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Best of 2013: Beatrobo brings mobile music to you and your friends

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Yesterday I looked back at Japanese photobook printing service, Nohana, one of my favorite photo-related apps over this past year. But when it comes to managing my music, another made-in-Japan service has really stood out for me in 2013. That’s Beatrobo. Beatrobo is a very clever service that pulls music from YouTube and Soundcloud, and gives you the ability to create, save, and share playlists – or robots, as they are called. The Beatrobo mobile app launched back in May, and it has remained a mainstay on my mobile since then. In the meantime, the folks at Beatrobo have been working away on some new things, with a promising side project, PlugAir, in the works as well. That initiative uses a plug device that connects to your headphone jack to store and exchange digital information, including lists of songs that can be shared with friends like mixed tapes. The clever part here is, again, that no songs are stored, just lists of songs from YouTube or Soundcloud. The company says that this technology could be applied to many kinds of content, and is not limited to just music. It will be interesting to see how the startup progresses in 2014….

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Yesterday I looked back at Japanese photobook printing service, Nohana, one of my favorite photo-related apps over this past year. But when it comes to managing my music, another made-in-Japan service has really stood out for me in 2013. That’s Beatrobo.

Beatrobo is a very clever service that pulls music from YouTube and Soundcloud, and gives you the ability to create, save, and share playlists – or robots, as they are called. The Beatrobo mobile app launched back in May, and it has remained a mainstay on my mobile since then.

In the meantime, the folks at Beatrobo have been working away on some new things, with a promising side project, PlugAir, in the works as well. That initiative uses a plug device that connects to your headphone jack to store and exchange digital information, including lists of songs that can be shared with friends like mixed tapes. The clever part here is, again, that no songs are stored, just lists of songs from YouTube or Soundcloud.

The company says that this technology could be applied to many kinds of content, and is not limited to just music.

It will be interesting to see how the startup progresses in 2014. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this side project grow beyond the original music service. So stayed tuned!

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Japanese music startup Beatrobo finally releases its iPhone app

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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I’ve been a fan of Japanese online music service Beatrobo for about a year now. With an English website that targets global users from the very start, Beatorobo lets you build music playlists primarily from YouTube. So far I’ve been using Beatrobo on my Mac via its web interface. I prefer creating an app for it using Fluid rather than running it in my browser, allowing for quick and easy tab switching when needed. And that’s all well and good when I’m on my Mac, but I’ve been craving a Beatrobo mobile app for a while now. So I was pretty pleased on Friday to hear from Beatorobo CEO Hiroshi Asaeda, who pointed out that the music service has finally hit Apple’s App Store. I’ve been casually using it over the past few days, and so far it has practically all the features that attracted me to the web version. In fact, the interface may even be better suited to mobile as its far easier to scroll through playlists and pick a song you like. The one drawback that I found was that you can’t search for new songs as you can in the web app. But I’m told that…

beatrobo-iphone-app

I’ve been a fan of Japanese online music service Beatrobo for about a year now. With an English website that targets global users from the very start, Beatorobo lets you build music playlists primarily from YouTube. So far I’ve been using Beatrobo on my Mac via its web interface. I prefer creating an app for it using Fluid rather than running it in my browser, allowing for quick and easy tab switching when needed. And that’s all well and good when I’m on my Mac, but I’ve been craving a Beatrobo mobile app for a while now.

So I was pretty pleased on Friday to hear from Beatorobo CEO Hiroshi Asaeda, who pointed out that the music service has finally hit Apple’s App Store. I’ve been casually using it over the past few days, and so far it has practically all the features that attracted me to the web version. In fact, the interface may even be better suited to mobile as its far easier to scroll through playlists and pick a song you like.

The one drawback that I found was that you can’t search for new songs as you can in the web app. But I’m told that this will be coming in the next version of the app. For now the focus is more on social interaction, as the people search feature lets you find friends who may have songs or playlists you like. In this way, the emphasis is on social music discovery, rather than just searching through YouTube’s music offerings. For example, I’m enjoying exploring the music that my brother is listening to on Beatrobo, as we used to frequently recommend tunes to each other in person.

Overall, I think this is a great step for the company. I don’t know if they will run into issues with music providers or with YouTube for offering this kind of service, and I’m sure they are treading very carefully. But it’s a quality service, and with other online music providers like Spotify or Rdio not yet serving the Japanese market, I think there’s an opportunity here. At least for now.

Beatrobo previously raised $600,000 in funding in April of 2012 from CyberAgent Ventures, Movida Japan, and KLab Ventures.

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  1. It’s a little like making mixed tapes, for any of you who may have grown up in the 80s like me.  ↩

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