Daniele Calabrese Interview

Dec 3 2010
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Daniele Calabrese talks about Soundtrckr’s approach to creating a ubiquitous experience for sharing music. Daniele discusses everything from international licensing to why leveraging HTML5 was a “no brainer”. He also explains his views on the importance of blurring the lines between web apps and native apps.

Links referenced in the show:

The music in the show, Have Mercy — Big Walter Horton, was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley.

Transcription

  1. Daniele 00:00:24

    Hi, everybody. I’m Daniele Calabrese. I’m the founder and CEO of soundtrckr: the geosocial Internet radio service, available on the Web and on the iPhone, Windows phone, Nokia, and soon Android. I’m very happy to be here and talk about our developed networks; our service; what’s new in music, mobile, social, and geo.

  2. Ryan

    Cool. So you’re, I mean, you’re everywhere. You’re on all kinds of platforms. And it seems like even, you know, the universal platform: on the Web as well.

  3. Daniele 00:00:54

    Yes. We thought, you know, we really wanted to be truly mobile and access anywhere service so people will be able to, you know, play music, share, discover with their friends anywhere, anytime. Therefore, we had to, you know, play the game of working with multiple handsets and handset manufacturers on one hand, but also think through how the Web experience will evolve. If you think about tablets, interconnected devices, the cars, all kinds of technology and philosophy we adopt to make that happen and allow anybody to play music and share it at anytime with anybody, anywhere.

  4. So, right now, I think the big platforms that you have native apps for it’s iPhone and Windows Phone 7, right? Is that the only platforms?

  5. Daniele 00:01:39

    Yes. I mean, and this week Nokia will go live, which obviously it’s not a big platform in the US but it is a big platform outside of the US. And because soundtrckr is actually an international company, so we’re the first fully licensed Internet radio company that works outside of the US, we also had to think through how to work with big names that are not as big in the US, but they are big and prominent outside of the US.

  6. Oh, wow. From what I hear, that’s like a legal nightmare to do that.

  7. Daniele 00:02:09

    Yes, it is to an extent. But I think things are evolving pretty quickly, so you have to just, not to dwell into the topic, but there is a big difference between an on-demand service like Napster, Rhapsody, MOG, or Spotify and Internet radio services like Pandora or soundtrckr. I would put Last.fm into a hybrid because, you know, it’s a little bit of both. So licensing schemes are different. But for us, in terms of Web, there is really an opportunity to grow companies international now. Meaning both public performance organizations in the US and outside of the US are really prone to let companies like soundtrckr grow. And on the other hand, you know, the radio licenses and Internet radio are starting to become very defined in scope. So it’s easier to identify them legally. And that has really helped us in the last six months to scale radio international and more countries are gonna be added in the next few months.

  8. Ryan

    So, that’s interesting. So basically, just the lack of on-demand just saves you a lot of headaches as far as the international play?

  9. Daniele 00:03:15

    Pretty much, in the sense that, you know, you don’t have to get licenses for each country with the labels and with the performance rights organizations. But, you know, if you are able to work through and secure your catalog, which for us is eight million songs and it’s ten times larger than Pandora, just to give, you know, an example to the audience and, like, three or four times larger than Last.fm. If you are able to get that, then you can walk through your international licenses with performance organizations in terms of radio. And you don’t have to get, you know, catalogs country by country and authorization from the labels one by one.

  10. Ryan 00:03:54

    Wow, yeah. It seems like the company’s probably divided on two fronts, really: the technical side battling that and then all the bus-dev deals which seems like an equally important and challenging thing to tackle.

  11. Daniele 00:04:06

    Yes, but at the same time, you know, we have it and it was an incredible experience to go through the process of acquiring the catalog. And we have a great partner that helped us through the process in terms of both getting us the music and managing a piece of our technology infrastructure to handle. So, the bottom line is anybody can get access to our music and share with friends easily, on any platform, mobile and Web, you know, split second. It’s almost like, you know, having your iPod in your pocket. I mean, that’s really what our benchmark is. Make sure that the experience is so seamless that you don’t really know whether you’re playing an mp3 from your actual device or it’s getting streamed onto your phone via soundtrckr with the cellular networks or wi-fi.

