Posts Tagged ‘ominocity’
Posted on February 9, 2012 at 2:53 pm, by Varial | |
My music consumption habits have changed dramatically over the past year. I fell in love with online streaming services and left my iTunes library to collect dust with all the CDs left unpacked in my basement.
Over the past few months I’ve had an opportunity to extensively test Rdio and iTunes Match, which each take a different approach to bringing your music library to the cloud. With Rdio, $9.99/month gets you full access to the service’s library of 9 billion songs. With iTunes Match, the service acts as an online storage locker for your existing music library for $24.99/year and allows you to upgrade matched tracks to higher quality versions available in the iTunes Store.
Both services allow you to stream music from your mobile phone, but you’ll want a large data plan with a reputable cellular carrier if you plan to take your music library with you everywhere you go.
Rdio
Pros:
- Full access to a huge library of 9 billion songs.
- Imports your existing library through desktop client.
- Easily discover new artists and add them to your library.
- Listen on the web, desktop (Mac and Windows), living room (Roku and Sonos), and on your mobile phone (iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7).
- Offline support for mobile apps.
Cons:
- Higher subscription fee ($4.99/month for web streaming, $9.99/month for mobile streaming)
- Songs are no longer available if you cancel your subscription.
- Some albums are not available in all regions.
Read our full review of Rdio on Ominocity.
iTunes Match
Pros:
- Ability to upgrade matched songs to higher quality versions available in the iTunes Store.
- Uploads only unmatched songs to the cloud, saving time and bandwidth.
- Easily stream to other Mac and PC computers through iTunes and the Music app on iOS devices.
- Downloads tracks for offline play on the iPhone and iPad.
- Upgraded tracks remain available even if you cancel the service.
Cons:
- No ability to discover new artists or albums aside from purchasing through the iTunes Store.
- Mobile streaming available for iOS devices only. No support for Android, Blackberry, or Windows Phone 7.
- Must manually upgrade tracks through a complicated process.
- Matching of tracks is imperfect. Occasionally one track of an album will be uploaded while all other tracks are matched.
Read our full review of iTunes Match on Ominocity.
Conclusion
After subscribing to Rdio for several months I am completely in love with the service. When a friend recommends a band, I can launch Rdio’s iPhone app and instantly add their albums to my library. I’ve expanded my music library immensely with this great music discovery tool!
While I feel it was worth $24.99 to upgrade my poorly ripped tracks to higher quality versions, I will not be renewing my subscription to iTunes Match next year. Compared to Rdio, iTunes Match is highly disappointing. I would much rather pay a higher subscription fee to gain access to everything the iTunes Store has to offer than be limited to streaming my existing library.
If you are interested in checking out Rdio, click here to sign up for a 7 day free trial!
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Posted on January 11, 2012 at 8:23 pm, by Varial | |
Ominocity, our local music blog, has announced OMFEST, an indie music festival to celebrate its first anniversary.
OMFEST takes place on Saturday, March 3, 2012 at Louis’ Pub (93 Campus Dr, Saskatoon, SK) and begins promptly at 6 p.m.
Advanced tickets are available exclusively at http://www.ominocity.com/tickets
Posted on January 4, 2012 at 2:16 pm, by Varial | |
Happy New Year! We wish you the best in 2012 and hope the holidays were full of cheer!
2011 was extremely kind to our business and we would like to share with you our highlights from the past year and thank you for your continued support.
- Like every year before it, 2011 was our biggest and best year. Our sales grew substantially over last year which we attribute to a lot of hard work, increased networking efforts, and the diminishing effect of the worldwide economic recession. A big thank you to our clients!
- We moved into a wonderful co-working space called The Two Twenty in September. We love it so much here that we will be expanding into a larger suite in the building later in the year. Check out a video tour of the building that was filmed during the wild grand opening party that was held in November.
- To celebrate the 8 year anniversary of our web hosting division, we revamped our hosting plans giving all customers a free upgrade featuring as much 5x the resources. We also implemented new hosting technologies in order to improve server stability and performance.
- We acquired our second hosting business in April, purchasing the customers of Collision Hosting, a small US firm.
- We launched Ominocity, a local music blog with accompanying iPhone and Android apps in March. 6 months later Ominocity was voted as Best Local Website in Planet S Magazine’s “Best of Saskatoon” reader poll.
- Varial was a sponsor again to the massive Halifax Pop Explosion music festival and also sponsored the YYJ Freelance Camp and BarCamp Saskatoon networking events. Ominocity staff even gave the closing presentation at BarCamp Saskatoon!
Posted in:
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video tour,
yyj freelance camp
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm, by Varial | |
We are pleased to announce that updates for our Ominocity mobile apps have just been released.
This update provides iOS 5 compatibility for the iPhone and several bug fixes to the Android app.
Download Ominocity for iPhone and Android at: http://www.ominocity.com/apps/
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 6:55 pm, by Varial | |
We are pleased to announce that Ominocity, our local music blog, has been voted as “Best Local Website or Blog” in Planet S Magazine’s Best of Saskatoon reader poll.
We would like to pat our staff on the back and thank everyone who voted for us or supported us in any way!
Posted on May 11, 2011 at 8:24 pm, by Varial | |
Ominocity for Android
Following last week’s release of Ominocity for iPhone, comes our first Android application, Ominocity for Android, which allows users to read the latest Ominocity articles and events, as well as view photos and videos directly from their Android device.
Download Ominocity for Android now at http://www.ominocity.com/apps/.
Posted in:
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Posted on May 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm, by Varial | |
Ominocity for iPhone
We are pleased to announce the release of our third iOS application, Ominocity for iPhone, which allows users to read the latest Ominocity articles and events, view photos and videos, and interact with our in-app community by swiping up on the bottom tab bar.
Download Ominocity for iPhone now at http://www.ominocity.com/apps/.
Posted in:
Announcements | Tags:
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ipod touch,
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saskatoon
Posted on March 1, 2011 at 9:00 am, by Varial | |
Ominocity
We are pleased to announce the launch of Ominocity, a new website for local music fans developed by Varial Technologies.
Ominocity is a Saskatoon-based e-zine that is dedicated to promoting the arts, music and independent media, with an emphasis on local events and emerging talent. Engaging audiences with glib, succinct and playful content, Ominocity adheres to a frequent publishing schedule with daily themes, downloads, artist spotlights, photo essays and offbeat weekly features.
