CDizz - Music and Software

Music, like water.

2007-07-25T05:34:00.000-04:00

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.

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

"Creep Polka"

2007-07-05T04:59:00.000-04:00

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

(Via Jeff Pulver)

CDizz demonstrated at MuseNet

2007-07-04T08:04:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-04T08:01:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-08T05:57:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-03-21T06:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-13T05:32:00.000-04:00

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

2007-02-05T08:18:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-31T03:55:00.001-05:00

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].

CDizz is Swedish

2006-12-22T07:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Naama and Peter, the next version of CDizz will include Swedish interface support.

CDizz Player is a free multimedia CD player [downloaded here]. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia ..

Can you translate CDizz?

2006-10-11T07:42:00.000-04:00

We are looking for qualified people who are able to translate the CDizz Player interface to new languages.

If you have good language skills in both English and your native language, and if you wish to have CDizz speak your language please contact us at:
info @ cdizz . com

This involves modifying a single simple text file and sending it back to us.
You will be credited for your work, of course.

Languages that are already available are: English, Hebrew.

Thank you,
The CDizz Team

CDizz Player is a free multimedia CD player [downloaded here].
Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia ..

A better CDizz release

2006-10-11T07:40:00.000-04:00

After several preview releases, we're about to replace the older version of CDizz which was published in our site as a "Stable Version" with the new 0.9856 version which is far better and faster than the old version.

This means that update notices will appear for all CDizz users. We plan on improving the update notification system in later versions so it won't nag too much to users who wish to stay with their older version a little longer.

CDizz Player is a free multimedia CD player [downloaded here].
Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia ..

CDizz 0.98 Build 34 Preview now available

2006-08-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

Direct Download link:
http://www.cdizz.com/download/cdizz_install_098_34.exe

Updates:

New and improved interface for the preferences screen
Added notification for new version
Opening and closing screens modified a little
Fixed multi-language support bug in Mini-Player
Usage of Karaoke Matte BG now updates immediately without having to close and re-open karaoke
Generic track names are now displayed in the proper font when interface language is different than CD language
Installation over existing version now forces the installation language as default interface language
Fixed a bug that prevented Chords from being displayed in some cases.
Added "Links" Candizz type that allows submitting relevant links to CD or track

CDizz Player can be downloaded for free. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia ..

New Version of CDizz Player

2006-07-03T08:46:00.000-04:00

A preview of CDizz player v0.98 build 25 is now available for download from the CDizz download page.

Here are the changes from the previous version:
CDizz now supports multiple interface languages. Currently available languages are: English, Hebrew.
Most world languages can now be assigned to individual CD or Candizz
Window size is no longer limited to 800x600, but can be freely adjusted to match any screen size
Added an option for the player to "forget" user indentification each time the program is run, for extra privacy.
This limits some functions such as CD Collection, Authoring etc.
Hovering over the "open/close Candizz" button will rotate the buttons. Useful for cases where there are too many buttons to fix the screen.
Added right-to-left language support to relevant Candizz
Improved performance and response time
Full screen mode no longer changes the screen resolution
Added an option to update CD details
Please feel free to download and try the software. We appreciate any comment, bug report, review etc.

CDizz Player can be downloaded for free. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia ..

Foresee the Past

2006-01-04T06:15:00.000-05:00

The need for good marketing is essential if you just released a new product and you want sales fast. But good marketing costs money, and if your profit margins are low, it becomes something to consider.
When record companies release a new album, they are never sure if it's going to be a hit. It might just sell a low amount of units and end its shelf life sooner than expected.
If you invest X dollars in marketing a CD it might increase your sales, but is it worth the expense? It's hard to tell, but most marketing and sales professionals will agree that when the right marketing tools are used, it's definitely worth it.

One unknown factor when considering a marketing plan is the scale of future sales. This, however, is not a problem when you consider a new marketing plan for an existing product that is already being sold for the past months or even years. If you are selling a constant amount of a CD title every month, it might be a good idea to increase your monthly income by increasing the attractiveness of your product.