  12. That’s pretty cool. It really fits into the ever-decreasing importance of sovereignty with things like media.

  13. Daniele 00:04:58

    For us, it was very important and I have to say the news and intuition that I had. I mean, I had a lot of friends, you know, still a couple of years ago, doing download sites, free mp3 download, and this and that. Even companies called download.com or downloadmusic and so forth. And I said, “Guys, I think we should be focusing on ubiquitous access of media assets.” Today, we see, this was three years ago, you know, contacts e-mail rights but tomorrow will be pictures, will be friends, will be music, will be video. And, obviously, having had this intuition two years ago allowed us to be in a very nice position now that it’s happening and it’s happening big and fast, you know, both through mobile and Web.

  14. Ryan 00:05:37

    Yeah. It seems like there’s a lot of opportunities for a business with streaming that just simply don’t exist with download play. For instance, Last.fm can scrobble as long as you have a player that does that, right? But when you’re streaming you always have access to what people are listening to. And it just seems like the kind of metrics that you could acquire over time. A very valuable resource.

  15. Daniele 00:06:01

    For us it was very critical, that kind of metrics. But most importantly, not from a business point of view, but from users it’s like, “Okay, I have access to my music, all my stations, I can see my friends, where they are, what they play.” Or we can RSVP at the same location, you know, so we have the location component. I’m playing your station I discovered through you, you discovered through me. We play the same music, we chat and comment on it in real time, you know. And, you know, if my phone goes off, you know, I can go 15 to 20 minutes, like, or half an hour later on my computer I still see the entire thing, the entire history of communication with my friends about music, the entire history of my music, my friends.

  16. Ryan 00:06:38

    Yeah, with a lot of focus kind of across the board on social, I think it’s really interesting that you can share playlists and see what your friends are listening to. But beyond that, I really like that people can check into venues and see their music playing history. Where I think it’s really easy to get a good tell of a certain, you know, if it’s a bar, or whatever, restaurant, what kind of music that they’re playing. I think that that’s really interesting information that there’s really no way to get that any other way.

  17. Daniele 00:07:07

    No, and this was really like, you know, the next level of what we’re taking the product. I mean, we’re going to be soon launching an updated iPhone application that will allow users to check in via foursquare in a place and then by checking places by Facebook, but that’s just the beginning. Right after that will be producing another release that allows users to basically check in with your friends at a place and play music of that venue. So you are going to a concert or you don’t know what to do tonight or next weekend, you can just search, real-time from your app, what is being played at the venue you love and preview music from that venue, from that artist that you might or you might not now. You like it, you RSVP, your friends on Facebook can see you’re gonna go there. And then once you are there, you can check in. And then once you leave, like, let’s say the same night or, you know, days later, you can always go back and see, you know, the stations that are associated to that venue and still get the vibe of that place.

  18. Ryan 00:08:05

    That seems pretty cool. I could see people just having a lot of fun with all that information. Like, also, I see, you know, people may be playing with, you know, doing heat maps of different genres or certain songs that play in certain geographic areas. It just seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for people to just play with that.

  19. Daniele 00:08:22

    Yeah, I think the users will kind of slice and dice it in different ways. You know, you will have power users willing to play with all of the tools we give them and then regular users just to type an artist and get a station and make sure that, you know, soundtrckr will deliver on any single artist you type. There is no substitutes. So we’ll give you stations and we’ll start with the artist you typed anytime, given the fact that we have eight million songs. And then, you know, shareability goes to those who are really active. Whereas, you know, more of users that just want to tune in and what their top leader play and then you have power users that, you know, want to make sure that everybody else knows what they do and what they play and where they are and who they are with and what kind of music they play. And we have tools for that as well. So we look forward, really, to grow and get all these interesting new use cases that, even us, we can really think through. And users will help us evolve the product with a lot of good feedback.

  20. Ryan

    Do you have plans of sharing a lot of this information of how the users are listening to things with, say, the bands that are being listened to?

  21. Daniele 00:09:26

    Well, you know, obviously we’re going to deal with discussions of privacy, privacy layers. In theory, yes, why not? Ultimately, it’s about connecting, you know, connecting people and connecting music to who creates and who listens to.

