Best beta test ever?

Daft Punk is about to drop their new album on May 21st, 2013. Random Access Memories. This is already big news and so far the album is very promising. There are hints of Da Funk, One more time and Aerodynamic. Once I get my hands on it I will properly review it.

For now you can stream it on iTunes for free. Which brings me to my post for today.

What is the easiest way to hide an elephant on the room? Fill the room with elephants.

Apple is pulling the greatest beta test ever! There have been speculations of Apple launching a streaming service. First rumor was around the time Ping was introduced, second time was when Spotify launched in the US and just recently WSJ reported it was "ready".

It seems that Apple is learning from its mistakes and recent flops (Ping, Maps and iCloud) and it is finally doing some proper testing before releasing a new product. Also it is something new since this is a very open testing, but also a smart one.

Here is why:

1) Daft Punk is a big enough band that will give them the opportunity to test millions of concurrent connections and really stress test the service.

2) The demographic skews more tech savvy  than other bands and therefore more likely really provide a lot of use cases (pause, jump to the middle of the stream, record, etc)

3) Daft Punk is also enough of a name to distract everyone from the fact that they are testing a streaming service!

Well, so far so good. Things work. We'll see if they come out during the next WWDC in June.

Pablo