Check out this new music radio player that Diesel has created. I’ve been listening to it this afternoon and I’m impressed. Some cool DJ’s with top music…

Want this player for your own site? Visit http://www.goviralnetwork.com.

Thanks to Catherine A.D. for pointing this article out on Twitter. I think it’s spot on. (Btw, I recommend checking out http://www.myspace.com/catherinead for details of her latest EP…it’s great!)

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136269

I just read an interesting article on the Billboard website which summarised key points raised at Midem concerning the digital revenue trail.  One particular point that struck me concerned the money from up front digital music deals that labels make. Some labels have cleverly structured deals so that none of the income made from them is treated as royalties. Instead the income is referred to as ‘access fees and service charges’ meaning artists are missing out on this money. Lawyer Ken Hertz of Goldring, Hertz and Lichtenstein is encouraging us to make sure that if we have rights or own a catalogue that we are “figuring out a way of shortening the distance” between us and the money. However, one problem here is that some artists won’t be able to justify the expense of an audit…

You can read the original article here

Notes from Bruce Houghton, president of Skyline Music and editor of influential music industry blog Hypebot.

Live Music & The Net - It’s not just about tickets anymore

The fuss in live music lately has been over ticketing - fees, secondary markets and paperless have dominated the discussion.  But the net is also broadening the live music landscape in ways well beyond dockets. Just as the net revolutionized the creation, marketing and distribution of recorded music, a growing number of companies are extending that revolution to live music. Start-ups and established players are changing how concerts are booked and promoted as well as the fan experience during and even after the show. Along the way they’re offering marketing and monetization opportunities that could make secondary ticketing seem like a secondary issue.

A quick tour of the live music internet landscape:

• U2 encourages concert-goers to raise mobile phones in the air as the 21st century equivalent of the cigarette lighter, but text messaging turns these same phones into interactive tools and profit centers. Interactive Messaging Unlimited, Club Texting and Text2Fans provide turnkey solutions. At an Anastacia concert, fans sent multiple texts to screens to see their names and send the artist messages. The promoters charged 1 EUR per message and 10% of the audience participated.
• Sites like Ustream.tv enable artists to stream live public and private concerts and can extend the evening with online after-parties complete live video and chat.
• MySpace and Facebook have opened ad platforms that enable bands and promoters to launch targeted marketing campaigns for a little as $25 USD. MySpace ads target by age, location and genre. Facebook drills down further adding keywords so marketers can even target fans of other specific artists..
• OurStage offers a music discovery platform and opportunities for gigs. A recent alliance with Live Nation provided several hundred opening act slots for new artists.
• Sonicbids is based around an emailable electronic press kit (EPK)and has deals with major music festivals and conferences globally to offer performance opportunities.
• ReverbNation empowers artists to get their own gigs and then market them via email, street teams and viral campaigns and is used by both developing and established artists.
• In fact, Live Nation owned Music Today links to ReverbNation for street teams, but offers established acts from Dave Mathews on down its own suite of services including fan club ticketing (a “must have” for artists building a touring base) and merchandise.

3 Trends, 13 Companies and 1 Wild Card to watch out for

2008 was a year of retrenchment and experimentation in the music industry. Many companies cut staff while at the same time more that 200 music startups were launched according to Music Ally.  As we look ahead to 2009, three trends - democratization, data and monetization - are dominating the conversations creating the new music industry.

Here is a look a those trends and some companies that exemplify them that I will be watching closely in 2009:

• DEMOCRATIZATION - It’s about giving entrepreneurs, artists and fans the tools to compete with the major labels and Topspin Media is one of the leaders. They’ve already graced the cover of Billboard and helped launch new music by Byrne/Eno, Paul McCartney and others. But I’m betting that Ian Rogers and crew didn’t come together just to build a better digital delivery system. Plus the real fun will begin when Topspin finally opens their platform to a wider audience and creative artists and labels show just how much they can do with it.  Honorable Mentions: Project Playlist and all the services democratizing music discovery.  Record labels need to figure out how to work with them instead of suing.  Also Sonicbids, OurStage and others working to democratize live music. Tunecore gets kudos for all access flat rate digital distribution.