  22. Yeah.

  23. The specific way of how we’re gonna do it. If we’re going to be able, if we’re gonna be monetizing it, when, how, that’s all to be discovered. I think that there is already value in allowing users to learn more about artists even before they play. I mean, it happened to me so many times that I was going, you know, somebody drag me to a concert and say, “Hey, you should really check these guys out.” I mean, I used to read on Myspace, right? You go on Myspace, you check one of the songs and say, “Hi. Cool. Okay, I’m coming with you.” Well, you can do it now on the go with soundtrckr, you know? And that would allow you, really, to preview, get a sense, really make the bond with your friend that is inviting you or RSVP you, and so on and so forth, to a place, bonding with the music you’re gonna be playing.

  24. Ryan 00:10:21

    Yeah, I could see it being, I mean, great for everybody, right? Like, if there’s a band playing at a venue, you could get all kinds of information about them: see who they’re like, see who that you respect happens to like them. And then on the flipside, if, you know, a band sees that in Miami there’s a disproportionate amount of fans, they’d know that they need to think about where they’re putting that on the map when they’re touring next year. Seems like everybody could be a winner here.

  25. Daniele 00:10:44

    It is an extension, obviously, you know, bands go around the country and have live tours all the time. That would be another extension, allow them to get more data points about, really, beyond what they already do because they already do a lot of online stuff. It’s more of, like, getting a feel as you said their heat maps, right? I mean, “Wow, my music is really popular in Nashville now or in Miami. And it’s actually Miami during vacation time, right? So we may even, eventually we’re gonna put a timeline to it.” It might be very well, you know, that, you know, that city transforms because you have an influx of visitors, of tourists, and so on and so forth. So it might be popularity go up and down depending on how the kind of geography of the city changes. And, for instance, for Miami, Los Angeles, that actually, it’s even more true than other cities.

  26. Ryan 00:11:30

    Cool. So it kind of makes sense why you’d be on iPhone first. Now, why go to, like, Windows Phone 7? What kind of factors led you to porting to that, like, say, before Android?

  27. Daniele 00:11:42

    We really thought that Microsoft play would be a great opportunity for us because the platform was fresh, fresh perspective of mobile. You kind of invise really all the new things that’ve been boiling for the past two years. I found that from the very beginning when I played with the phone and I looked at the SDK that it was really something that made sense for soundtrckr for it’s brand, right? Being associated with Windows.

  28. Sure.

  29. And when I approached them, they were really amenable to help us out. I mean, they gave us resources in terms of engineering, UI. They really helped us a lot, building a really A product, A-quality product. And that really helped me going through the, you know, the decision making. Android is very important. It’s becoming more and more. I mean it’s in our roadmap. It will come pretty soon. But, at the same time, you know, Android is going quickly into tablets, you know. You have the Dell Streak, you have the Galaxy Tab. So users of Android are really well-served by our Web, Open Web or Mobile Web, what we call Mobile Web. That I think this Mobile Web thing will kind of decay in a little while because, you know, the tablets are kind of bridging the gap even, like, the MacBook Air are bridging the gaps in terms of size and portability. So I think we’re gonna be talking about the Web interchangeably in terms of size of screens. So, I mean, users on Android can play us with our HTML5 optimized site. Pipe soundtrckr.com and you’re gonna be able to play music, your friends, and we’ll see what’s playing around you.

  30. That’s cool. So it’s pretty much the full experience from the Web browser just like if that was a native app?

  31. Daniele 00:13:22

    Yeah, I mean, the difference with the native apps are more kind of integration points because we have access to SDK so for foursquare, things like that, you know. So on the Web there are some things that are not available yet, but in terms of, like, the core, you know, if I like a station play, see what my friends are playing, I like something, I comment, they’re all there. I like something I share on Facebook and Twitter, they’re all, you know, all the core functionalities are there.

  32. That’s cool. So HTML5, that’s pretty important to you strategy.

  33. Daniele 00:13:51

    It is really important. It’s extremely important. I mean, and, it’s really one that defined the company’s strategy in terms of access to Web as we work the app platform one by one. And I really wanted to be the first company in music, in streaming music that endorses HTML5. Obviously there are a number of artists that are using HTML5, but at the size of, like, a company like ours, trying to go after competition internationally has been a big decision for us. We found a great deal of help in the developmental community to help us out to put this together. And, optimally, what it boils down to is, like, fast experience, incredibly low CPU load, doesn’t drain your battery. I always had in mind, you know, the iPad, the Galaxy Tab, the user on a netbook, right? Hooking on a 3G with a stick, mostly in Europe. So I thought about small screen factors. So the two dimensions were HTML5 and touch, or HTML5 and small screens. So it’s almost a bridge. I mean, obviously it works cool on a gigantic, you know, external monitor. But it’s also as easy and as cool and as intuitive on the iPad, Galaxy Tab, and netbooks.

