Karaoke World Cup Takes The Singing Competition Format Online
Launching its 1.0 version today is Karaoke World Cup, a service that allows people to compete in singing competitions online, or just to sing their favorite songs and share it with their friends. Currently the service boasts 700 tracks with one new English and one Finnish song added each day.
Karaoke World Cup is fun. I'm usually not a karaoke guy (even under the right uhh... mindset) but after going to the website I clicked "start singing" and gleefully butchered Barracuda right here in the ArcticStartup office. The service takes advantage of your computer's microphone and webcam to record your singing, which can be used to share with friends or compete in competitions. KaraokeWorldCup also uses SingStar style bars and gamification that tracks how on pitch you are. Unfortunately... it must have been broken the times I tried it.
KaraokeParty.com Offers 24/7 Karaoke Fun, Gets Funding
KaraokeParty.com is a music service that let users sing karaoke, practice singing, and challenge friends on the web. The service is provided by Karaokeparty Online Gaming, a Swedish startup founded in 2007.
All the user needs is a microphone and a computer connected with Internet connection to start singing. The service is open and free for everybody. There are two playing options, one with leading vocals for practicing and one with backing vocals only. You can also register to the service to store your scores to your profile and top lists, interact with the karaoke community, and to request new songs. The unique scoring technology makes it possible to compete with friends, both at home and all over the world over the Internet.
The service features most popular pop songs. At the moment there seems to be a bit over 100 songs, with more being added. All the songs are performed by cover artists, and Karaokeparty has the rights to the songs granted by Swedish Performing Rights Society and Nordisk Copyright Bureau (STIM/NCB). I'm not sure how this arrangement covers the global markets, though, but apparently the company is having users all around the world and has added many localized language versions already.
Karaokeparty Online Gaming AB has just announced finishing a funding round last week, securing SEK 3 Million (EUR 0.3M or USD 0.45M) investment from a group of Swedish angel investors.
According to the CEO Mattias Öberg the company is extremely pleased with the development so far, and has reached user numbers beating even their most optimistic forecasts. With the new funding, KaraokeParty will "intensify its expansion plans and increase its catalogue of songs which should make the service even more popular” as stated by Mattias Öberg. The new investors are Kent Gustafson, Håkan Janson, and Rolf Johansson, who were co-owners of Swedish Gekås, one of the biggest low price shopping centres in Europe. They have also worked as angel investors in other different projects.
As of now there doesn't seem to be any revenue model implemented for KaraokeParty.com, but it's quite easy to think of quite a many different interesting options.
