Are Major Labels Trying To Limit Access To Data?

Check out the post on Phys.org

"Major record labels have capitalized on iTunes to maintain the same advantages that they held previously through physical media distribution networks, a recently published paper by a UT Arlington assistant professor says.

David Arditi, assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the School of Urban and Public Affairs, argues major record labels are as powerful as ever and appear to generate as much money as when albums, music stores and other historic distribution channels were part of the industry landscape.

"Music executives made it sound like this new technology on the Internet was allowing people to steal from them," Arditi said. "The truth is they use iTunes and other formats to control music purchases."

In 2001, the companies represented by the Recording Industry Association of America claimed to be in turmoil because of the widespread use of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, such as Napster. Independents, on the other hand, hailed the technology as a means to distribute their music outside the national distribution system.

But in his paper, "iTunes: Breaking Barriers and Building Walls," Arditi says that those fears were quickly proven wrong as iTunes emerged as the dominant gatekeeper for the recording industry. The research was published by the journal Popular Music and Society.

Arditi noted that iTunes gives independent musicians more opportunity to distribute music than before online distribution became possible. But the centralized distribution system lends itself to once again concentrating power with the major record labels.

Rather than gaining market share, independent labels have lost market share – 20.3 percent of U.S. market in 1996 compared with 9.85 percent in 2010.

Arditi argues that music industry leaders used the advent of music file sharing via the Internet to gain stronger copyright laws, build more extensive political capital and protect the music industry for dominant distributors. Yet measuring the financial impact of iTunes on the industry is difficult because modern music industry revenues come from many sources and because companies do not release sales figures publicly, he said.

As an example, Arditi said pointed to the recent release of the video game, Grand Theft Auto V, which generated $1 billion in sales within days of release.

"What consumers might not realize is that there are more than 240 songs on the game and each song has its own synchronization license," Arditi said. "In other words, record labels are making a lot of money from this game, but they don't regularly report that data.""

Data Is More Valuable Than Gold

The very fabric of all the we see, read and update is now related to social media. As soon as we pick up a phone and check the instagram, facebook or a littany of other apps, we are absolutely tethered to data and technology. Does this make us completely dependent on the technology for everything? Well I would argue yes.

It is not so much so that we can't just walk away from it, but the convenience is what drives our motivation along with curiosity. Any quick idea that jumps into the brain, we are on top of it to find out more. Hear about a new band and all you can think of is that you have to hear it, well yep, log on and find out all about them. 

The trick to this sphere of influence is plain and simple. It's data. Folks have to be able to find you online in order to hear and see what your all about. The more posts, media and links that are driven to your sites, the more potential interest and traffic you will receive. For the entertainment industry its a way of thinking in which you have to be at the forefront of developing all of your communications in a social media environment or you are being passed by.

Follow Bob Lefsetz updates

DATA

Has been underutilized in the music business. SoundScan was a revolution, but then the Internet happened and everybody was caught flat-footed and was so flabbergasted at the evisceration of the business model that the only actions taken were rearguard ones, and those were executed late.

Don't confuse the product with the sell.

The key is to see if the product has traction. If it doesn't, don't expect anybody to invest in it. If you want money, if you want human effort, you must show growth and attention. That's the data focus of the artist.

As for the seller...

We're only at the advent of knowing what does and does not work. Does TV work, both ads and appearances? Web ads? YouTube play? No one is correlating cause and effect, they're just going by their gut. In other words, an appearance on Letterman or Leno might feel good, but is it actually helping an act's career?
Emotionally, I'd say no.

But emotion will not rule the record business in the future. Labels will look at the effect of activities and then judge whether to pursue them. Waste will be siphoned out of the system. A revolution is brewing. And he who has hit acts and employs data to further success will win. Because that person will generate the most success and money for acts, and hit creators will gravitate to them.

We're seeing it already in publishing. Kobalt has made its old line competitors very afraid, because the company is data-based, it provides information to its customers on a regular basis and utilizes data to generate more cash.

As for concert tickets... Soon prices will not be determined by hunch, but data. This is a much bigger issue than scalping and StubHub and all the bloviating about the secondary market.

