suddenly everyone now has music plumbing. It started with radio, cassettes for copying music, and then came the net. Do you think the music industry can adapt?


Music and Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard used a very similar "Music is like water" allegory during Canadian Music Week 2007 (YouTube video here, starting from 6:30 minutes).
He also talked about the reasons for music sales drop and generally illustrates beautifully the problem CDizz is aiming to solve: Providing added value for music, giving a strong marketing tool for music companies and opening a new revenue channel by sharing ad profits.





His presentations are available here, they're worth browsing if you're interested in this subject. Here are a few examples:
DRM is dead: approximately 75,000 different devices can play MP3 files, while only 75 play DRM files.
Music mashing sites are growing. People are adding their own value into music.
More on the proposed changes to the music industry here.

It's great to find someone that clearly states when you're struggling to explain. I hope to attend one of his appearances one day.

----
CDizz Player is a free extraordinary multimedia CD player [download here].

"Creep Polka"

Oded Sharon wrote about his impressions from MuseNet, including his weird musical duo with Yoni Rechter.

(Via Jeff Pulver)

CDizz demonstrated at MuseNet

Last week, CDizz was demonstrated at MuseNet, a music/technology camp held in Shfayim, Israel, on June 29th 2007.

For this un-convention, one of the features in CDizz was demonstrated - live chord animation while a song is being played by CDizz. Participants were asked to select a song and tried to follow the song with Guitars. Other instruments were also used.

The result was fun. Yoni Rechter, a famous Israeli Composer played the guitar along with Oded Sharon on the Accordion.



Later on, Yehuda Kaysar, a master guitar player tried CDizz too, and so did other participants. "In 10 seconds I actually learned to play a song" said one participant.



Here are some images from MuseNet:










More images from MuseNet are available here.

CDizz Player is a free extraordinary multimedia CD player [download here].

CDizz Reviewed by Tucows File Finder

A while ago, we got a very nice review from Dr. File Finder of TuCows.

Here are a few quotes from the review:

"CDizz Player is fun and I had a good time testing it out."

"The program is loaded with cool features including the ability to play Flash animation, display "credits", provide you with trivia about the album, gives you news on the artists, and lots more."

"It also has features for karaoke that give you timing information. The same is true for guitar chords. A great help to any singing or musician hopefuls."

"Get yourself a real multimedia experience and give CDizz Player a try. Very nicely done. "

The full article can be found here.

CDizz Player is a free extraordinary multimedia CD player [download here].

New - RSS for your CDizz Music Collection

We've recently added an option to provide an RSS feed of the latest music played with CDizz.
This option is available for CDizz users after enabling the "My CD Collection" option.
The personal Collection page now has an RSS link which is updated every time you play something with CDizz. This can help your friends track not only what you're currently listening to, but also what you were listening to lately.

We hope this feature will be useful, or at least entertaining. It's a great sorce to display in blogs etc.

Animagics CEO, Eliram Haklai will be one of the speakers in the Tamuz Convention for the Israeli music industry on March 25, 2007.
Mr. Haklai will speak about CDizz and its potential for Israeli musical artists and music companies.
Registration for the convention is available via the Mate Shir website.

We've added a Candizz Management Page to the CDizz site

Authors of CDizz Candizz can now log-in at the CDizz home page to view and edit their Candizz.

After entering the Candizz Management page, authors may enable or disable approved Candizz, or delete any candi they've previously uploaded.

Enjoy

Buttons jumping up and down

One of the new features we've implemented in the latest release of CDizz is dynamic movement of the different Candizz buttons according to their relevance.
We've noticed that it's sometimes difficult to identify when a new Cadni becomes available for a CD or even a single track. Now it's somehow much easier.

Now, when I studied interface design, one of the most important principals for buttons is to keep them in place so that the user won't have to chase them and look for them all the time (notice the annoying implementation of the tabs in MsOffice options, for example). Somehow in this case the exact opposite seem to work better.

You can still drag those buttons to change their order if you'd like, it's fun.

CDizz Player is a free multimedia CD player [download here].

New Version - 0.9864

We've released two new versions in January 2007, both include many improvements.

Here are the changes made in these versions, we'll elaborate more on some of these changes in separate posts.

2007-1-30 Version 0.98 Build 64
- Implemented button-grouping for inactive Candizz
- CD-Specific Candizz' buttons now automatically float to the top of the button stack
- Better handling of automatics Candizz selection of track changes
- The slideshow timing now displays a thumbnail of each image
- Added an option to enable to disable new version notifications
- Better support for backgrounds with non-default size
- Added an optional slideshow effect - zoom images
- Slideshow smoother movement effect
- Candizz management now remembers the recent Candi selected
- Karaoke colors adjusted to better suit changing backgrounds
- Bugfix: Karaoke Cow animation caused an error when no karaoke was present for CD

2007-1-16 Version 0.98 Build 61
- Added Swedish language interface
- The preference window was split into two separate windows: General & Candizz for ease of use
- Loggin in is now available from within the player
- Clicking the Submit button on the timing tool will now directly upload the timing data
- Quote character can now be used and saved in track and Candizz names
- Improved Karaoke ball behaviour in right-to-left karaoke
- Improved indication for downloadable plugins
- Improved placement of different POPS skins
- Bugfix: Language problems fixed when submitting timings via the timing tool
- Bugfix: Track names and information are now saved locally for all CDs
- Bugfix: Playlist pole no longer disappears when rapidly opening and closing the playlist
- Bugfix: Inspired image handling on tracks without suitable images improved

CDizz Player is a free multimedia CD player [download here].