Welcome to Scribble

Today marks the start of a brand new Myspace.  The social network pioneer has begun its transformation from a social network in to a social “entertainment destination.”  The shift in focus has come about due to its struggle to remain relevant and competitive against Facebook and Twitter.  So instead of connecting with long-lost friends and sharing baby photos, MySpace wants to be the place where people go to find out about new bands, chat about TV shows and make movie recommendations.

There are big cosmetic changes too.  Long criticized for cluttered, clunky home pages, MySpace is streamlining its design.  It will show fewer ads, but place them more prominently. It also will have far fewer buttons and page templates.

MySpace will roll out a completely revamped interface to its users starting today, but the rollout won’t be complete until the end of November.  It will also be launching a new mobile experience next month that we’ll be interested to see.

On the whole we think the new layouts and designs look pretty good.  It’s definitely an improvement to the old layout that hadn’t really changed since its launch.  The whole site looks current, bringing Myspace in to 2010.  Whether the new focus will work is a different story and is a huge step down from being at one time the largest social network in the world.  We’re interested to see what the new mobile experience will bring.  Will there be an update to their existing app, we’ll have to wait and see.

What do you think of the changes to the design and focus of Myspace? Let us know.

Last week was the famous Amsterdam Dance Event.  Scribble have now returned from a successful few days jam packed with meetings, press conferences and music.  You may recall that Scribble were there alongside Burn Studios, the global online music community platform.

It was an especially exciting few days for us and Burn Studios as in an exclusive press conference the Beta Test launch of Burn Studios Audiotool, a revolutionary cloud based music production studio, was announced!

Hosted on www.burn-studios.com, Burn Studios Audiotool will allow users to create real-time professional quality music, in-browser, requiring nothing more than a Flash Player and internet connection. This powerful application will provide a state of the art music sequencing interface including a number of virtual devices, including drum machines and synths. Each can be connected in limitless combinations in a virtual studio environment.

It is a revelation in music technology but more significantly a liberating leap forward for the next generation of music creators.  Young talent and grass-roots producers will no longer be restricted due to expensive software, as this virtual recording studio will be available for free to the public when it launches in early 2011.

Members from the electronic music industry travelled from across the world to hear this announcement given by Burn Studios ambassador Richie Hawtin, known for his iconic identity and pioneering influence in today’s music technology and the most innovative music software developer Andre Michelle, who developed the platform.

Hawtin explained to the crowds that Burn Studios is ‘giving a wider group of people the opportunity to create electronic music’ and how it will become a place to ‘discover individual sound and identity’. For the first time ever, Burn Studios will put the production tools into the hands of those who have the desire to immerse themselves in musical creativity.

The press conference moderator and Billboard writer Gary Smith described this movement as ‘breaking through a glass ceiling into music production’. He went on to explain that a beta version of Burn Studios Audiotool will launch for an exclusive testing period where professional producers, tech developers and media will be able to test new functionalities being introduced to help optimise the future development of the application.

In Early 2011, Burn Studios Audiotool will be launched to the public with free access. Users can expect monthly updates, new functionalities and exiting tutorial and mentoring programs. Burn Studios pushing the envelop in music creativity using cloud technology.

Today at ADE artists from Burn Studios’ ambassador Richie Hawtin’s M-nus label will host a bootcamp day consisting of four Masterclasses focusing on music production, talking about their experiences and offering insight and well as production tips, tricks, techniques and ideas.

Participants will be taken through specific classes covering the art of remixing, collaboration voxplosion and programming by Magda, Mark Houle, JPLS, Gaiser, and Ambivalent.

The Burn Studios online audiotool will also be launched at the event, with minimal tech legend Richie Hawtin at the helm.  The audiotool, which is currently in Beta development, is a groundbreaking new platform which will break down the borders of creativity and bring together music professionals and enthusiasts across the world.

Burn-studios.com will host the audiotool, with users across the world being able to access the tool without the need for any additonal software or applications, writing, mixing and producing their own tracks and remixes.

It Should be an excellent day over ADE, you can read more about each of the individual classes here on the Burn Studios website.

Yesterday was Apple’s ‘Back to Mac’ conference in California where Apple switched the focus away from the iPhone and other iOS devices back to where it all started, with the Mac.  There were several big announcements including a new MacBook Air, Facetime for Mac, iPhoto 11 and the new Mac OS Lion.  The biggest news and the one that caught our attention was the announcement of a Mac App store!

The App Store will make make it easy to discover apps, easy to update apps and easy to get apps on all your Mac.  As with the current App Store developers will receive the same 70/30 split with Apple for their commercial apps.   The Mac App Store will be available for Snow Leopard in 90 days and applications submissions will start in November.

Undoubtedly the App store has been a massive success story and has no reason not to be as successful on Macs.  It’s a huge step for Mac developers and for Apple.  Many fantastic Mac apps are undiscovered because developers don’t have a way to get their wares in front of users.  So, a potential win-win situation for Apple, developers and consumers, what do you think?

Analytics company Flurry have released some interesting statistics about in app payments that we thought would be worthwhile commenting on this mornings blog.  The story that featured on Mashable a few days ago talks about the data collected by Flurry which shows in-app purchases yield more revenue than mobile ads.

Flurry collected data from top iOS social networking and social gaming applications and found that in-app purchases — which encompass virtual good sales and app upgrades — are generating eight times the revenue of mobile advertisements.  (See the chart below)

We have always been strong advocates of the in app purchase model and strongly recommend our clients to think about including it in their apps.  These stats help show that if you provide the option of extra functionality or additional exclusive content users will spend money to upgrade their experience.