Music Hack Day is a

Hack Day A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of hacking and marathon) is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours. Th ...

specifically for the music industry. The first was organised by Dave Haynes and James Darling and held at the London offices of

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

newspaper over the weekend 11/12 July 2009. The event was attended by around 200 developers who had 24 hours to build new hacks or

web applications A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

using the

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

's or tools of 10 participating companies. These companies were

7digital 7digital Group Plc is a British publicly listed company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with b ...

, BBC Music,

The Echo Nest The Echo Nest is a music intelligence and data platform for developers and media companies. Owned by Spotify since 2014, the company is based in Somerville, MA. The Echo Nest began as a research spin-off from the MIT Media Lab to understand th ...

, Gigulate,

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...

, PeoplesMusicStore,

Songkick Songkick is a concert discovery service owned by Warner Music Group. The service allows users to search for upcoming concert events in their area, and also track individual artists to receive notifications of upcoming shows in their area. It also p ...

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

. The weekend also included workshops from companies like

RjDj RjDj (Reality Jockey Ltd.) was a startup founded in late 2008 by last.fm co-founder Michael Breidenbruecker. The company was based in London and was run by a small team of four employees. Its mission was to create sonic experiences specifically d ...

and Tinker.it and anyone else who wished to arrange one. Many developers stayed overnight at the venue and over 35 hacks were built, submitted and demo'ed by the end of the weekend. Since that first event, more than 50 Music Hack Day events have taken place around the world, with over 3500 participants who have built over 1300 innovative hacks. The events are attended by a diverse range of music and technology enthusiasts. A related event, that includes a music hack component, but with a broader focus on performance and research, is the

Music Tech Fest MTF Labs AB is a Swedish company which runs labs, festivals and events to encourage cross-sector collaboration and innovation through creative work, particularly music. Its origins go back to 2012 when founder Michela Magas established Music Tech ...

, a festival of music ideas that brings musicians, artists, hackers, academics and industry together.

References

{{reflist Computer-related events

Further reading

External links

References