In other words, what is a ticket worth?

Furthermore, regular customers will be courted. A regular customer will be given discount tickets to shows they might not otherwise choose to attend. A regular customer is much more valuable than an inactive one. Right now, no true differentiation is made.

It's not so much about all the revenue going to the secondary market, as the primary market not knowing how to price effectively. The Stones tried to capture all the revenue and it blew up in their face. The question is how do you price so the arena goes clean, you don't pull a number out of thin air and see if the public is willing to pay it, discounting after the fact and alienating all involved.

Also, the concept of bidding war guarantees will fade. Promoters will model what an act is worth. It won't be about the upfront payment so much as sharing in the revenue. Data will drive the sell. This will require promoters to be upfront about costs. Despite what you hear, those days are coming. Every ticket is going to return to the manifest. The big acts will insist upon it.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Acts will replicate the web model, wherein only monoliths succeed. There's one Apple, one Amazon, one Google. They each have imitators, but the replicas have a tiny share of the marketplace.

In other words, if you invent a new type of music, you will rule. Others will horn in on your action, and you will fight back by continuing to record and release, i.e. innovating, and you will continue to get the lion's share of the revenues...unless someone who built upon your base leapfrogs you with innovation.

It's the sixties all over again. The Beatles put out records constantly. Each one was different. That's why they dominated.

It just looks right now like there's endless repetition of the formula. But the cracks are already showing. Top Forty, which is responsible for tonnage, used to be solely rhythmic. Then came Gotye, now comes Lorde. The new and the different is undeniable, the public demands it.

RADIO

Give Clear Channel credit. It sees the future.

Despite all the hoopla by entrenched players that terrestrial radio is burgeoning and forever, Clear Channel realizes this is untrue. So the company is expanding online. As for its iHeart Radio Festival, it's burnishing the company's image. Furthermore, unlike radio in general, which is anti-innovation and anti-spending, Clear Channel has invested in its own studio in Los Angeles.

So Clear Channel is better prepared for the future than other radio groups.
But will Clear Channel win?

Only if it is willing to kill its terrestrial model and super-serve its customers. That's the "Innovator's Dilemma" in a nutshell. What's killing terrestrial is the commercials. If you're beholden to twenty minutes of commercials per hour, you're going to lose in the future, which is so much more an on demand world. Digital advertising looks different, it's embedded, it consumes less time. Newspapers were dependent upon advertising, it moved away and newspapers died. Radio and television are just a couple of changes behind, the public will not tolerate this commercial load.

CONCERTS

Humanity will be king. Kanye cancels tour dates because his screen is broken, he's putting on an extravaganza when more and more people will be looking for honest performance in an increasingly digital world.

He who can play and perform live and write will win in the future. It's a return to basics. A reaction to today's over processed / fake world.

MAJOR LABELS

He who controls talent wins. It doesn't have to be the major labels. But since no one else was willing to put their money into artist development, the labels have sustained, they've been pulled slowly into the future, but they're here.

Artist development...don't equate it with multiple albums, which is an admirable quality, equate it with the spend. Managers are loath to spend. Institutions are loath to spend on art, where you can easily lose it all.

If you want to dominate in the artistic field in the future, you've got to spend.

That's what makes a successful concert promoter. Someone who's willing to lay their money on the line.

First you start with the money.

Then it's about insight and inefficiencies.

If you've got no money to spend, you're not in the game.

If you control no major talent, your opinion is not listened to, no matter how brilliant it might be.

CUSTOMERS

Demand full access 24/7 at a low price. Scarcity is history. As are high prices for content. Wireless companies drove down the price of access, content companies were swept along the way. Stop agitating for higher prices. Just try to get a larger piece of the pie.

Music a huge pie. Don't complain, dive in.

CUSTOMERS 2

Want to bring their digital lifestyle to music.

Which means they want to do everything on their handheld. They want to listen to music, buy concert tickets and interact with acts. And they want to employ their mobiles at the show. Expect wireless in all venues (it's already penetrated the NFL), and gamification.

