In NJ, summer 2011, I witnessed a violent conversation about what is the best mobile music app. It pretty much sums up the state of mobile music streaming in 2011:

Alternatives that come to mind are MOG and Grooveshark—both of which share the same main attraction as Rdio and Spotify: on-demand streaming. They are fundamentally different from discovery-centered apps like Pandora. Last.fm and exfm are in the cross. Who’s back do you have…what’s your vote? ▼

Top FREE Music Apps
iTunes – 2010 End

Top PAID Music Apps
iTunes – 2010 End

Okay so I obviously “planned” to write this post a little earlier. I even planned to write it last year. ;)

Giving gifts can be really hard, but if you really know someone, it’s much easier. Everyone is different.

Especially for a musician who is eager to promote themselves and be out there, I really like the idea of a pocket HD camera. If you want people to find you YouTube is the place. Get it on tape—not literally. Get it on bits. I won a Kodak Zi6 from Mashable in 2008 and the quality is unreal. Now there’s also the Zi8. I think the right book could be really good, like something on mixing for someone who does that. The best non-fiction book I read this year was Rework by the people from 37signals.com.

• More Ideas:
• Audiofanzine » Christmas Shopping 2010
• Hypebot » 10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Old-School Record Execs

Merry Xmas (or whatever your holiday of choice is:) and be safe! My end of the year posts are coming up next week. If you’re not already, tune in via RSS or Facebook. I better go start my shopping. Don’t worry I steer clear of the mall and I’ve already done some mental preparation. I’m going to hit Barnes and Noble, Campmor, the Polish store (for chocolate), and Total Wine. That should cover everyone!

UK startup BandApp is hell-bent on becoming the indie mobile replacement for MySpace and record labels. Similar in concept to Sound Around (now part of ReverbNation) or MobBase, BandApp’s monthly service gives musicians a platform to create and manage their own iPhone apps. But BandApp is taking a different approach in that they’re sidelining the paralyzing iTunes App Store approval process and delivering their apps via the web, and in 2011 will launch their own retail outlet, a digital storefront, called the BandApp Store.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about BandApp is who’s behind it. Have you ever heard “The Ballad of Chasey Lain” or freak danced to “The Bad Touch?” [iTunes link] Don’t lie.

Actually BandApp founder Adam Perry (a.k.a. The Yin) was a drummer for the band ‘A’ until circa 2005 when he joined The Bloodhound Gang, who released those two particular sonic treats in 1999.

Pricing: Bands: £20 startup fee plus £7/month with 1-yr contract or £75/year. Fans: Free.

I gave a quick test run on my iPhone of one app, and it worked pretty well, nice features, especially the fan wall, but an issue with going horizontal (no landscape mode yet maybe). The fan wall gives a direct connection between the band and the fans, and has nice Twitter and Facebook shareability.

To try out the apps point your iPhone’s Safari browser to one of these: bandapp.com/theblackout – bandapp.com/zebrahead – bandapp.com/wearetheocean – bandapp.com/a. Once there, just use your menu to “add to home screen” and you have instant pain-free mobility. Can you pocket it?

Want to get in on this action and try Sound Around free for three months? Well, you’re in the right place because we have a couple promo codes to dish out to bands. To be eligible to win one: Use your band’s twitter (or disqus) account to sign in below, leave a comment, and check “share on twitter.” You can check out band apps already built by Sound Around in the App Store.

Sound Around: iPhone apps for bands.

Gee, Scott, what do you want to do tonight? The same thing we do every night, Steve—try to help music take over the world by building better mobile apps for bands and their fans!

In 2009, in a little place called Raleigh, North Carolina, brothers Scott and Steve Klein had been brainstorming tech startup ideas. Both were students at NC State, but with opposite majors—nearly yin and yang. Add entrepreneurial DNA, and they’re Pinky and The Brain. Scott (Brain) was preparing to graduate as a computer engineer, and his younger brother, Steve (Pinky), was studying business management/marketing. Their startup would be born, but the question was, what kind? Taking advantage of their student resources, they had access to mentoring and networking through the NCSU Engineering Entrepreneurs Program.

They started 2bros1blog.com to blog about what they learned on the startup road. Many early ideas were solutions aimed towards the university community. Scott had learned Objective-C, the programming language for iPhone apps, and they decided they really wanted to get involved with mobile apps. Everyone has a phone, and they always have it with them, right? But they needed to find the right niche. They thought about campus sports or news apps, but when they proposed building a news app for the college paper, they were met with perplexed stares. Scott and Steve realized that for their app service to fly, they needed to find people that were really interested in expanding and engaging their audience. Being music fans themselves, they took what seemed to be a logical turn that summer—towards musicians. Next stop, Sound Around.

Scott graduated in December, gave a speech, and started a job at an TransLoc—a startup that provides realtime location information to mass-transit users. He built their iPhone app. At the same time he and Steve (who was still in school and working part-time in Macaroni Grill) were developing what would soon be called Sound Around. At the turn of 2010, they took on 15 bands as closed-beta testers. In February Steve learned the ins and outs of web design and built getsoundaround.com.

With people skills and resourcefulness, they’d bootstrapped their expenses so far, but in early 2010 they got involved with TechStars in an effort to raise seed capital. In March they flew to Boulder and found themselves surrounded by like minds in the tech scene. Of 600 startups, TechStars funds only 10. Sound Around made it to the top 27 but not the final 10, and it was back to bootstrapping.

