According to John McCarthy, who is the father of Artificial Intelligence, an AI is “The science and designing of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent PC programs”.

Artificial intelligence is a way of making a computer robot or a software think intelligently same as an intelligent human thinks. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the concept of having machines “think like humans”.

AI has a huge effect on your life. Whether you are aware or not, it has already influenced your life style and it is very much likely to grow in coming years.

Here are some examples of AI that you are already using in your daily life:

• Your personal assistant Siri – It is an intelligent digital personal assistant on various platform (Windows, Android, and iOS). It provides you an assistance whenever you ask for it using your voice.

• Smart cars – Google’s self-driving car, and Tesla’s “auto-pilot” feature are two examples of Artificial Intelligence.

• Recommended products or Purchase prediction – Large retailers like Amazon, recommend you the products, send coupons to you, offer discounts, target advertisements on the basis of the shopping you earlier had by a predictive analytics algorithm.

• Music and movie recommendation services – Pandora, and Netflix recommend music and movies based on the interest you’ve expressed and judgements you have made in the past.

Other simple examples of AI influencing our daily life are:

– Facebook provides recommended photo tags, using face recognition.

– Amazon provides recommended products, using machine learning algorithms.

– Waze (a GPS and maps app) optimal routes, all at the click of a button.

– Spotify knows my music preferences and curates personalized playlists for me.

As per Marc Benioff, AI is going to impact corporate world, employees will be faster, smarter and more productive. It will learn from the data. Ultimately, it will understand what customers want before even they know and it could be a game-changer in the CRM industry.

Salesforce already bought productivity, and machine learning startups RelatedIQ, Metamind, and Tempo AI in 2014.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) in salesforce is not about time-travelling robots trying to kill us, or evil machines using humans as batteries in giant factories. Here we are not talking about some summer blockbusters, we are talking about the salesforce AI which will make your daily experience smarter, by embedding daily predictive intelligence into your apps.

So, what is AI?

AI is not killer robots; it is killer technology.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the concept of having machines “think like humans” – in other words, perform tasks like reasoning, planning, learning, and understanding language.

Customer focused AI: Salesforce Einstein

Salesforce is focusing on creating a platform for solving the customer problems across Sales, Service, Marketing and IT in a completely new way by using Salesforce Einstein.

Salesforce Einstein is built into the core of the Salesforce Platform. It enables anyone to use clicks or code to build AI-powered apps.

With Salesforce Einstein, we can have answer of these type of questions:

– Are you sure that you are servicing your customers by the right client?

– Are you sure that your customers are getting services on the right channel?

– Is it correct to say that you are offering the right item to the right customer at the right time?

– Is it correct to say that you are using the right channel for marketing your products at perfect time with best substance?

Salesforce Einstein is your data scientist

Einstein is like having your own data scientist dedicated to bringing AI to every customer relationship. It learns from all your data – CRM data, email, calendar, social, ERP, and IoT – and delivers predictions and recommendations in context of what you’re trying to do.

AI has the ability to transform CRM using Salesforce Einstein

– Sales people can spend more time in visiting customers, not in entering data in CRM.

– Sales people can now better understand the customer requirement and when they need it.

– Sales people can close deals faster by predicting the next step for every customer.

– A service agent could suggest a solution to the customer even before he asked for it.

– Service agent can offer cross-sell at the right time to the right customer.

– Marketing user can easily reach to the right customer at the right time.

– Marketing user know who could be the best audience for each campaign.

– He can easily identify the customer requirement so he delivers the perfect content to every customer.

Salesforce Einstein enables everyone to discover new ways, predict outcomes so help in decision making, recommend next steps, and automates most of your activities so that you can spend most of your time in building strong relationship with customers rather than making entries in system.

What will AI give me that I didn’t already have?

Predictive scoring -Predictive lead scoring gives each sales lead a score representing the likelihood it will convert into an opportunity. You also get the reasons

behind the score – for instance the lead source, the industry, or some other factor is an especially strong indicator that a lead will or won’t convert.