You will earn points for going to the show. There will be a competition with rewards. He who goes most will get a free pass, stuff like that.

It's all about loyalty. Something the industry has done a poor job of leveraging.

Acts will know who their fans are. They will be incentivized to remain loyal. He who controls the customer data wins.

It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Right

It takes two to make a thing go right and it takes one bad ass ride to make it out of sight. That song lyric and edit on our end must ring a bell. It serves as a pleasant reminder about social media and communication coming together from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Every now and then while following our traffic reports, we can view where our imagery and links are being shared. Many times it is just a vast amount of click throughs with folks perusing content and media, but sometimes our imagery is grouped amongst a larger collective and tends to feel vastly different. 

I was following some of our traffic from Flickr and found Josh of Wrench Works' bike being featured on a blog page called Fishnet and High Heels. Look at the photo below and you will see one clean ol' Shovelhead with some vintage visible gas pumps, but when placed next to some gorgeous ladies a whole visage emerges. Beauty is everywhere...

Wrench Works' Josh Siler's sexy shovelhead

Super high heels and fishnets

Classic hot rod and a gorgeous woman

Tennessee whiskey and a beautiful lady

Circle track racing and one wild ride

A slice of heaven

Check out http://fishnetandhighheels.tumblr.com/

Will Myspace Re-Emerge Or Do We Already Have Enough Social Networks?

From a band perspective, MySpace was indeed a great tool. One of the biggest gripes, is that they tried to offer way too much and all of the features became clouded in the excess garbage offered. If they would have stuck to being a music outlet and focused on their strengths, maybe the site could still be relevant. With Justin Timberlake and other rich folks putting a flag in the sand and relaunching MySpace, we kinda feel as if it's just been forgotten about. This is sort of like the dilemma that faces the department stores Sears and JCPenny. As fast as brands grow and in our ADD riddled and over saturated minds, if you don't keep the crowds coming back for more and lose them, chances might be, they are never coming back.

Link to original post on Mashable.com

Fifteen months after its acquisition by Specific Media, we’re finally getting a sneak peek at the new MySpace.

Justin Timberlake — who took an ownership stake in the new MySpace — tweeted a link to a video previewing the new service.

THIS IS MYSPACE vimeo.com/myspace/the-ne‚Ķ #NEWMYSPACE— Justin Timberlake(@jtimberlake) September 24, 2012

Although Timberlake and members of the MySpace team were at CES 2012, most of the discussion was about a partnership with Panasonic and not the rebirth of the new service.
The video points to a new MySpace URL, New.MySpace.com, where users can give their email address for an invite to the new service.

What Is the New MySpace

So what is the new MySpace? The video overview doesn’t go into a lot of detail, but this is what we can ascertain so far:

• Users log in with Facebook or Twitter and can then choose to bring photos or other information with them.
• Status updates look similar to the mobile app Path, with photos largely displayed and user comments showing up underneath.
• There is a large music component the service, which includes a way to browse albums, find popular songs and artists and more.

The music component is interesting — especially since this was historically always one of MySpace’s strong suits. What is less clear is if MySpace is building its own music service or if it has partnered with a provider such as Spotify, Rdio or Rhapsody.

The interface looks clean and attractive — but obviously we’ll have to wait for the beta launch to understand more about how this works.

Does the MySpace Brand Mean Anything?

The biggest question I have about the new MySpace is whether or not the brand is worth anything. I’ve argued in the past that the biggest asset of MySpace is also its biggest liability.

What the new owners will have to do — celebrity investor or not — is prove to users why this MySpace is worth a user’s time.

Is Artists.MTV, Trying To Reinvent Music Platform, From Mashable.com

Alright, hold the phone, is this gonna actually work? Ok, we don't want to come off as pessimistic, but is MTV really trying to get back into music programming, by creating a new music discovery platform directly related to social media? Will be quite interested to see how all of this unfolds as there are a plethora of companies vying to be the dominating force in social networking when it comes to the music industry. 

