Facebook Application Development

Paul Oakenfold, the world-renowned electronic music producer and DJ, has seen a lot of change in the industry since his career began more than 25 years ago. And perhaps the biggest shifts have come from technology — from the way music is made, to how it’s distributed, to where and how people listen to it, to how artists become known and signed to labels, to the tools DJs use in clubs to spin records.

So it was really amazing to have Oakenfold swing by the TechCrunch TV studios while he was in San Francisco this week…

TuneIn, the popular guide to online radio stations, today announced that it has seen a 267% increase in the number of its mobile listeners over the last year. The company also announced that its listeners now use the service for significantly longer. Total listening hours on mobile, the company said, increased 348% over the last 12 months.

The service, which is available on over 150 platforms, including a number of connected televisions and car, now sees itself as a “mobile first’ company. Indeed, iOS and Android, as the company’s CEO John Donham told me earlier today, are now the company’s two biggest platforms.

Today at the LAUNCH Education Conference in Mountain View, an Israeli startup named JoyTunes showed off the work its been doing in an exciting and active space: The convergence of music education and video games. Co-founder Yuval Kaminka tells us that 85 percent of the population wish they had learned to play an instrument but never made it past those first few frustrating lessons. JoyTunes is on a mission to change that — to turn average Joes into maestros — with a series of music apps and games that are activated when users play their own, real musical instruments.

Spotify’s move last year to open its platform to other apps has created more stickiness for its streamed music services. Now, one of the startups based around that idea has found some traction of its own: Oslo-based Soundrop, which creates “listening rooms” and social jukebox-style service for Spotify users (think Turntable.fm), has picked up its first round of investment, $3 million from Northzone, one of Spotify’s own leading backers.

Soundrop is a relatively young company: it had been bootstrapped before the Northzone investment and only went live in January 2012, but has already seen the creation of thousands of listening rooms and tracks played. Inge Sandvik, the CEO and co-founder, says that the new funds will be used to develop its product and to “execute on its road map.” As we’ve noted before, that plan involves expanding its own catalog of listening rooms and users — at the moment 7,000 rooms and counting, with some 60 million songs and 3.3 million listening sessions logged. It is also developing commercial services in partnership with labels, venues and more.

Social magazine Flipboard may have to think up a new tagline for itself, as tonight the company is rolling out an update which greatly expands its focus beyond text-based content to also include audio. The rollout features integrations from NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform, SoundCloud.

Also of note, Flipboard is launching its third localized edition with the debut of a Flipboard app for Japan, following its previous launches in China and France. And there’s an update which will matter a lot to a smaller number of users: integration of Apple’s voiceover controls to provide better access for the visually impaired.