Geotagging let’s an application direct its content to a user based on his/her present location. Soundtrackr combines geotagging with music playlist creation, allowing users to create custom playlists or radio stations, tag songs with their location and share them with anyone around the world. It’s similar to Pandora, but with geotagging functionality. Soundtrackr is available on the iPhone now, with development on other platforms in the works. Currently available only in the US, the service is also eyeing expansion overseas later this year.

To read the full "Tech Trends" for the week of 3/15/10, click here.

Microsoft made some of the biggest news at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. At the biggest confab for all things mobile, Microsoft unveiled their new Windows Phone, which will be available later this year. It is big news as the Windows Mobile OS has been completely redesigned from the ground up. In a big break with the past, the interface of the new mobile OS does not look like a copy of Microsoft's PC desktop and, according to those who’ve had the chance to use it, the system is much faster than the current Windows Mobile OS.

2009 is the year that Twitter broke through to become mainstream. A tremendous wave of growth (58 million worldwide users per month by the end of December) not only made Twitter a household word, but it made the company profitable by the end of the year. Twitter cut deals with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing to make Twitter content searchable. Reportedly, the two deals brought in $25 million...

Check out our New Music Preview for March, featuring:

• Gorillaz
• The Temper Trap
• Jason DeRulo
• Cypress Hill
• Cold War Kids
• And More!

To see the complete list, click here.

Online music services faced a lot of upheaval in the second half of 2009.  iLike, iMeem and Lala were all sold and Spotify pushed back its US lunch until sometime in 2010.  But Pandora bucked the trend and turned in a banner year.  The company finally because profitable in the 4^th quarter and increased its subscriber base to more than 40 million.  By the end of the year, Pandora was adding 600,000 users each week.

Starting this week, Pollack Media Group is pleased to present an in-depth look ahead at the future of media in the digital world, focusing on the future of radio. The following is an excerpt from “IP Radio – A vision of radio in the Internet age” by Pierre Bellanger, long-time CEO of Skyrock Radio in France and a Pollack Media Group client for more than 2 decades. In addition to his long history in radio, Pierre launched a blogging site (skyblog.com) back in 2002, followed by his launch in 2007 of the first full-scale social network in France (skyrock.com), which is now available in 11 languages internationally and includes more than 20,000,000 profiles globally.

Nielsen and Facebook conducted a survey of 50,000 Facebook users over the age of 13 in the U.S., U.K. and Australia and found that 39% of them have donated to the Haitian relief funds. Another 21% say they intend to do so, but they haven’t yet. 13% of the Facebook givers did so through via text messaging.

Apple’s rollout of its new iPad tablet device became the usual media circus that we’ve come to expect from Apple product announcements. Speculation in advance of the presentation was pretty accurate with respect to what the device would do and what features it would have. Perhaps the only suspense was the name, iPad, which was a bit of an upset over the rumored favorite, iSlate.

Jeff Pollack, a longtime music consultant who works with MTV and VH1, said television is the fastest way to music success these days, but that's a forum more interested in pop singers than guitar heroes. "Against the backdrop of an 'Idol'-dominated landscape, a young rock band has a much harder time getting exposure today than a pop or even country artist," Pollack said. "There is virtually no rock played on Top 40 radio . . . and there are even fewer contemporary rock stations than just a few years ago. New rock bands need to rely on continual touring, social media and music sites to expose their music."