• DATA - How do you know what’s actually working?  Where are the fans coming from? What avenues lead to sales?  Two companies bear watching in 2009: one new and the other old but trying to remake itself.  Band Metrics will debut at MidemNet (Disclosure: I just joined the advisory board.) It’s all about crawling the web, crunching the numbers and providing actionable information.  EMI.com is part of that venerable label’s effort to remake itself.  So far, I not impressed, but there’s an strong new digital team and the concept behind the re-launch - observe fans online and gather data - is spot on. Honorable Mentions: ReverbNation, Music Today‘s fan ticketing platform and others who help artists gather and use fan data.

• MONETIZATION: Any company that doesn’t effectively deal with monetization both for themselves and for rights holders may not make it to 2010. In a slumping global economy,that means looking beyond ads for revenue and lowering the expectations of investors as well as labels and publishers.  I’ll be watching MySpace, YouTube, imeem and We7 to see how social networks, video, music discovery and ad supported music respectively work to improve income.

• THE WILD CARD: Bapapoo. Is it lawful to sell a “used” mp3 that you legally purchased?  The courts will inevitably be called on to decide and the result could re-value downloads and effect consumer confidence.

I just read that HMV has teamed up with MAMA group (who own the Barfly amongst other things) and together they’re taking over 11 British music venues including the Hammersmith Apollo, The Forum, Heaven, The Garage, Jazz Cafe, Borderline, G-A-Y and G-A-Y Late, Edinburgh’s Picture House, Birmingham’s Institute and Moshulu in Aberdeen. So now we have the lovely named HMV Apollo and HMV Forum. Nowt like making your ownership blatant. A very clever move though. How I wouldn’t mind a slice of that £1 billion industry. ‘Jen’s Royal Albert Hall’ (I think I’d be a bit more creative with the name.) So anyway, now they’ll be able to increase profits through venue hire, selling tickets and selling merch. (Apparently HMV, in an unrelated move, are also teaming up with Seatem to sell tickets. Nice move.) I’d like to hear more ideas about how to make the live experience more interesting for fans (by this I mean more collaborative, interactive and intimate) and in some cases, more affordable.

Another of Heleana’s tip offs. I thought this was a very interesting blog post by The Blake Project about branding in the digital age. Web 2.0 has brought down many barriers and has allowed us to interact, collaborate and share information. Our sense of individuality has strengthened; we’re voicing our opinions more and more on the web. We’re networking more, we’re that much closer to companies, to artists etc.  With this in mind, it makes total sense that the future of branding is in the empowerment of the customer and the fostering of emotional connections. It’s long been said “people buy people.”

Here’s the post…

•    With the explosion of virtual and morphing organizations and ever-changing business alliances, the brand essence and promise and the organizational culture may increasingly be the only elements that create a sense of “entity” for organizations
•    The viral spread of information will increasingly expose organizations for what they really are - integrity and consistency will be key
•    Managing “buzz” will be an important brand management activity
•    CEOs will become increasingly involved in brand strategy formulation
•    Organization mission, vision and core values will increasingly be formulated along with brand essence, promise and personality (for organization brands)
•    An increasing number of organizations that have grown through mergers and acquisitions will significantly simplify their brand architectures and reduce the number of brands in their portfolios
•    More and more people will come to understand what brands are, what they can do and what they can’t do.
•    Fewer people will have a blind faith that strong brands can solve all organizational problems

Last week Anna was involved in the making of a music video for the very talented Claire Tchaikowski (for whom Anna provided the art work for her debut album ‘Those Thousand Seas’ - you can check out some of her dreamy music here: http://www.myspace.com/clairetchaikowski)

The setting was a stunning Edwardian town house located on Chiswick Mall - literally metres away from the river Thames. (What I would give to own one of those houses!) It was great to observe Anna’s creative processes and the ideas behind the video were beautiful.  I won’t reveal too much about the video - I’ll post it here when it’s ready. For now, I’ve uploaded some pictures I took…(click to enlarge)

Thanks to Greg Bates for this…

Within the ongoing discussions regarding new music business models that are taking place across the blogosphere, there is a lot of talk about providing ‘context’ to fans, and using that to monetize your work rather than relying on the sales of your music alone. However context isn’t only important to provide to your current fans, it plays a crucial role in hooking new ones. So what exactly is context and how can we make sure we’re providing enough of it to gain the attention of potential fans?

