Tech News: Pandora vs. iTunes Radio

I've been checking into the different and new aspects of iOS 7 since I downloaded it on my iPad 2 and my iPhone 5 a few days ago. I accidentally hit the music button and found iTunes Radio. I didn't really care to use it much because I already use Pandora. When I looked into it a little further, I found out that this is why Pandora stock took a 10% hit and Apple stock rose 5%. In a long list of companies Apple is hoping to take market share from, Pandora is finally in its cross hairs.

As the standings currently sit for streaming music, we have:
1. Pandora
2. Spotify
3. iHeartRadio
4. iTunes Radio
5. Slacker

A lot of people are speculating that with Apple's new music streaming service pulling in an impressive 11 million unique listeners in 5 days that it could dethrone Pandora within 30 days. Pandora receives around 65 million unique listeners a month and has more than 3x the number of unique listeners as 2nd place (Spotify.) Sorry, Apple, but I just don't see you winning here. The initial success of iTunes Radio is fairly impressive, but let's see if it can actually pull into 2nd place before everyone starts calling it the "Pandora slayer."

Look at it this way. When Google announced Google+, lots of people thought it was better than Facebook and that it may eventually overtake Facebook. That never happened. While Google had an impressive launch, I think it now counts anyone that signs up for a gmail account as a new Google+ member and they STILL can't get anywhere near the numbers on Facebook.

Apple also has some clear advantages that helped it get their streaming service out so quickly. Millions of people have Apple devices already in their house. The second they upgrade to iOS 7, they have iTunes Radio. A lot of those people were probably looking into all the aspects of the new iOS and pulled it up without actually using it. Am I one of the 11 million unique listeners? If I am, then I'm guessing there are others out there like me who pulled up the app and left without listening to any music on it.

iTunes Radio does have several pretty clear advantages in the international markets that Pandora currently doesn't have like the fact that you can play iTunes Radio from iTunes (which means its available on pretty much any desktop.) If you'd like to look into this topic a little more, check out this article I read earlier today from CNET: here.

The Journals of Jacob and Hyde featured on Freebooksy

The Journals of Jacob and Hyde was featured on Freebooksy this morning. I woke up and checked my downloads and my first thought was that iOS 7 had screwed up Safari on my iPad. I checked my computer... nope it's real. I've had over 300 downloads of The Journals of Jacob and Hyde since this morning. They sent me a sweet badge to feature on my website and I don't have anywhere to put it... which is why I'm writing this short blog post. (They screen all the books submitted to them so being featured on Freebooksy is a pretty big deal. I've been rejected by them several times with other books.) 

I'm also still deciding what I think overall of iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 and my iPad 2. I may post about it within the next few days. In the mean time, feel free to go check out your favorite author (which I'm assuming is me :-P) on Freebooksy. Here's a screenshot:

Yes, they kind of screwed up my title for the link... but I guess people don't care. You can check it out here. I'm almost halfway down the page.
9/24/13 - This free promo on Freebooksy resulted in over 1,500 downloads. I made it to #205 in the Amazon free store which is the highest ranking I've had on a free title so far.

Evolution of the Cover: Geek of Legend: The Elvish Screwdriver

Well I finally decided that the cover I made for my first Geek of Legend book was too terrible to continue. To those few hundred of you who grabbed a free copy... at least it was free and the story is pretty good. I hired Doug Beckstead (who made the Jehovah and Hades cover and also did the cover for Minor Demons) to make me a budget cover. No graphics. No coloring. Just an inked drawing with the title. I really like how it turned out. You can check out Doug's other drawings / creations at his website: here.

I started by telling him I want a hooded elf ranger and I showed him a drawing I liked on deviantart. This was his first sketch.

From there he sent me a few different sketches. I wasn't a huge fan of the face on any of them so far so we decided to put that on hold and just work on the rest of the drawing. I also decided to hold off on the hood for a little while (but I eventually changed my mind and had him add one back on.)

The last drawing in this series is when I told him to add the hood back on. I just think elf rangers look cooler with hoods.

Doug switched to a cleaner, simpler look for the face and I had him add the hood.

I had him tweak the eyes a little.

I won't go into all the smaller details we modified towards the end, but I had him add a screwdriver attached to the strap that holds the elf's arrow quiver. Then I had him add the title and my pen name for the cover. I think the end result reminds me a little of a wanted poster. I didn't have any covers in only black and white before this one and I think this one fits the short story pretty well. Here's a link to the book if you want to check it out on Amazon: Geek of Legend: The Elvish Screwdriver.