One aspect that is quite compelling and worth the research is for upcoming bands to be only a few clicks away from much larger acts, as you can create your own band page within the site. These close encounters could really help to gain exposure for the multitudes of bands looking for their big break or for fans to find them through simply cruising the site. 

Go to original article on Mashable.com

Dive into Artists.MTV and request an invite



"When you hear a new band and you want to know more about them, the first place you go is probably Google. But searching for them yields a glut of disconnected information. You want to hear their music. You want to see if they use social media. Maybe you want to see them on tour or actually buy something to support them. And you never know if you’re going to find that all in one place.

Official band websites are often lacking, and fail to link between different platforms. You need a hub — something that connects things like Twitter, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud in on place. You specifically don’t want to have to conduct multiple Google searches just to find out if this band even uses those services.

This is a problem for both casual and diehard music fans, and that’s where Viacom thinks it has a big solution. That solution is Artists.MTV, a service which Viacom hopes will be artist-driven and which will replace artist pages on MTV.com beginning today.

Dermot McCormack, EVP of Digital for Viacom Music & Logo Group, believes that this solution specifically addresses what he calls the “post-Myspace world.”

“No one had stepped into that space to provide quality, trusted information around the artists you love, curated in a loving way,” he said. “We saw a need in the space and we thought we had the brand, the assets, and the temperament to do it.”

More than simply revamping the artist page — which in the past would have been controlled, owned, and managed by MTV — the new platform offers artists the opportunity to claim their page, or in the case of independent or emerging bands to create their own. From there, they are offered customization options, including the ability to create a Facebook Timeline-like cover photo.


Perhaps most impressive is that Artists.MTV is more than just an opportunity for bands to play in MTV’s sandbox. If you’re an established artist with MTV content to your name, it appears on your artist page. For artists with a long history tied to MTV, there’s even content from the early days, like this 1984 footage of a very young Madonna. Some early video content is being digitized for the first time ever.

Get More:
Madonna, Music News

But if a band has never had any MTV exposure, it can still sign up and populate its page with its own content. This is an important development for MTV. In conversation with McCormack, he consistently talked about MTV’s need to empower and give back to artists. The best way to do that is to make the platform open to anyone, which they’ve done. They’ve populated the database with one million artists, some of which they worked with in advance, like Band of Horses, to get their page populated. Others, from huge artists like Lady Gaga to smaller, independent acts will have the opportunity to “claim” their page starting on Sept. 6.

Down the line, there are various opportunities for artists to make money off their page, which is huge. While anyone will have the opportunity to promote their music via iTunes, Bandcamp, or any other vendor of their choosing, there will also be an ad revenue share for artists once the platform exits its beta period. While details of this have yet to be made available, this means artists will have the opportunity to make money directly via their MTV page — a very important step toward the empowerment that McCormack touted.

In order for that to be a success, both artists and fans will need to adopt the platform as a go-to music option. MTV appears to be ready for them. Whether or not they are willing to accept MTV as the middleman between them is what remains to be seen."

Which Do Ya Like Better, Google+ Or Instagram...

Mashable continues to have some of the best news reporting and breaking stories when it comes down to technology, social media and especially areas for which we as a whole, can use new tools to help leverage our online presence.

So you want to grow your band's following online or maybe even your own personal agenda, well here is what to do. Engage potential fans and friends every single day with pertinent information to make them feel much more involved with the growth of ideas. The way things are moving in a social function is that we all are in some form of engagement acting as voyeurs. We watch and enjoy others lives and activities from afar yet feel close to them due to how open the internet has made our lives.

Get off your lazy asses and make life happen, the world is waiting to view it 24/7.

Link to original article on Mashable.com

"Was Instagram worth $1 billion? Will Google+ ever compete or beat Facebook?

Shiv Singh, global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages and author of Social Media Marketing for Dummies, shared his thoughts on those trendy questions and more during his recent visit to Mashable to unveil Pepsi’s new celebrity-infused “Live for Now” global ad campaign and “Pulse” digital dashboard.

In a 10-minute interview with Mashable‘s editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff, Singh commented about the launch of Google+, Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, avoiding digital marketing mistakes, establishing a brand voice and creating a Twitter list for “regular people.”