Forecasting -AI can also be used to predict the future value of something, like a stock portfolio or a real estate investment. If you’re a sales manager, AI can predict your quarterly bookings and let you know ahead of time whether or not your team is on track to meet its quota.

Recommendations – Anyone who shops online knows that AI makes suggestions for retail purchases, but it can also make smart recommendations for any other product or service category from business software to tax consulting to cargo containers. And AI can also recommend things other than products – for instance, which white paper you should email a prospect in order to optimize your chance to close a deal.

Who can use AI in the enterprise

Anyone in organization can easily use AI to analyze their data, predict and plan next steps, and automate their tasks and decisions. With Einstein’s comprehensive AI for CRM:

• Sales can anticipate next opportunities and exceed customer expectations by knowing what a customer needs before the customer does

• Service can deliver proactive service by anticipating cases and resolving issues before they become problems

• Marketing can create predictive journeys and personalize customer experiences like never before

• IT can embed intelligence everywhere and create smarter apps for employees and customers

What is Machine Learning

Machine learning is the core driver of AI. It’s the concept of having computers learn from data with minimal programming.

The Sony HTSF200 Soundbar and Woofer

What can be better than a wonderful, high resolution, dynamic TV picture? Well, how about a wonderful TV picture accompanied by a top soundbar offering a high definition sound experience to enhance your viewing. A modern soundbar is essentially the home cinema equivalent of the ‘icing on the cake’.

Today we look at one of Sony’s latest offering, the HTSF200 2.1 Channel Soundbar with In-built subwoofer for full bodied, meaty and impressive audio performance.

Less is More

When it comes to styling and tidiness, the adage ‘less is more’ certainly applies to this powerful unit that removes the need for unsightly cables ruining the lines of the home cinema system its providing sound for. The reason for this? An integrated subwoofer, negating the need for any extra sound hardware.

The impressiveness of HTSF200 2.1 reaches a new level when you consider that its sound is produced by a unit that is just 58cm x 6.4cm x 9.5cm and weighs in at just 2.3kg.

Easy Connection

Pairing the hardware to your TV is child’s play, as it comes with an HDMI ARC cable that connects with little effort and its wireless capability means connecting to your Android TV happens with just a few taps of your remote. If your TV is also from Sony, you’ll be able to control everything from the one remote handset!

Want to Live ‘Inside’ Your Movies?

If you’re a bit of an amateur movie buff and you enjoy a regular blockbuster, you don’t know what you’re missing if you haven’t experienced a modern soundbar. In particular, the HTSF200 offers ‘Virtual’ Surround Sound without the need for having speakers dotted around the room. A set up like this will make you feel like you’re inside the movie, with voices and atmospheric sounds coming at you from all over the room.

Powerful Mid-Range Sounds

The aforementioned ‘meaty’ sounds are provided by the subwoofer, but it’s not ‘all about the bass’, as a good soundbar offers good all-round sound. Quality mid-range tones are ably provided by 2 S-Force PRO front facing speakers, meaning that you’ll never struggle to hear voices, even in busy action films featuring lots of background noise.

Multi-purpose

This Sony Soundbar is a versatile beast too, as it provides an excellent and simple way to listen to your playlists streamed via bluetooth. Online platforms like Spotify, Pandora and Grooveshark offer a great way to listen to pretty much endless music, like it was meant to be heard.

Every year, a wide spectrum of technologies used to launch with the core purpose of making our living more simple, more better. Way back on 2008, Android came with its first OS version and since then, it has continued its legacy of launching a series of upgraded features for redefining the user experience. With a global market share of more than 80%, it has become the dominant player in the mobile industry and to uphold their place intact, Google is about to bring to a plight of technologies this year as well.

Following here are some of the most evolving trends to keep an eye on in the domain of Android app development in 2017.

Search within App

With the launch of In-App Search, Android is helping users to find any type of content on your phone. However, as compared to the common search option provided in all the Android tablets and smartphones, In-App search feature represents the Google search bar within those applications which, are being already installed on your smartphone. Furthermore, Google has seamlessly integrated this feature into popular applications including YouTube, Gmail and Spotify. However, they are about to extend the number of applications supported by In-App in the future as well.