CDizz can add multimedia to new or existing CD titles. If you once released a successful CD and millions bought it 10 years ago, it still makes sense to get people to go to their home CD collection are remember why they liked that CD so much. There is a good chance that they will now look for other releases by the same band, especially if they get photos, karaoke or chords for the new CD as well.

Give and you shall receive.

CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here.
Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia .

Music Artists Can Add Multimedia to their CDs for FREE

2005-12-15T06:57:00.000-05:00

Let's say you are a member of a small rock band, and you just released a new CD.
You built a web site, but web site content is available for everyone, and you want to motivate people to buy your CD. Why not turn your CD into a multimedia experience by using CDizz?

You probably have recording session photos you might be willing to share with the people who buy your music, or you might want to tell people about what every song is about or what were you doing while the drummer thought about those weird lyrics.

You can add any unofficial* material to your CD with the free CDizz Player. And your fans can add their opinions, art and other creations as well. Wallpapers, photos, Information, Animations, Trivia Pops and a lot more.

*As the copyright owner, you may also want to add some official content that will be automatically downloaded when CDizz users will play your new CD. Official content may include Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, A link to your website or to an online store that sells your CD. Official content is not free, but it's a well spent marketing expense. (And if you can't afford it yet, you may still use the unofficial options)

And what if you are not really in a band, and you don't know anyone who released a CD?
In that case you can just download the CDizz Player, slide your favorite music CD into the CDROM, and share your creativity with others.

CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Entertainment, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia .

Don't fight battles you can't really win.

2005-11-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

Sony got a lot of bad publicity lately, trying to fight piracy and ending up with making a lot of people angry (by messing up with their computers' OS) and losing a lot of money.

This is exactly what we are talking about. Don't just fight the pirates, give something to your loyal customers. This is what CDizz is all about.

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CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Music, CD, Software, Sony, Rootkit, Multimedia.

Cracking CDizz

2005-11-15T12:11:00.000-05:00

It appears that a serial number / keygen crack for CDizz player is available for download on the net. (We got a whole page with two links)

I tried to download it (600k for keygen and 44k for the entire cracked version of CDizz) and got two files. After looking at them (without executing) I deleted them because:

CDizz is FREEWARE!

Which means they are either viruses, trojans or just malware.

It's still rather amusing, though. :-) Cracked us up. :-)

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CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Music, CD, Software, Virus, Trojans, Multimedia.

Make Candizz™, not War! A Good Advice to the Music Industry

2005-11-14T03:42:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that the music industry woke up one day to realize that the internet changed the way people consume music. Their first response was “STOP! Thieves!”. Their second response was lawsuits against Napster, against people who downloaded music, and then against companies who developed technologies that could be (and actually were) used to violate copyright laws (and to cause loss of income to the music industry).

Do you know what is the biggest problem of music companies when they try to compete with MP3 files?
Here are a few options:

MP3 Files are free while CDs cost money
It may take at least an hour to go to the music store, look for a CD, buy it, and go back home to listen to it. It takes less than 5 minutes to download your favorite song, and you can do it in the middle of the night and in your shorts.
If you want to listen to songs from several albums, you need to change CDs every few minutes. With MP3 you can keep only the songs you want.

While all these problems do exist, the biggest problem is simpler: The quality of the product is practically the same, and at the end of the day, you don’t get much more when buying the legal copy over downloading an MP3 file.

But maybe people who buy legal music should get more? Aside from a nice jewel case with a CD cover, all sorts of bonuses are sometimes offered to music customers: from books to posters, very few titles include a multimedia track while others offer access to a password protected web site. The problem is that this is raising the CD price, and it’s not really available for most CDs.

Here comes the “Candizz” part. Candizz are little multimedia elements that can be added to a music CD when it’s played with the CDizz Player™. Animations, lyrics, chords, karaoke, images, reviews, trivia pops, games, artists news etc. This gives new life to old CDs and adds an internet based visual “envelope” to the music experience.

If record companies won’t go there, the music fans may do that by themselves. Adding Candizz is easy. Some fans like creating images based on music you hear, why not share these creations with other fans who own the same CD? Other fans can review a new CD release and other fans take pictures of themselves when they attend a concert. All this material will be accessible once you pop-in the right CD.