Here are some highlights from the video above:

• On Google+ (7:20-8:48): “I have immense respect for Google. … But I think they really messed up the launch of Google+. … They launched it as a social network whereas it’s something else and different to a social network. … They confused their user base.”
• On Instagram (8:50-10:00): “I think Instagram was worth $1 billion because if Facebook did not get it Google would have picked it up or Apple would have picked it up or Microsoft would have picked it up and they would have been able to use it to throw darts at Facebook. … The service itself I do think it’s phenomenal.”
• On integrating social media with marketing initiatives (0:33-2:04): “Social media is like air. It should flow through anything and everything and completely.”
• On brands and celebrities using social media: (2:35-3:27): “More than the brands, it’s some celebrities that are harnessing social media. … A good example is Sofia Vergara from Modern Family. The way she connects with her followers on Twitter is so in sync with who she is that it’s like a drug. … I just want to follow her more and more and more.”

Sofia Vergara - The hottest woman on TV and maybe the world

How Musicians Used Facebook in 2011

Some of yall may have noticed on a few of the band pages on Facebook a particular looking music player on the landing. You know, the one with the cool graphics and enables you to play the music and buy it or also pass it along. Well, that player is called RootMusic and we currently use it on a few of the pages we help to maintain. Not only is it a superior choice over ReverbNation but you can customize the graphics and the features are far more vast. 

To really get the app working the best way, also build out a SoundCloud page for your music to be delivered from. With these two apps working together you can direct your music to the masses far easier and let the end user also listen and share or even better yet, repost into their blogs. Dig more into the article below to find out how other bands are using RootMusic to their advantage.

Rusty Knuckles Facebook page using the RootMusic Player

Link to RootMusic to add to your Facebook Page

At RootMusic we’re constantly asking ourselves how we can give the most value to musicians through providing tools, guidance, support, and today we want to give you information. We’ve been tracking the Top 250 Musicians on Facebook, looking at best practices and strategies to be successful on the Platform. In most cases, these are musicians that have teams of people working with them and making their Facebook presence really effective, so we’d like to share with you what they’re doing that has worked for them over the past year.

Imagine handing out fliers to 10,000 people every day, starting a conversation with each person, letting each one listen to a few of your songs, and telling them about your upcoming show. With Facebook, you can have the same effect with just a few clicks of the mouse. We’ve put together this Infographic to provide a picture of what the most popular artists are doing with Music on Facebook.

Click on the image below to see the hi-res version, and read after the image to see some additional info and takeaways:

RootMusic has a phenomenal music app, see who is using it

The important points to takeaway from this is that there is a huge active audience of music fans on Facebook, and a large part of your success comes down to how to properly engage those fans. Even just posting updates a few times a week or more on your Facebook Page can make a big impact and lead to success in other areas. Actively posting and engaging your fans leads to more people talking about you, leads to more new fans, leads to more people at your show, leads to more cash in your pocket, leads to a sustainable career as a musician.
More info to takeaway:

• The Music category is extremely popular on Facebook, and the amount of people following musicians is massive! Of the top 1000 pages on the platform, the most common type of Page are those of musicians and bands. Over 2 billion Likes are spread across the Top 250 most popular artists we tracked
• More and more artists are using Facebook to engage with fans like never before, especially when on tour. We found that, of the artists we tracked that are currently on tour, 78% use Facebook as one of their main platforms to share that content with their fans.
• Most of the top artists on Facebook are posting new content and messages for their fans at least once a week. In fact, 88% of the top 250 Artists are posting at least once a week on their Page. This is important, as the more that your fans Comment, Like and Share your posts, the higher your Facebook “EdgeRank”, meaning the more often Facebook’s system will display your page’s content in News Feeds.
• Most artists use Facebook to share music and tour dates with their fans. 89% of Artists are using some sort of Music App like BandPage to share their tracks and tour dates.

We believe in helping every musician be successful, and today Social Media can be a very effective part of that. We hope that you can use some of this information to grow your career using Facebook.
Comment below with your feedback on the infographic, as we’ll be making more in the future. Also, let us know if there are any nifty infographics or subjects that you’d like to learn more about next!