Launch of Android Instant App

What are Instant Apps? Well, with the goal to offer users with faster access to Android applications, Google launched the Instant Apps. Now with a single click, users can download applications instantly such as web pages. Furthermore, it will installed only in part and not fully downloaded on your portable device in full size. Android Instant apps are further comparable to normal web page traffic. Thus, our tablets and phones won’t get occupied with several applications which, we need only for a one-time purpose.

More Strict Android App Security

Security of an app is a vital element to consider for every user. With the eye to satisfy the software security needs of users, Google is about to come with a series of app security refinements for the Android operating system. Moreover, though the Android Instant Apps is new to the mobile-first world, however, it is deploying a runtime permission model being neatly integrated with Android Marshmallow, thereby proving it be a highly safe and secure feature. Automatic security updates greatly help in increasing the total app’s security and make the interaction safer and easier.

Over the years, many changes have come up for Google’s Android, thereby evolving from a simple smartphone Operating System to powering a range of other devices. Keeping this in consideration, a series of refinements have come up in the domain of Android app development. Thus, for businesses willing to expand their reach in the Android market, getting in touch with expert app developers can greatly help them to stand ahead of their competitors and updated as well.

The use of social networking and digital music technologies generate a large amount of data exploitable by machine learning, and by looking at possible patterns and developments in this information, tools can help music industry experts to gain insight into the performance of the industry. Information on listening figures, global sales, popularity levels and audience responses to advertising campaigns, can all enable the industry to make informed decisions about the impact of the digitization on the music business. This can be achieved through the use of Business Intelligence assisted with machine learning.

Machine Learning is a branch of artificial intelligence, which gives computers the ability to implement learning behaviour and change their behavioural pattern, when exposed to varying situations, without the use of explicit instructions. Machine learning applications recognise patterns as they emerge, and adjust themselves in response, to improve their functionality.

The use of real-time data plays an important role in effective Business Intelligence, which can be derived from all aspects of business activities, such as production levels, sales and customer feedback. The data can be presented to business analysts via a dashboard, a visual interface which draws data from different information-gathering applications, in real time. Having access to this information almost immediately after events have occurred, means that businesses can react immediately to changing situations, by identifying potential problems before they have a chance to develop. By being able to regularly access this information, organisations are able to monitor activities closely, providing immediate input on changes such as stock levels, sales figures and promotional activities, allowing them to make informed decisions and respond promptly.

Using Business Intelligence to monitor P2P file sharing can provide a detailed insight into both the volume and geographical distribution of illegal downloading, as well as giving the music industry with some vital insight into the actual listening habits of the music audience. By analysing patterns in data on downloads, music professionals can identify recurring trends and respond to them accordingly, for example, by providing competitive services – streaming services like Spotify are now driving traffic away from P2P filesharing, towards more monetizable routes.

Social networks can provide invaluable insight to the music industry, by giving direct input on fans’ feedback and opinions. Automated sentiment analysis is a useful method of gaining insight into these unofficial opinions, as well as gauging which blogs and networks exert the most influence over readers. Data mined from social networks is analysed using a machine learning based application, which is trained to detect keywords, labelled as positive or negative. It is necessary to ensure that the technology can adapt and evolve to changing patterns in language usage, while requiring the least amount of supervision and human intervention. The volume of data would make manual monitoring an impossible task, so machine learning is therefore ideally suited. The use of transfer learning, for example, can enable a system trained in one domain to be used in another untrained domain, allowing it to keep up when there is an overlap or change in the expression of positive and negative emotion.

After the available data is narrowed using machine learning based applications, music industry professionals can be provided with information regarding artist popularity, consumer behaviour, fan interactions and opinions. This information can then be used to make their marketing campaigns more targeted and efficient, helping in the discovery of emerging artists and trends, minimise damage from piracy and help to identify the influential “superfans” in various online communities.