Music companies don’t have to be portrayed as the bad guys, they can easily become the good guys simply by rewarding loyal customers who actually went to the store and bought a CD. Even if the last CD they bought is 10 years old, it will certainly be profitable for them to be able to offer these customers fun and games along with a coupon for a concert or even just news about upcoming releases.The CD is not dead. How many CDs do you have at home? More than a few, probably. How many CDs are you willing to throw away because you ripped them to your computer? I’m guessing not many, and rightfully so. It’s too early for the CDs to go to waste.

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CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, RIAA, Multimedia .

Candizz

2005-11-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

When we developed CDizz, we tried to find a suitable name for all the downloadable goodies that the users can download, create or share.
Lacking a better name, we settled on the term "plugins" which was not exactly quite right, but got the general idea across.

Today we found what we think is a better term: Candizz

It sounds tasty, it has the CDizz sound (and letters) in it, and in general we like it.
(Single: Candiz)

Now we have to implement the change into the next version, update the web site, the help file etc.
Shouldn't take that long...

Those Software Listing Sites

2005-11-06T08:01:00.000-05:00

When our latest version was ready, we followed a list of thing we needed to do. Aside from the regular compiling / documenting / updating the release notes etc., there is always the matter of updating the internet*.

* I'm not talking about our own web site, this is obviously a must (adding a news item, updating the download link, notifying the forum). I'm talking about the other places where CDizz is listed.

Up until now, since we did want to have an altername download site other than our own website, we looked at the different mega-software-sites and chose freewarefiles.com which was a very good choice. It took them less than a couple of days to check CDizz out, add the listing, generate an icon from the screenshot we provided, and then we appeared at their site as "Featured Software" in the Audio / Video section, which was quite a joy for us (We are so easy to please sometimes).

But this time they were actually ULTRA fast, and verified the update in less than 2 hours. Wow. Shortly after that we noticed that CDizz got their editors pick as well, and so we now had a shiny new icon to add to our web site.

We decided to add CDizz to a few other listings. Soon enough we got another icon, this time from softpedia which guarentied that CDizz has no adware, no spyware and no viruses attached to it. This was also (proudly) added to our site.

Since we are fans of tucows (for almost 10 years now), we decided to add an entry to TuCows as well and see how many cows we'll get. We will have to be patient, though, since it takes more than a month for the tucows people to have a good look at a new submitted program. There is a long queue, so I don't really blame them.

I've also submitted an entry to boingboing.net , but it seems that it didn't make the cut. (Assuming that since they are looking for news, they won't wait that long to publish something. Or will they?)

Write a Review - Get Linked

2005-11-02T14:13:00.000-05:00

If you have your own blog, We'd love it if you try out the CDizz Player and write about it in your blog.

If your review is informative and fair, we'll add a link to your review on this blog.

Here are a few rules, just to stay on the safe side:

1. You need to write a post that's mostly concerns CDizz (mentioning it in one line at the end of a long post won't get you a link).

2. Your post needs to be fair. We don't mind criticism, but don't be nasty just for the sake of it. Write on your personal experience or thoughts about the software or concept.

3. You need to put a link in your blog to www.cdizz.com or to this blog (so people will know what you're talking about)

4. If you revise your post, if your blog contains offensive material or even without explaining, we are not obligated to link anywhere. This is on our sole descretion.

5. If there are too many posts / reviews, we'll probably stop adding links (and we'll write to you about it in this blog)

The software is available for free over here. Let us know if you write something.

Tags: CDizz, Music, CD, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Reviews, Software, Multimedia .

Version 0.97 Build 19 released

2005-11-02T13:33:00.000-05:00

And it was a tough one.
Since the initial release we received a lot of responses, requests and comments about CDizz. We tried to implememnt as much as we could and it took us a while, debugging and adding small improvements until we had a decent release candidate.

All this was done while moving to a new server (which has it's own configuration problems we had to deal with)
Yaron also added several tutorial pages that should help new users with creating content.

The next step will probably be multilingual support, which really needs addressing at this point.

What are you waiting for? Go on and download the new version.