Shooter Jennings Top Albums Of 2011

Sirius XM Radio is an amazing medium for all the music we enjoy. In a few clicks we can pop on any station we enjoy and hear quite the variety of music to which we leave going all day. As soon as we started to hear Shooter playing Hellbound Glory on the outlaw country channel we knew many folks far and wide would really tune into the sound of Reno's finest. 

As we know it, terrestrial radio or FM is for the most part dead. Our local rock station has fired all of its DJ's and we have heard far better playlists on college stations for years rather than what is considered mainstream. When bands ask where their music can be heard, the best place I want to tell them is live. Online radio is just one format but its flat and lacks the pure connection that live shows have with an audience. Bands now have to go full circle and take their music into the venues and clubs to win fans one by one and use social media as just another tool, not the be all end all.

We thank folks such as Shooter Jennings for his continual promotion of great bands such as Hellbound Glory and cluing his listeners in to their music. Below is his write up on Hellbound Glory's, Damaged Goods as one of his top ten picks of 2011.

Link to original article over on MoonRunners

Hellbound Glory - Bastard Child by RustyKnuckles

Shooter Jennings votes for Hellbound Glory as one his top albums for 2011

"As for Hellbound Glory, well then right after I'd gotten comfortable with Scott's record, in comes "Damaged Goods". Like a Merle Haggard record for the apocalypse. This record is proof why Leroy Virgil will transcend the underground scene based on his writing alone. It wouldn't surprise me if this dude's songs were being covered by contemporary country artists in the years to come. The danger he exudes in his words and the inventiveness and smarts when it comes to writing traditional country music with a twist of the ugly modern world gives Mr. Virgil quite the leg up on most. Plus he's got just enough Hank Jr. to appeal to the fans of the photocopy-of-a-photocopy-of-a-photocopy of Hank Jr guys that are currently topping the charts.  Either way, the band rules, the singer has a great voice and the songs are top shelf. I'd advise both of these albums as MUST-HAVE-STOCKING-STUFFERS." - Shooter Jennings

How Spotify Works: Pay The Majors, Use P2P Technology

We have been professing our love about Spotify for a few months now but if you have been interested in checking out the service and wondering just how they operate, read the article below.The amount of choices on the service leave us scratching out brain thinkin' on new songs to listen to and its with the plethora of offerings that we find the most enjoyment. Hell if you want to dive into Chaupin or Bach or move into country or metal, its all a few clicks away.

Link to original article over on NPR.org 

Ken Parks, head of Spotify's New York office: "With a streaming service like Spotify that gives you access to everything in the world instantaneously, those distinctions between ownership and access tend to disappear."

If you've ever tried listening to music on a web site, you've probably had the experience of waiting ... and waiting ... for a song to start. The cloud music service Spotify thinks it's found a way around to get music to your computer faster; employing some of the same technology the music industry has been fighting against for years.

One of the first things you notice about Spotify is how quickly it starts playing the song you want to hear — even if it's not already stored on your computer. There's no wait for buffering or downloading. Spotify feels, in a word, instant.

John Pavley, Spotify's VP of engineering, says, "We're set up so that we can deliver the music with a meantime average of 285 milliseconds. Which is, like, super-fast."

That number he mentioned — 285 milliseconds — may sound arbitrary. But Charlie Hellman, director of product development for Spotify, says it's not. According to Hellman, "The human perception of instant — if you hit a button that's tangible in the world — is something like 250 milliseconds. By bringing the time to play on our service down to about 285 milliseconds, the perception is that you already have the file on your computer — that it's instant."

Spotify launched in Europe three years ago, and in the U.S. this past August. The basic idea behind the company isn't brand new. Music streaming services — sites where you pay a monthly fee for access to zillions of songs — have been around for a decade. But they've never broken through to a mass market.

 

Eliot Van Buskirk, who writes about music technology for Wired and Evolver.fm, says Spotify might. "To an extent, Spotify is basically like other services we've had," Van Buskirk says. "But the difference is, it has, I think, reduced the friction for people trying this stuff out. And that was one of the first things I noticed: it's just impossibly fast."