After several decades of disappearance, over thirty plus years; thirty-six to be exact, there has been an resurgent in some old school music that moves you. Back in the day in the late spring of May the latter part of that month in the year1983 there was a group from out of Dayton, Ohio named “New Horizons” who hit the top 40 Billboard R&B music charts with a single titled “Your Thing Is Your Thing” produced by Roger Troutman from the album “Something New” Well, that was the end of that followed by another single titled “Searching For That Lady” taken from the groups second album “Gonna Have Big Fun” in1984; you can’t really say a one hit wonder as much as you can say a one miss wonder.

Whatever happened to the Thomas Brothers’ professionally known as New Horizons? Well the band disbanded in late1986 and parted ways to pursue other professional interest. Lead singer Mark Thomas had the pleasure of touring the country and around the world with Zapp and the late Roger Troutman playing drums and singing background vocals in the late 80’s, and his younger brother Bart followed suit and is stilling touring with Zapp as of today.

Mark also produced two solo projects that were mere misses pka The Marc Anthonee Project in the summer of 1996 and in June 2018 he released a titled CD “Getta Know Ya” by M.A. Neither one of these projects hit the charts at all. Well, you may ask about the other members of New Horizons; guitarist and lead singer Tim Abrams pursued other career choices and played with other bands, while founder of the group Art Thomas Jr. stepped out of the spot-light altogether and is now an ordained Minister sharing the love of Jesus Christ.

Which leads us to baby brother Varges, Varges is the youngest of his siblings and plays keyboards, bass, talk-box, Melotica, percussion, lead and background vocals. He also is a Producer, Arranger, Composer and Entertainer. He has his first single “Give It To Ya” taken from his first forth-coming CD titled Destiny; which is being heard on IheartRadio, Spotify, Pandora, and Jango.com music apps to name a few across the country and around the world. The CD is comprised of old school, R&B, smooth jazz, Southern Soul, Steppin, funk and inspirational music displaying his many facets. The sound is appealing to young and middle age listeners’ who enjoy a nice groove with a soulful touch of rhythms.

You ask how I know so much about the history of New Horizons and Varges Thomas; well that’s because I am the unknown third brother of the Thomas’ the author of this article.

One of the latest trends in home theater is streaming audio to your home theater receiver from your iOS or Android device. You can do this via an app and a Wi-Fi connection (AirPlay or Play-Fi), or via Bluetooth. But it’s not that simple; there are a myriad of ways to get your audio from your phone or tablet to your speakers. I’ll try to go over the main ways this is accomplished here, but ultimately you need to understand your needs and the pros and cons of each method.

Wi-Fi Audio Streaming

There are multiple ways for you to use your wireless home network to stream audio. You can opt for one of several proprietary formats or you can simply connect your laptop or PC to a network and use DLNA services to pull audio from your library. When we talk about Wi-Fi streaming, however, we’re typically referring to the proprietary formats. There are many, but here are a few of the leaders:

Apple AirPlay

Apple AirPlay is a Wi-Fi streaming protocol that lets you easily redirect music from your iOS device to a compatible surround receiver or powered speaker. The thing about AirPlay that makes it attractive is that, as a wireless technology, AirPlay operates on top of your home’s existing wireless network. You just connect your device to your home network, and when you activate AirPlay your iOS device will let you send your music or video to any compatible device on the network. If you happen to have multiple Airplay devices in your home, you can stream to individually or all at once.

Play-Fi

Play-Fi, which is owned by DTS, is a new streaming media format that works on compatible devices and caters in particular to the Android-powered device market. Like AirPlay, and unlike proprietary systems like Sonos, Play-Fi connects devices over your existing WiFi network. The only present issue with Play-Fi is that, being a new technology, there are only a few devices currently supporting it. Play-Fi also hasn’t partnered with many streaming media providers as of yet, so Pandora and Spotify are the primary music providers for compatible applications. Conversely, AirPlay works within nearly all of the major streaming media provider apps, giving you near-limitless sources of music.