In a typical college scenario, the two brothers were living in a 4-bedroom apartment with two other students—David and A.J.—but when David moved out to live with his fiancé, Scott and Steve commandeered the empty room and converted it into a workspace—their current headquarters.

Having success with the beta apps, they started recording videos to demo the Sound Around platform, and, in the meantime started the application process for funding through another (more local) startup incubator, called LaunchBox Digital…which pretty much brings us to the present. Last night was a milestone for Sound Around. Their first apps were approved by Apple and are now live in the App Store. The party was on, but it’s only the beginning for Sound Around.

In the upcoming weeks, Sound Around will be running discount promos via Twitter. Stay in the loop: @VirtualMusictv and @getsoundaround.

Scott is on a 3-month sabbatical from his job at TransLoc to focus full-time on Sound Around. Steve would love to be able to dropout next semester and get Sound Around rolling without distractions. Funding would help them “scale faster” but with or without it they’re expecting to launch in public beta this summer. They considering finding a 3rd team member experienced in web and/or Android dev.

The ‘band apps as a service’ market is a wide-open frontier. There’s some fundamental characteristics about Sound Around that really make them stand out.

1. It’s the DIY mindset. Sound Around’s young, two-brother team is the core of all their development. They’re building it all from the ground up. By not hiring out their programming or design, they’ll be able to constantly address feedback and improve their platform. When demands of the app market change, they’ll be able to adapt the fastest.

2. Sound Around purely focused on developing apps for bands/musicians. They’re not leaving the music niche—immense as it is—and they plan on rocking it. MobBase is their only direct competition right now, and there’s plenty of room to coexist in this space.

3. In what I’ve learned about Scott and Steve, I can tell that they understand the importance of people in the mix. They plan on creating an interface for interaction—not one-way communication—and they have a lot of innovative ideas on deck.

4. Their pricing is user-focused. It’s not based on installs. Bands pay based on the number of fans that actually use the app each month. The starter $14/month plan covers 1000 unique app users per month. Above 1000 is $0.01/user until the next tier—$29/month for 5000 unique users.

5. Their mascot is a giraffe named Shirley. She’ll make you smile. :) Giraffes are a symbol of evolution, you know. She doesn’t always travel with the team of course, who’ll be attending events this summer, including Warped Tour in Charlotte, and would love to meet up.

// update // October 19, 2010 from Scott:

I know it hasn’t been very long since we officially launched back in July, but we’ve been working on something really cool behind the scenes that we’re finally ready to tell everyone about. One of our fellow local music companies, ReverbNation, has acquired Sound Around and will be moving quickly to launch the product to their more than 900,000 artists.

Steve and I are both super excited to be joining the ReverbNation team to work on providing mobile products that will continue to move the needle on acquiring new fans, and engaging existing ones on a deeper level. We’ve been heavily vested in creating useful technologies in the mobile space, and we have no doubt that these efforts will only be amplified as we move into our new roles working alongside an impressive and passionate team of individuals.

For everyone that had a hand in touching, shaping, or otherwise influencing our foray into building a product and launching our first company, we can’t thank you enough for all of the hours of mentoring, being a cheerleader, and (most importantly) bringing us down to size when we needed it.

Free streaming music sorted by urban scene? Powered by SoundCloud and packaged in a slick UI, CitySounds—dubbed ‘the music of cities’—is just that. Uploads are pushed to CitySounds in realtime—the music is fresh. Flickr adds style to the mix by displaying related photos. Listeners can see the most active cities, the most popular genres in each, and can support their favorite cities. Top genres in London for example are Dubstep, House, and DnB.

Artists can get their music on the site by uploading it to SoundCloud. CitySounds launched last summer and released a 99-cent iPhone App earlier this year rated 2.5 stars on iTunes. The underlying idea is awesome, as is its execution so far. Looking to discover new music…then why wouldn’t you want to search local? The flip side is you can travel the world via music.

Tune up, in sixth gear, for 10 bucks. Modeled after the popular pedal, the TC Electronic PolyTune app has now cruised into the App Store.

What features would you want in your favorite band’s mobile app?

App screenshot. Image: ultimate-guitar.com

Ultimate-Guitar.com—if you’ve ever Googled for a guitar tab, then you’ve no doubt come across this tab mega-source. Well, tab addicts can now access the same database on a much sleeker interface with the new iPhone app, Ultimate Guitar Tabs, which was released 3/16, and is now the #1 paid music app.

The app’s advanced search lets me filter by type, part, rating, difficulty, or tuning. For example, I can search for chords-only tabs for The Cardigans that have at least a 4-star rating. The tabs load quickly and navigation within the app is simple and responsive. It’s easy to favorite a tab by touching the star in the corner, and tabs that you’ve favorited can be viewed offline. I don’t think there’s a way to rate the tabs within the app, but there is an auto-scroll option that moves through the tab at a whatever speed you set. I’m not that crazy about the auto-scroll, but once you set the speed it does seem to work pretty well. I’m usually after a specific tune, but the “tab packs” mode makes it easy to browse tabs by genre or skill level. Even on the small screen, the tabs were easy to read, especially by zooming in landscape view. Bottom line—if you’re a tab junkie with an iPhone then this app is worth the $2. This is only the first version and it’s rock solid. Its iTunes user rating is 4.5 out 5 stars—I give it a 5. Tabs and YouTube go hand-in-hand—maybe a future app version could have the option to play the audio at the same time.