Spotify hopes to use that speed to lure consumers to the free, advertising-supported version of its service — then convince them to pay a monthly fee to use Spotify on their phones and mobile devices. Its target audience is the millions of people who continue to download music for free from peer-to-peer networks.

"The problem with the environment when Spotify launched the service over three years ago is that the illegal alternatives were better, simply better than the legal ones," says Ken Parks, head of Spotify's New York office.

Parks says Spotify is trying to build a service in which creators get paid, but the user's experience doesn't suffer. "With a streaming service like Spotify that gives you access to everything in the world instantaneously," says Parks, "those distinctions between ownership and access tend to disappear."

To make this happen, Spotify borrows a few tricks from the peer-to-peer networks. Instead of downloading a single song file from its own server to you, Spotify searches for copies of the song wherever it can find them, including the computers of other Spotify users.

"Behind the scenes while the music is playing, we're grabbing it from wherever we can," says Pavley. "You can't interact with the P2P network, it's just a little facility that we use to move things along very quickly."

Before he came to Spotify Pavley was actually VP of engineering for Limewire, a popular peer-to-peer network. Unlike the P2Ps it's trying to replace, Spotify actually has licensing deals with the major record labels. And in September the company announced a deal with Facebook. Van Buskirk says that allows Facebook users to automatically share the songs they're listening to via Spotify.

"It gets closer and closer to that original Napster feeling," he says. "'What do my friends have? Can I have that?' And now it's like, 'Yes, you can.' And there's a whole mechanism for finding out what they have that you're already using anyway."

But Van Buskirk says Spotify's deals with the major record labels didn't come cheap. Spotify says it has more than 2 million paying users worldwide — although the company declined to discuss how many of them are in the U.S. Van Buskirk, and others, think the company will have to sign up a lot more if it's going to make a profit.

Communicate Effectively Through Social Media

Do yourself a favor and get over to Saving Country Music or read the full article right here. Triggerman did a fantastic writeup on social media and about using your own website, facebook, twitter, etc correctly. Unless you are completely unplugged from the grid and or don't really have any interests in social media, we are all on some form of website linking us to others for communication. If you are in a band, get yourselves set up correctly to be able to communicate effectively. Magazines are being phased out along with their indepth coverage compared to how quickly a website can give you a live feed of updates. Make the future yours and put efforts into communications that will let you to be found for the right reasons. If fans cannot find your band, don't blame the club, record label or promoters for not doing their job. It starts with the bands first and foremost.

Full article on Saving Country Music

What seems to be at the top of everyone’s mind on this 21st day of September, 2011 is the recent reconfiguration of the Facebook interface. I can tell it’s top of mind, because people’s bitch rants about the change is what occupies every one of the top 20 slots in my Facebook news stream, and from what I understand, what you see at the top of your news stream is based mainly on popularity.

Many folks are opining this is the demise of Facebook, and are fleeing to Google+. The fact is Facebook is already in rapid decline, and was even before Google+ was launched in full force. After years of record growth, including adding at least 20 million users per month over the previous year, Facebook actually lost users in May 2011, almost 6 million users, with another 1.5 million lost in Canada (read the full report). This recent reconfiguration may help escalate the Facebook decline, but it is not the cause, it was a reaction to the fear that Facebook was dying already. Even if Facebook can make it through this redesign, there is a good chance it is still doomed.

The decline of Facebook has little to do with the interface, and more to do with the drama that Facebook was scientifically engineered to create and disseminate. That was Google+’s gamble, and their ace-in-the-hole with their idea of ‘circles’ that keep information within certain groups of contacts. If Google+ wins out over Facebook eventually, these ‘circles’ will be the reason.

But both interfaces are rating what you see based on popularity, the same exact system in Nashville, New York, and LA that keeps the robust musical talent in independent circles down, while the established, mainstream acts stay afloat despite talent shortfalls. The simple fact is, since the decline of the original MySpace, the ability for artists and fans to interact and share information has been devolving. Facebook was never a viable alternative to the artist tools MySpace offered, the most important of which was the MySpace bulletin board, which was a real-time way to post and share information, that did not use some obscure formula based on popularity that chose who saw what. If you posting something, all of your friends saw it.