Discovery Context

First of all, it’s important to recognize how important context is in hooking new fans. Sure, the music itself is the most important ingredient when it comes to potential fans discovering you, but if they haven’t been primed with contextual information, your music might not ‘click’ with them. We’ve all been introduced to a new band and dismissed them as uninteresting only to revisit their music again later equipped with new information and suddenly love them. It’s happened to me many times anyway.
Knowing that more fans are likely to be moved farther along in the absorption process if they hear your music in the right context, giving you a better chance of converting them into true fans, it makes sense to find effective ways of providing that context.

Step One - Identify Discovery Channels

The first thing you need to do is figure out how people are learning about your music. Use tools like Google Alerts, Google Analytics, and Twitter to find out where traffic is coming from and who is talking about you. Look at your YouTube insights to see who is linking to your videos. Use this information to poke around and determine the paths people take online to end up at your pages.
You might find that there is a large number of people finding you via a blog post somebody made at a website you’ve never heard of. Or maybe a video of yours is making the rounds on Facebook. You could be getting all kinds of traffic from a similar bands Wikipedia entry. There is no limit to the number of different paths people can take to discovering your music, so find out which channels are driving the most traffic.

Step Two - Plant Context Rich Content

Once you have a good handle on how people are finding you, start planting content along the paths that people are taking to find you that will give them a better understanding of who you are and what you’re all about. The type of content you should use to accomplish this depends on what is generating the interest in the first place. Here are a few ideas:

* Video EPK
* Interesting and relevant press items / interviews
* Blogs
* Personal message from the artist
* Video of artist interacting with fans/other artists/his mother

Whatever content you decide to create and plant for this purpose, make sure your fans are able to take it with them and embed it in their own sites, blogs, message boards, etc. If you manage to make the right content, your fans will use it on your behalf to hook new fans for you. Make it easy for your fans to give their friends context and you’ll see a spike in new fans.
Here’s a simple rule to follow: Always Be Publishing. (Mitch Joel tweeted this the other day and it stuck with me, so I stole it.) Whether it’s new music, blog or twitter posts, pictures, or anything else - always be publishing. Furthermore, if the content you are publishing doesn’t accomplish at least one of the following goals, it’s not worth publishing:

* Showcase your talents
* Provide context
* Engage fans
* Build relationships

Step Three - Track Your Efforts

Pay attention to metrics such as traffic, streams, mailing list sign-ups, sales, comments, incoming links, blog chatter, etc. so that you have a solid grasp on how effective your current content and presentation is at converting strangers into interested listeners. When you make a change in order to increase conversions, watch carefully for changes in these metrics and make a decision on how to proceed based on your results.

You’ll learn a lot about your fans and what types of content engages them by simply paying attention. Many artists and music marketers expect that they simply need to do what everyone else is doing, and then wonder why they aren’t getting anywhere. Rather than creating generic content, listen to your fans and let them shape the type of content you produce to promote your music.

Conclusion

With the ridiculously huge and ever increasing number of choices competing for the attention of potential fans, it’s pretty obvious that artists and music marketers need to start doing more if they want to succeed. Your success in building and nurturing your tribe will be a direct reflection of your ability to provide valuable context to it’s potential and current fans. Context builds connection.

When invited to guest blog on Nathan Bransford’s blog the other week, Tracy Marchini posted this list of ways an author can take advantage of Twitter. (Nathan is a literary agent for Curtis Brown, San Fran…Tracy is an assistant for the same company.)

