Mobile Roadie will be on Digital LA’s pre-GRAMMYs Digital Music: Apps & Distribution panel next week. MoRo’s Nicole Cifani (Head of VIP Client/Partner Relations) will be joined by Lindsay Gabler (Social Media Specialist, The GRAMMYs), Mahbod Moghadam (Founder, Rap Genius), and Harold Lee (CEO, Music Prodigy) to discuss “music app features, licensing, and social media”.

Moderated by Rynda Laurel (Digital Marketing Consultant, Smashing Pumpkins) and Kevin Winston (Founder, Digital LA), the panel will take place at Hotel Shangri-La from 7:00pm to 10:00pm (PST) on Monday, February 6, 2012.

In addition to the panel, there will be networking, drink specials, and an exclusive music performance throughout the night. If you would like to expand your network of music-minded industry professionals and your knowledge about apps, start-ups, and distribution, this is an event you can’t miss.

To RSVP, please visit http://digitallamusicapp.Eventbrite.com/.

DLD Conference 2012 kicked off yesterday in Munich, Germany. Now in its 7th year, the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) International Conference is a three day event bringing together “thought leaders, creators, entrepreneurs and investors” from all over the world. DLD doesn’t stop at the conference, however; in fact, DLD is a year-long affair creating events and experiences that are focused on “innovation, digital media, science and culture which connects business, creative and social leaders, opinion-formers and investors for crossover conversation and inspiration”.

With partnerships with renowned companies like Microsoft, HP, Audi, Google, CNBC, comScore, and many more, DLD is the place to be for those who are excited about the future. Past speakers include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and media entrepreneur Martha Stewart, among others.

This year, speakers include media entrepreneur Arianna Huffington, eBay CEO John Donahoe, Yoko Ono, and our very own Michael Schneider. Moderated by Hubert Burda Media’s Patrick Wolke, Michael spoke on the App World panel alongside Summly’s Nick D’Aloisio, Armen’s Felix Petersen, and Khoya’s Shila Siv Suleman.

We are proud to be a DLD partner, powering the official DLD app available for free download. The DLD app is the ultimate guide for conference attendees and non-attendees, with sections including Program (schedule), Speakers, News, Pictures, and Livestream. To download the official DLD app available for iPhone and Android, visit http://road.ie/dld.

It’s the most wonderful time at Mobile Roadie! In celebration of the holidays, we are giving our customers a special gift- 20% off any app package!

Enter coupon code “LETITMORO” when you checkout to receive 20% off the total amount. If you are purchasing an app under the Monthly pricing plan, the 20% off applies to the initial set-up fee and the monthly payments. If you purchase an app under the Annual pricing plan, the 20% discount applies to the annual payment. What’s special about this discount is it lasts the entire lifetime of your app.

But hurry, this deal ends January 1, 2012. So if you are thinking about purchasing a Mobile Roadie app, there’s no better time.  To get started, visit our pricing page.

Happy holidays!

Who: Mobile Roadie, SoundCloud, 33Seconds, MXP4, Webdoc, Thinglink, Good Lizard Media, Redquarters, & Six Two Productions

What: Music Tech Xmas Party 2011

When: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 7:00pm to Midnight

Where: Red Gallery Basement, 1-3 Rivington Street. Shoreditch, EC2A 3DT London, UK [Map here]

Click here to RSVP for free to the party. We’d love to see you there!

Mobile Roadie, Spotify, Midem, Webdoc, & Bopler invite you to our Meetup at LeWeb Paris, Europe’s #1 Tech Event. Stop on by for great networking, drinks, and to meet the teams from some of the leading music tech companies as we get together to celebrate the first day of LeWeb Paris on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 at 9pm (and onwards).

RSVP for free here.

Sponsors:
Mobile Roadie – The most powerful self-service mobile app platform in the world, powering apps for artists, brands, venues, and much more 
Spotify – A leading music streaming service with millions of users since launching in 2008
Midem – The world’s largest music industry trade show. Over 6,850 participants from 3,120 companies and 360 journalists spanning 77 countries attended MIDEM 2011.
Webdoc – A social platform allowing users to express themselves by creating digital scrapbooks from web content that they can then share with friends
Bopler – MXP4′s social music gaming platform that allows users to play interactive music games featuring popular artists and tracks

Venue Information:
Cafe Etienne Marcel
34, Rue Etienne Marcel
75002 Paris
Nearest Tube: Etienne-Marcel Ligne 4

Hope to see you there!