With current Play-Fi technology, file support is limited to 16-bit 44.1kHz (CD) quality for now, but hi-res audio support at up to 24-bit resolution is on the way.

Proprietary Mesh Networks

There are a number of proprietary mesh networks that ride atop your existing WiFi network to connect devices. One of the most popular is Sonos, which has a variety of speakers and powered or unpowered access points that can be networked within a home to play music. They even have a soundbar and the ability (with their latest update) to repurpose existing Sonos speakers for use as surround channels.

Proprietary mesh networks almost universally come with both limitations and cost. They are limited to a single manufacturer and so your product selection is likely to grow very slowly. Proprietary systems are also typically very expensive because they are designed to be an ecosystem into themselves, with special control software and unique features unavailable on other systems. The Denon HEOS speakers are similar to this type of system except that, unlike Sonos, they ride atop your existing WiFi network.

Bluetooth Audio Streaming

Bluetooth wireless technology is a standard designed for short distances (it uses the a band from 2.40-2.48 GHz) up to 30 feet.

You might think Bluetooth audio streaming is a single “designation”. It’s not. There are a variety of versions and profiles, but we can help clear up the most common profile used for audio streaming. The latest Bluetooth version is almost always the best, requiring the least amount of setup, giving you more flexibility and offering the highest audio quality.

Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)

You’ll see the A2DP designation a lot when you look at Bluetooth speakers and devices for streaming audio. A2DP simply refers to Bluetooth designed for one-way transfer of stereo audio. What really matters for user interaction, setup and features is the version. There have been seven, but the latest is V.4.

Bluetooth V.4 is also called “Bluetooth Smart” and has been out since 2010. It incorporates standard Bluetooth as well as the WiFi-based Bluetooth high speed and Bluetooth low energy protocols. There were two big problems with Bluetooth that kept it from truly being adopted as a leading wireless audio standard in the past. For one, it was originally designed as a replacement for Ethernet and USB cables tethering devices together on a desktop. That means that long range connectivity was not inherent in the design. With a limit of 30 feet, Bluetooth audio is naturally limited in how it can function in a whole-home scenario. Another related issue was connectivity. Bluetooth allows for a myriad of pairing methodologies, from passcode verification to near-automatic device pairing. It is still a crapshoot as to which system any particular device will use and how easy or difficult it will be to connect. In the past couple of years most newer Bluetooth devices have utilized better and more convenient discovery methods.

Apt-X High Quality Bluetooth Audio

The second big problem with Bluetooth is sound quality. Bluetooth audio is far inferior in quality to lossless streaming over WiFi. To combat this, manufacturer-specific layers have been added to enable functionality not available by default in standard Bluetooth. Of these, Apt-X seems to be the best, offering near-lossless quality but still optimizing the stream to take into account bandwidth requirements of the format.

Apt-X has seemingly re-made Bluetooth into a viable streaming method, particular for portable devices and connected PCs.

Bluetooth vs. “the other” Streaming Formats

So getting back to our original topic, the issue is which makes sense for streaming audio. If you’re looking at audio quality then lossless streaming of high resolution media streams is the way to go. Apt-X Bluetooth fits in well here, but it requires a bit more proximity to your host AV system.

AirPlay also allows for 44.1kHz lossless stereo streaming and can be a great means of sending and receiving streaming media over your existing wireless network.

What you probably want to avoid, if quality is your goal, is standard Bluetooth streaming. The stock Bluetooth is very much a lossy medium and there is a huge difference between that and a lossless file. The difference is more than a little noticeable. Unfortunately, your other options are going to be a bit more proprietary, with AirPlay leading the way and Play-Fi just starting to get out of the dugout and looking hopeful. Of course, the proprietary streaming music systems are also an option, but they are typically pricey and offer a limited range of hardware that is compatible with the network audio streaming system.

Getting your first Android box is a very exciting moment. If you are like us and enjoy watching the best Movies, TV shows, and video clips, until you get an Android box, you have no idea what you are missing out on.