The List:

1.) Tweet your book release dates. Especially on the day of release.
2.) Tweet your tour dates.
3.) Tweet changes in your tour dates.
4.) Tweet your progress on a much-awaited sequel.
5.) Tweet your readers for feedback - do they like your new (fill in the blank?)
6.) Tweet your readers links to your website when it’s updated.
7.) Tweet the links to specific posts in your blog.
8.) Tweet some micro-fiction. (It’s harder than it looks!)
9.) Tweet some encouragement to a fellow writer (keep good company!)
10.) Tweet your followers with a special promotion. (Twitter followers get a code to unlock a special part of your site?)
11.) Tweet when your book wins an award.
12.) Tweet when your book gets a good review.
13.) Tweet when your book goes into paperback.
14.) Tweet when you made a fantastic dinner (especially if you write cookbooks) or if you found an old record (especially if you’re a musicologist), etc.
15.) Tweet about what you would like your readers to know about you right now, at this very second.
16.) Tweet when you need to hear some encouragement from a reader.
17.) Tweet when your next pub date is announced.

But also, authors can read:

1.) What their readers are tweeting about.
2.) If their readers had a good or bad time at their last author event.
(They could be tweeting from their cell phone right next to you! Awk-ward.)
3.) What other books their readers are talking about.

Finally, one of the best tips I’ve ever read for using Twitter was to sign up to the rss feed of a search term. So, get your Twitter account, search for your name and/or your books among the twit-o-sphere, and sign up for the rss feed.

(I’d add to this that you can also download a twitter tools plugin for wordpress so you can Tweet from the convenience of your blog…when you create a new post, you can configure the settings so it updates your tweet automatically. You can also link Twitter to your Facebook so everytime you Tweet it feeds into your Facebook status. I’d also be interested to see what it would be like to instigate some multi-authored twitter poems….hmmm?…Love Twitter.)

Everyone knows how vital the live sector is for revenue when record sales are diminishing. This opportunity to make innovations into the live music experience and enhance the relationship between artists and fans really excites me. Leading the revolution is Live Nation. They made the headlines when Madonna left Warner to sign a deal with them for a reported £59m in October 2007. The deal gave Live Nation rights to all of Madonna’s music-related projects including albums, merchandise, websites, DVDs, TV shows, films and sponsorship for over ten years and provided a landmark in the history of the music industry. Earlier that year, they had also cut off contract renewal talks with Ticketmaster in a bid to take up ticket sales opportunities themselves. Last month they signed a five year deal to supply all tickets for SMG managed venues from late 2009 and today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Live Nation were to sell tickets through 500 branches of Blockbusters across the states. The latter is a particularly interesting move when the switch in consumer trends over the past few years means more people are looking to rent dvd’s from online stores but I guess from a consumers point of view, it’s helpful for those without internet access and credit cards who may otherwise be quite alienated.  Anyway, this got me to thinking about ticket outlets and where I would be most likely to buy a ticket. At what point in the day do I feel most susceptible to parting with my hard earned cash for a bit of entertainment? Probably when I’m leaving my lovely gym/health club and the endorphines are pumping or whilst relaxing on the sofa, watching sport or a film on television. A deal with Fitness First, Virgin Active? A little treat to reward the excessive sweating over the treadmill? My gym, Springhealth, has it’s own dvd library which I find VERY handy and the company also seems to feature some of it’s own adverts on the main screens in the cardio suite, I guess there could be opportunities there to feature music video’s from the latest bands, highlight their tour, then allow consumers to pick up some tickets on the way out the gym. (I’m imagining sitting beside my fellow gym goers at a gig..strange but quite appealing actually.) Then there’s the ability to buy films on demand if you have satellite. I’m sure one day you’ll only have to direct your remote control and enter your pin to buy tickets to a gig or have ‘front row’ and interactive access to gigs via satellite. Perhaps even interactive games where you can step into a live gig. At this point my imagination goes into overload. I’m going to go think some more…