Last night, millions of people tuned in to watch some of the hottest names in the music industry perform on stage and win awards at the 2011 American Music Awards (AMAs) at the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live. From a visually-stimulating opening performance featuring Nicki Minaj and David Guetta to a jam-packed, eccentric finale from LMFAO with appearances from Justin Bieber and David Hasselhoff a.k.a. “The Hoff”, and everything else in between, the 2011 AMAs was a great night in music. The show was also a great night for Mobile Roadie as we watched some of our artists take home awards.

Taylor Swift topped the night with three awards, including Favorite Female Artist and Favorite Album under Country Music. But what sent her over the moon was winning her the most-coveted award of the night- Artist of the Year. Up against Adele, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, and Katy Perry, Taylor Swift ultimately took home the award thanks to her fans who voted for this music darling.

Adele won awards for Favorite Female Artist (Pop/Rock) and Favorite Artist (Adult Contemporary), jumping ahead of Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Katy Perry. She also won for Favorite Album (Pop/Rock) with Adele/21.

Foo Fighters won the Favorite Artist award in Alternative Rock Music, beating out The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons.

Casting Crowns won for Favorite Artist in the Contemporary Inspirational category.

Joe Jonas presented Hot Chelle Rae with the Sprint New Artist of the Year award (Overall winner).

Image courtesy of ABC

After her performance of “The One that Got Away,” Katy Perry was presented with an AMA for Special Achievement for making music history as the first female artist in Pop Music to have five #1 songs from a single album. Katy Perry’s album Teenage Dream produced 5 #1 singles, including “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)”, “California Gurls”, “Firework”, “E.T.”, and “Teenage Dream.”

Congrats to all the winners.

The annual celebration for startups and technology is a couple months away, but it’s that time to start nominating your favorite startups, apps, founders, and investors to be featured in The Crunchies Awards. The 5th Annual Crunchies Awards, hosted by TechCrunch along with GigaOm and VentureBeat, will take place on January 31, 2012 at the 2,000 plus capacity Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, CA.

Nominations start today, November 18th, and end 11:59 PST on December 13,2011. You are allowed to nominate one company or person per category per day, so those who have favorites in all 20 categories don’t have to worry about leaving any behind. Below are the categories (Divided into two main features):

Companies, Services & Applications
Best Technology Achievement, Best Cloud Service, Best Design, Biggest Social Impact

Best Social Application, Best Shopping Application, Best Mobile Application, Best Local Application, Best Tablet Application, Best Design, Best Time Sink (Best application to use “when you’re not working or not wanting to think about work”)

Best Bootstrapped Startup, Best International Startup, Best Clean Tech Startup, Best New Startup of 2011, Best Overall Startup of 2011.

People
Angel of the Year, VC of the Year, Founder of the Year, CEO of the Year

Complete descriptions of the categories are available here

Past 2010 winners include Groupon (Best Shopping App), Flipboard (Best Tablet Application), Google Mobile Maps for Android (Best Mobile Application), Andrew Mason (CEO of the Year ), Quora (Best New Startup of 2010), and Twitter (Best Overall Startup of 2010).

We hope you nominate Mobile Roadie for a few categories (we would very much appreciate it), and if you think our CEO Michael Schneider would look great with a Crunchies Award for CEO of the Year, you can put in your nominations here.

It’s up to you to nominate the most deserving companies, apps, and people. Nominations accepted till 11:59 pm PST on December 13th, 2011.

This week is a celebration- a celebration bringing together the brightest minds in technology and music to move the digital music market forward.  From Nov. 17th-18th, Billboard will be hosting the FutureSound conference in association with Loeb & Loeb LLP at the Terra in San Francisco, CA. The conference will revolve around three themes- The Challenges of Entrepreneurship, Music Licensing, and Leveraging the Social Web- where each will have dedicated Keynotes from the brightest minds in both the music and technology industries, Solution Sessions, and Workshop Roundtables. The key highlights- the recommendations of both participants and attendees- that emerge from the conference will be featured in a future issue of Billboard magazine.