Being able to open Netflix to catch up on your favorite show, then pause to open a browser and look at the latest football scores is just so cool. An Android TV box in the UK also gives you an option for watching live TV such as the BBC and ITV using free to view services which can be setup via Kodi XBMC.

Not only can you use your Android TV box in the UK but it’s so compact you can take it abroad with you. Having access to your favorite Movies and shows whilst you are away is just another great reason for owning an Android TV box with XBMC.

People of all ages benefit from the options that an Android box opens up. Downloading and playing the latest Android games for kids, or following awesome content for Mum on Pinterest, it has it all.

Another great feature is being able to wipe the box down and start again in the space of few minutes. Updating the box also usually happens automatically with many of the better brands having OTA update service, downloading the latest firmware build directly from their own servers.

Imagine a system where your kids can play angry birds on your TV, you and your friends can watch the latest film and for dinner parties, you can play your favorite Spotify playlists directly from you home theater speakers, all remotely controlled from your connected smartphone!

Once you use an Android TV box in the UK it becomes pretty apparent that you no longer need to rely on owning a DVD player, a TV subscription box or any other type of player to get the content you need. With pretty much every Movie and TV show every created either available from an affordable subscription service or via one of the hundreds of add-ons in Kodi XBMC, owning other equipment becomes unnecessary. This gives you the chance to have your TV area clutter free, with just one Android box sitting nicely ready to play.

Almost all Android TV boxes come with some sort of audio output too. And some great models have Optical Audio out. Having this means you can enjoy superb cinema sound when hooked up to your existing home theater system. Dolby DTS and 5.1 are all supported by the inbuilt Kodi media system.

So, the benefits of owning an Android TV box are huge. More TV, more Movies, all the latest social media apps. Music streaming services, internet browsing, and even Skype voice calling. Take the plunge today and bring your front room into the future of TV, with just one little, awesome box!

In 2010 Google’s innovative Android mobile phone technology was the target of no fewer than 12 infringement suits from rivals Apple, Oracle, Microsoft and others.

Part of the problem is the culture clash between old style devotees to intellectual property rights and adherents to the newer, more collaborative environment of open source. But the bottom line is always money: Billions of dollars are at play in what can only be described as the brokerage of intellectual capital.

The focal point in the patent war is the data center, the methods by which companies collect, analyze and store the vast amounts of information they accumulate over millions of transactions.

Recognizing that information is the new currency, Google recently purchased more than 1,000 database patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount of money. In keeping with the company’s avowed commitment to open source, Google made some of that know-how public and Facebook promptly suborned it for use in their own data management technology.

The rules of engagement in the corporate food chain would dictate that Google must now come after Facebook for infringing on its patents.

Will that happen? Stay tuned.

Invention can put a company at the front of the line for the big bucks. Facebook, which launched in 2004 but became overwhelmingly popular in 2006, currently has a market valuation of $50 billion according to Goldman Sachs.

But Facebook like its fellow social media companies Twitter and LinkedIn, is vulnerable on the invention front: With only 12 patents in its portfolio, as compared to thousands in Microsoft’s portfolio, unless Facebook wants to reinvent the wheel every time it tweaks a change, any software innovation the company wants to make to its platform is likely to be challenged in court.

Fortunes Can Be Made From Software Patents

Huge fortunes are at play in the software game. Silicon Valley-based Electronic Arts (EA), the biggest developer and distributor of digital games in the United States and the Western world with 16 percent of the total market share, recently purchased Seattle-based PopCap Games for a whopping $750 million in cash and stock. Not a bad return for the three founders who as recently as a decade ago were working out of their own homes.

The three had founded the company initially to promote an online strip poker game they called Foxy Poker. Fortunately for Bejeweled fanatics, Foxy Poker was too risqué for the home gaming market and not quite sleazy enough for the porn market. A short time later they created the amazingly addictive game Diamond Mind which Microsoft, which licensed the game for a time, renamed Bejeweled.

Interestingly, PopCap co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Jason Kapalka admits that at least some of Bejeweled’s core mechanics were lifted from the Russian game Tetris Attacks. No lawsuits are pending on that account, however.