  34. Ryan

    That’s interesting. You know, I never, I don’t hear people talk about streaming through HTML5 offerings. Like, I almost, I guess I just assumed that it wasn’t there yet.

  35. Daniele 00:15:19

    But think about it. How many sites like Vimeo, right? Incredible Web sites, video Web sites have opted the technology already. And, I guess, they wanted to be ready for the iPad. We thought, well, streaming can be a little bit boggling, I mean. And I don’t want to talk about the competition but, you know, try to open one of our competitors. Forget about opening it on the iPad or on the Galaxy Tab, it will not work. But then you go into discussions about it, you know, Flash on Mac. Just talking about how much CPU they will drain just to play some music. You know, playing music should be as easy as opening a Web page and reading the New York Times. So, it shouldn’t really be bogging down or bringing resources down, drain your battery, and so on and so forth. So for us, we’re very clear, you know. If people are playing music, we should let them play music and do other things as they play music on their computer. If we take over, like, 50% of their CPU capacity and drain their battery, they’re not gonna be happy. So we should address and fix this problem and we’re gonna do it for the first time.

  36. Ryan 00:16:21

    That’s great. That’s really good to hear. ’Cause I think there’s a lot of people that are still kind of skittish about HTML5 because they hear things like, “Well, the specs not gonna be over for years and, you know, you got hit or miss support on different platforms.” But to hear you say, “No, it’s in production.” It’s a mission critical part of your company and you mostly chose it because it was the most practical solution.

  37. Daniele 00:16:45

    Yes, it was the most practical. I mean, we spent a good amount of time on it. We got a lot of support from the development community, open source, I have to say. It was great, you know. Also, because we have our platform on Java, I think that helped a lot. Because, you know, we took the hard road of doing things right but also doing things, you know, complex so we can scale. And then I think the Java ultimately helped us a lot in terms of the infrastructure, to be able to support easily the HTML5.

  38. Do you notice any big trends in user, any big user trends with more Beatles songs being played yesterday?

  39. Daniele 00:17:23

    Yes. Actually, we don’t have Beatles in our catalog. We’ll get them, I think, by the end of the year. Which was, you know. But, I mean, I’m happy to say that I’m, like, maybe 30 to 45 days away from iTunes. Which I think is a great result considering Apple is up and soundtrckr is still a startup, right?

  40. Right.

  41. 30 to 45 days. I think we might get them before the end of the year or maybe, you know, just right after. I’m working hard to make sure that, you know, we are within the 30 days.

  42. Hey and who knows, you know, you might still be able to get the White Album before they do.

  43. Daniele 00:17:56

    Yeah. But I can tell you that we got a lot of requests to play Beatles yesterday, you know. And obviously Beatles catalog we don’t have. So we had a lot of people trying to hit and create Beatles stations.

  44. Ryan 00:18:13

    That’s interesting. Well, and that’s still useful information for you, right? ’Cause you know kind of where to focus your efforts.

  45. No question at all. No question at all.

  46. That’s awesome. I think that’s, I think people should be thoroughly enticed to go play with that. Seems like a really interesting thing. I thank you for your time.

  47. Daniele 00:18:28

    Yeah, please. Check out soundtrckr.com on the Web, iPad, and Galaxy Tab. For those who got a Galaxy Tab I played with it last week and it’s really cool. And we got a lot of help, actually, from Samsung in San Jose to optimize the site for the Galaxy Tab. That was really nice for them. And check the iPhone app, check the Windows app, next week the Nokia app, mostly for our listeners outside of the US, but I think there are some users here as well. And check out, in a month or so, Android.

  48. Yeah, I’ll definitely be looking out for that one.

  49. Thanks. It was a pleasure talking to you.

  50. Thank you very much.

  51. Bye bye.