Scheduled speakers include Tim Chang, Managing Director of Mayfield Fund & one of the Top 100 Dealmakers on Forbes Midas List in 2011; Ronald Conway, Angel Investor & one of the 100 most influential people in the Information Age according to Vanity Fair; Seth Goldstein, Co-Founder of Turntable.fm; Jack Isquith, SVP of Strategic Development at Slacker; David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA); Jeff Roberto, Director of Consumer Marketing at Shazam Entertainment; Mitch Rotter, SVP of Marketing & Product Development of Universal Music Distribution; J Sider, CEO/Founder of RootMusic.com; and other leading visionaries in the music and music developer industries.

In addition to being a partner of the FutureSound Conference, Mobile Roadie will also present at the conference. Michael Schneider, MoRo’s CEO, will speak at FutureSound with the presentation “Is it 1995 Again? Why Mobile is the New Web”, where he will explain why “the way the music industry and digital startups are experimenting with mobile and apps today strongly resembles the early days of the Web.” He will also discuss “why it’s never too early to have a mobile presence, how to best approach entering the space, and why mobile is the future of commerce and community.” Michael’s presentation will be on Thursday, Nov. 17th.

Click here for the full schedule and if you would like to attend, you can still register. Give us a shout if you see us there or tweet us at @mobileroadie with #futuresound.

What: Billboard FutureSound Conference 2011
When: November 17-18, 2011
Where: Terra, 511 Harrison St. San Francisco, CA 94105

Mobile Roadie’s Creative Director Brock Batten will be speaking at TAXI Road Rally 2011 this Sunday, November 6th. TAXI Road Rally, now in its 13th year, is an annual 3-day conference, “giving aspiring artists, bands, and songwriters real access to the people in the music business who have the power to sign deals.”

Brock will be speaking on the “Build a Buzz, Sell Your Music, Create a Career” panel where top Industry leaders will show aspiring musicians “how to stand out, build a bigger fan base and sell more music.” Brock will focus specifically on how mobile apps play a critical role in fan engagement and transactions for artists. Moderated by Michael Laskow (CEO & Founder of TAXI), this one-hour panel will also feature panelists Brian Felsen (President of CD Baby/Book Baby/Host Baby), Bob Baker (Author of Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook), Jay Frank (Author of Hack Your Hit: Free and Cheap Marketing Tips For Musicians), Phil Gates (Independent Artist), and Bryan Calhoun (VP, New Media & External Affairs at SoundExchange).

Who: MoRo Creative Director Brock Batten
What: TAXI Road Rally “Build a Buzz, Sell Your Music, Create a Career” panel
Where: The Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel, Grand Ballroom
When: 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m PST, Sunday, November 6, 2011

Don’t miss out on the first Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley networking event, which is also London-based Newspepper’s L.A. launch party at Room 86 (formerly Paul & Andre) in Hollywood on Thursday, November 10th. Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley is a monthly event where Hollywood and Silicon Valley can meet up to discuss “the convergence of the two industries- technology and Internet media- and spark business relationships.”

Founded by Hermione Way (Silicon Valley Video Director for The Next Web & Founder of Internet media company Newspepper.com) and organized by Audrey Almaraz (Logistics Coordinator), Darren Darnborough (Actor & Filmmaker), and Ezra Butler, Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley will attract some of the biggest names in the two industries and prove that technology and Hollywood are actually closer than people realize.

Including sponsors The Next Web, Newspepper, CoLoft, What’s Trending, Mekanism, and Knock Twice, we’re also a sponsor of the Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley series. We know how powerful technology is in helping celebrities and artists connect with their fans, as seen in our apps, so we are proud to be a sponsor of this monthly series and can’t wait to celebrate Newpepper’s launch in L.A. next week.

If you’d like to attend the first Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley/Newspepper L.A. launch party, sign up here. But hurry, the guest list is almost full. Hope to see you there!

Who: Technology and Hollywood professionals
What: The first Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley event/Newspepper LA launch party
When: 7 to 11pm, Thursday, Nov. 10th, 2011
Where: Room 86 (Formerly known as Paul & Andre), Cosmo St. Hollywood, CA 90028