Twitter is the only major social networking tool available for artists and fans that does not run your information through a third-party judgement filter that decides who gets to see what, and when. It simply aggregates in a timeline bits of information from people you choose to follow, without hiding or prioritizing anything. Its character restriction limits its functionality for certain things, but at the same time, also increases its potency for others.

Listen to me, and listen good. There is nothing more important, and no bigger challenge in music right now that the ability for artists and their fans to communicate. This takes effort on everybody’s part. Lessons must be learned from the death of MySpace on how to navigate the destruction of a social network without losing the network itself. Below are some suggestions of how handle the very real possibility of the death of Facebook. Most are for bands, because they drive the boat, but fans can can help themselves and the bands by understanding how they disseminate information, and making sure they put themselves in the right channels to receive it.

Bands – Get Your Own Website

Don’t just jump to Google+ and call it good, and don’t rely on the whims of the pliable American public to afford you a viable vehicle for getting information out about your music. Every band needs a website. Even a business card website with basic information is better than nothing, but there is no better investment a band can make than a fully functional website that offers information about the band, music samples, videos, and most importantly, a blog or news feature, show calendar, and an email signup list.

Right now the biggest issue facing touring bands is the dissemination of tour dates. I cannot put into words how dumbfounded I am that there are dozens of bands out on tour right now, with no place to find their dates, mainly because many social networks make it difficult to impossible to post them.
And when you have a big announcement to make, (i.e. a new album, or an upcoming tour) don’t post that announcement on Facebook or Google+, post it on your website, and then link to it from all your social networking properties, and then send an email to your signup list. Putting original info out on social networks puts an extra layer between your information and search engines, while links on social network sites that lead to a centralized place actually help the search engines find it. Think of your website as the mother brain, with all the other sites as satellite properties.

Also understand that certain social network platforms are better for certain information than others. Work to understand what works best for you, and your followers. For example, it is probably best to post a big tour announcement through your website. But each night of the tour, announce where you will be through Twitter. Google+ might be better for personal quips or stories from the road, and pictures and video. And understand the more you post through any format in a 24 hour period, the less potency each post has. If you post something on Facebook or Google+, and then post something else an hour later, there a good chance most folks won’t see your first post at all in their news feed, that is unless the first post is more popular, then they won’t see the second. Twitter is the only format that you can be assured all your posts are accessible, but if you tweet 20 times a day, it is less likely each post will get read than if you post only 2.

And to the fans: Do your part by signing up for your favorite band’s email lists, at shows and online. We all want to stay in touch, and we all want to get information as easily as possible. We can do that through a social network’s news stream, or we can also do that through our email Inbox, which doesn’t change at the whims of some hoodie and sandals-wearing billionaire running a social engineering experiment, and your email is a place you already visit daily anyway.

Don’t Give Up on Any Social Network Too Early

We may be able to get a firm grasp on what the social networking landscape is right now, but it can change in a matter of days, Facebook just proved that. Anybody who tells you they know where social networking is going is full of it; nobody does. Who knows, Google+ could tank, and Facebook could recover. Twitter could lose it’s compass, and MySpace, now owned by Justin Timberlake, could make a big comeback. Jumping from one social network site to another is foolish. Be in as many places as you can. Spread your information out like a bad rash, and don’t give up on any social network until it is absolutely hopeless.

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Specific to savingcountrymusic.com:
We have created many tools here for artists and fans to help keep everyone connected in the post-MySpace era. The more we all utilize these tools, the better they will work. We have an active and updated Calendar that covers all the appearances by core SCM bands. The SCM News Feed in the top right corner of every page is updated 24 hours a day, in real time to try to keep everyone connected on news. For especially big news and a weekly newsletter, you can make sure your on the SCM email list, and don’t forget the message board, where you can take control and post whatever you think folks need to see, and then link to it through social networks.