Crushed Bug

2005-10-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I talked (using messenger, obviously) with one of the CDizz beta testers who had a problem after uninstalling and re-installing CDizz.
He got an error message when he tried to connect.
I seemed that there was a bug in the new server (due to moving to a new SQL system) that prevented new users from being recognized properly by the server, which gave them limited functionality.

This was going on for several days now, which was rather upsetting to me. Especially since it took me less than 5 minutes to fix it.
But it's a good thing we have such great users, so THANKS OOGGI.

Moving to a new web server

2005-10-02T16:01:00.000-04:00

Since we expect some growth, I though this might be the best time to upgrade our server.

I started to shop around for a dedicated server. There are almost too many options out there, and new terms to learn. It took me almost two days to focus on the server host to go with, and it was godaddy.

I have some domain names of my own for several years now, and I moved between registrars, and currently most domain names are registered via godaddy, so I was a bit reluctant to have my hosting there as well (I believe in getting different services from different sources). But their price was OK, and they seem stable enough, so they were a strong candidate.

I called their customer support / sales phone number. It's always a good idea to do that before you buy a product. I asked some questions which were answered in a reasonable way (Not too technical), and I also got an additional discount since on the price that was listed in the site, so that was a good thing to have as well.

Tomorrow the new server will be ready, and I'll start transferring the files and check that all the scripts work properly.

Installation day, I call it.

Featured

2005-10-02T09:15:00.000-04:00

When we released our software, we looked for an external site that will list and (hopefully) host our distribution file.

We checked several options (download.com, tucows.com etc.) and finally decided on freewarefiles.com which were very fast in reviewing and publishing the software.

We also had a nice surprise when the decided to name CDizz "Featured Download" in the Audio/Video section (It's currently still there).

I think it's good and promising feedback.

What is CDizz?

2005-10-02T06:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it can be hard to explain exactly what your software really does. Every time we try, we tend to focus on different issues. Here is the current description of CDizz, in a form of questions and answers:

What is CDizz?

CDizz is based on the idea that audio CDs should bring more to the music experience. The CDizz Player adds dynamic content to Audio-CD titles. CDizz can turn ANY CD into a multimedia experience.

The CDizz Player uses legal, purchased CDs as a key to download CD specific content: Images, Lyrics, Karaoke, Slideshows, Coupons, News, Guitar Chords, Animations, Pops and much more.

CDizz is FREEWARE, and is totally safe to install or remove.

Original Content Sharing

CDizz users can upload new content and rate content to enrich everyone’s experience:

Review a CD
Tell a story about a song
Upload a photo that reminds you a song
Draw and share inspired art
Write alternative lyrics to songs
Learn how to play a guitar by entering chords. Watch the fingering while the song is being played.
Create Animation clips related to a song, or just enjoy a flash game.
Trivia information popping in little pops windows.
Get Artist news and info

With CDizz, music enthusiasts have a new way to communicate.
CDizz includes timing tools for Karaoke, Chords, Pops, Slideshow and SmartIntro.

Other Services

Your CD collection has something new in it, and if you’d like, you can setup a page that lists the CDs in your CD collection.
You can grade any CD, Track or content. Each user has a rank, so heavy users and authors’ votes count for more.

Can CDizz fight piracy?

We believe that the focus in fighting piracy should not focus on threatening music customers, but rather making the legal music product better by giving more to loyal customers.

If illegal files offer the same quality as legal audio, there is no positive incentive for people to do the right thing.

CDizz gives something extra to people who went and bought music CDs.

It also offers artists and labels a unique way to communicate with their customers by providing official content and news, so everybody wins.

We are very concerned about copyright issues. All submissions are reviewed before they are published, and there is a reporting tool if something slipped through.

CDizz Player is Freeware, and can be downloaded here. Tags: CDizz, Candizz, Music, CD, Software, Lyrics, Karaoke, Chords, Animation, Audio, Multimedia .

We've decided to open a blog about CDizz Development

2005-09-30T19:22:00.000-04:00

I'll tell you all about why I decided that, and what CDizz actually is, but this will have to wait.
In the mean time, here is a link to CDizz.
Just stare at this link for a while, and when you're tired, click on it for more information. ;-)