Fortunes Can Be Lost In the Software Game

Fortunes can also be lost in the software game. Or potential fortunes. One of the primary ways is through patent infringement lawsuits.

Sweden-based Spotify is an online music streaming service that uses a modified peer-to-peer technology to allow users to listen to literally millions of songs as well as to share these songswith friends. Its market valuation has been put at roughly one billion dollars. Since 2008, it’s attracted well over ten million avid European users, and when it recently announced plans to become available to American users, signed up 70,000 in the first week. Speculation about a possible Spotify/Facebook business development is a hotly debated topic in various financial circles.

But at the end of July 2011, Spotify was sued for intellectual property infringement by a software company called PacketVideo, the originators of a streaming music technology that was the Next Big Thing a decade ago.

Does the suit have merit?

Experts say the technology – U.S. patent 5,636,276 – is quite broad. Of course the broadness of its intellectual property claims have not mitigated Apple’s position in its war against the Android phone, the chief rival to its own proprietary iPhone.

If courts find for PacketVideo in this case, every music streaming company could find itself in their gun sights, and the fabulous riches that eluded the company’s founders a decade ago when they started the business could be theirs at last.

Time for distributing your music eh? Awesome and congrats on creating worthwhile art for your fans! There are two distributors I recommend including TuneCore, the other being CD Baby.

*Article updated for 2015*

TuneCore Review 2015 – The Good Stuff

First, artists receive 100% of net gain on all sales. If you’re selling a lot of music, this is definitely a lucrative aspect for you.

Second, you get a TuneCore Media player for the specific purpose of promoting your single/album release. This means you can share it on social media sites, your website, blog, etc.

Third, you’ll receive weekly trend reports from iTunes plus official music sales reports from all stores selling your songs. This is critical if you want to have an effective marketing plan.

Fourth, lacking cover art? No problem – TuneCore will make it for you.

Fifth, TuneCore is partnered with all the big digital companies like iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon MP3, Simfy & Deezer.

Sixth, TuneCore will collect publishing royalties for you, including mechanicals and public performance rights for a one-time payment of $75.00. (TuneCore’s cut of your publishing royalties is 10%, but you keep sole ownership of your songs).

Important Extras: Ringtone Distribution and something that is absolutely critical – 24 hour Customer Service Response because inevitably something will go wrong.

TuneCore Review 2015 – The Not-so Good Stuff

First, they don’t provide UPC barcodes for your tunes; this means you won’t be able to rank on “top” sales charts by Billboard and other music news publishers.

Second, TuceCore charges a yearly fee as long as you sell your music through them. For example, you pay $49.99 per album for every year TuneCore distributes it.

Third, TuneCore will only distribute your music digitally – no physical sales. This may not be such a big deal depending on how your fans consume music.

Fourth, there aren’t many extras compared to CD Baby.

TuneCore Review – Pricing

Type of Sale (All Digital): Single Album

You Get: 100% Net Sales*

TuneCore’s Cut: $29.99 first year; $49.99 every year thereafter (this is for every album you upload)

Type of Sale: Single Song

You Get: 100% Net Sales*

TuneCore’s Cut: $9.99 first year and every year thereafter

Type of Sale: Single Ringtone

You Get: 100% Net Sales*

TuneCore’s Cut: $19.99 first year and every year thereafter

Extra: Publishing Administration

You Get: 90% of Royalties**

TuneCore’s cut: $75 one-time fee; TuneCore takes 10% of all publishing license fees, including mechanical and public performance royalties

*Keep in mind, you receive 100% of Net Sales. The digital distributors that TuneCore is partnered with take their cut first. For example, iTunes gets roughly 30¢ per $1.00 song sold. This means your take would be 70¢. Note that this rule applies to all music distributors.

**TuneCore provides some perks in addition to your 90%. If you have music being distributed by other companies like Ditto Music, you can still register your copyright through TuneCore. The one-time service fee covers all songs you may compose in the future. Also, TuneCore collects royalties worldwide.