Partystrands is a music service launching next month that will bring together aggregated recommendations, voting and photos synchronized on location by mobile phone. Created by the Corvallis, Oregon and Barcelona, Spain based company MyStrands, PartyStrands is targeting bars and clubs. The site will go live on September 14th.
People who have downloaded the MyStrands desktop application at home can take their playlists and recommendations with them by signing in to by SMS at participating locations. MyStrands monitors your playlists in iTunes or Windows Media Player and suggests songs based on similar playlists from other users.
When a number of people are logged into Partystrands, the service will aggregate their playlists and recommendations, display which song is playing on a video projector (with cover art) and let users vote songs on the list up and down by SMS. Users will also be able to send photos they take at the bar to their MyStrands profile to record the evening and to the projection screen in the venue for sharing with everyone. At least it isn’t video.
The revenue model is for MyStrands to share SMS fees with the bar owners. The service is targeting Europe first but will launch this fall in the US. Company founder Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria reports that MyStrands has raised $6 million from two European VCs specializing in mobile technologies.
I’m not sure what I think of this. Part of the charm of playing music on a jukebox at a bar is discovery, random chance, waiting in line and feeding bills into a machine. I don’t know how well it will work to be voting songs up and down while trying to have a conversation, seeing photos (maybe of you) appearing in real time and having the music recommendations automatically reflect what everyone already listens to at home. Perhaps in the future we’ll avoid certain bars not because of the obnoxious music they have on their jukeboxes but because of the obnoxious profiles their regular clientele carry with them. I know I listen to a lot of Weird Al at home and I don’t need that making me less welcome down at the local hipster spot.
For young people who already live their lives on YouTube and MySpace and who think my 100 text messages a month is virtual neglect of the medium, Partystrands may be a big hit. Success in Europe wouldn’t be a surprise, but the service’s viability in the US will likely depend on our mobile activities catching up with the rest of the world’s.
Do I really want to play my fave music the partystrands way instead of the good old juke box way. I don’t think so!
The concept sounds too complex to handle while I try to have fun.
Ahh, Startups.in beat me to it. I don’t know about you guys, but fumbling around with my cellphone all night is the last thing I want to do when I’m at the bar trying to chill.
Too bad teens aren’t old enough to take advantage of this service - MyStrands would have a surefire hit on their hands.
Your post title reminds me of a service I want for a mp3 player…I would love to see Last.fm playlists that are transferable to a mp3 player. I would not need an internet connection (say I am in my car) but can still listen to friends, neighbor, recommended, and favorite tracks that would otherwise be provided by a stream. I have no idea how this would work because Last.fm is a streaming service. The largest bottleneck is compression technology because a neighbor radio could be playing off a server list of 40,000 mp3s. Probably more likely that Wimax +plus wimax enabled mp3 player will answer this wish.
hmmm…sounds kinda cool, i wouldn’t mind it but i dont know if you can get the bar owners to do this…
I think it sounds kind of cool. Partying 2.0 style. Not for me (or probably anyone else that reads this blog), I think the target age is like 21-22 max, but in Europe you can go to a club younger than in the US. So very wise to hit up Europe, then in a year or 2 bring it to the US once the SMS addicted teenagers here start hitting drinking age.
Blimey….$6m funding and no service….frothtime !
It’s launching in 2 weeks.
Sure…but I remember a time when VC’s wanted a proven working service, customers, profits……the dark years of 2002-3
Marshall,
Have you had a chance to try it out?
Not this product yet, but I have tried MyStrands.com, the underlying technology. I like it well enough.
Does anyone really care about this??
We’ll see how good the execution is… but this is a great great idea. I’ve seen the core element of this work at concerts in London, where everyone is waiting for the band to come on and there’s a big screen that people can send text messages to… so people will flirt while they’re waiting.
taking that, tying it to music and bringing it to every bar.. it’ll be a total hit if they can make it simple enough technically.
haha Jim Day,
exactly what I was thinking, teens in America aren’t allowed to drink,
good idea, We own a small bar here, but I couldn’t be bothered to play with my cell phone for that.
Pandora serves us just right.
Oh, and yes, in Europe this could go off, anyone know Jamba?
Well they and VIVA ( german MTV ) have like the cell-phone charts, and people can request and vote for music per SMS, and the winning video is then shown.
It’s real big, but if it would work for clubs, hmm, have to wait and see.
i think this is a great service… something new and interesting–
DO you think those guys will support an OpenID? I am tired of registering to social websites…
There are some pictures of partystrands in action here:
http://www.mystrands.com/group/140
This sounds a little bit like VIVA Plus actually…
I can see this being huge in the UK, and knowing how many Jamba adverts there are on MTV Germany and the VIVA channels, very big there too.
However - I can imagine crowds around a screen with lots of people texting and trying to get on the screen than anything else.
Nice pictures Paul! I love the gui of it, seems very similar to frontrow. I dig the serice as well, I just hope it can be controled by email as well. And I damn sure hope I could bring over my Last.fm stats!
This service already exists in the U.S. market by a company called Akoo. They already have distribution lined up in major chain outlets rather than independent bars.
How about having fun at a party instead?
I think I saw something similar to this (displaying messages from cell phones, etc. on a large LCD) at DEMO06 - I don’t recall if it’s the same product evolved, but it’s a neat idea.