Do you love listening to live music but can’t afford concert tickets? The new SpacebarFM app for the iPhone can help you out by letting you live stream concerts to your phone.
SpacebarFM works by getting artists to sign up to be part of the service. Artists can then choose to stream their concerts for free or for a dollar or two. Users will also be able to “tip” artists with in-app purchases of $0.99, $1.99, or $2.99. This is a great way to support smaller bands. The revenue is then split between Apple, the artist, and the venue itself. Apple takes its traditional 30% cut but it’s not clear how the other 70% is split between the venue and artist. Lady Gaga, John Legend, and Kanye West have already signed up with SpacebarFM to stream their concerts this year.
While SpacebarFM is great for streaming live music, it doesn’t do much beyond that. There’s no way to listen to previously recorded shows. Still, it’s a great way to discover more music by allowing users to listen up to 5 minutes for free before charging $0.99 to continue listening.
There’s also no video feature in SpacebarFM since hiring videographers would likely cost more than the money artists would make from SpacebarFM. Still, audio quality should be decent as SpacebarFM will stream at 256kbps and 328kbps but overall quality will depend on the recording equipment used. To keep users interested visually, the app includes the option to follow or like artists on Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately there’s no album art or artist biographies yet.
UPDATE: Gregory Miller, Co-founder and CEO of Spacebar, has written us to clarify that the company does not have signed agreements with the artists mentioned but instead have a partnership with Backplane. Backplane is “a platform that allows like-minded people to connect across their shared interests,” according to their site. Here’s what Miller had to say:
“We don’t have signed arrangements with the major artists you mention, nor were we in discussions with their management companies. We announced Spacebar’s partnership with Backplane, a platform that allows brands and public figures to unite people around interests, affinities and movements and currently brings millions of fans together around major performing artists including Lady Gaga, Axl Rose, and Bloody Beetroots. Spacebar is planning to stream live performances of Backplane’s artists, such as Kanye West and John Legend in the upcoming Backplane-powered G.O.O.D. Music community, and Backplane’s other marquee artists and communities.”
You can download the SpacebarFM app here on Softonic.
Source: TechCrunch
