Despite desperate attempts to keep it alive, the era of big music labels has been dead and rotting for a long time.
Topspin Media, a just-launched start-up led by the former GM of Yahoo Music, wants to throw some dirt on its grave. The Santa Monica, CA, company builds tools that enable musicians to market themselves and distribute their music directly to fans — no middleman involved.
This concept is not new, but Topspin’s timing is right: Last year, Radiohead famously rattled the old guard by ditching its label, selling its newest album online and letting fans pay whatever they felt like paying.
Radiohead is banned in our office as it tends to bring the mood down, but sometimes we like to chortle about how young Thom Yorke was a child prodigy kept locked in a cupboard (which is kinda what his voice sounds like when he sings) and also a thumb. Young Thumb Yorke.
‘Radiohead is the poster child for web distribution and an autonomous strategy for controlling one’s own destiny (while still making money) as an artist in this day and age. So when we heard about th latest Radiohead “In Rainbows” widget, powered by Clearspring, we decided to check it out.
The widget contains an entire menu of video and music content, along with tour dates, news articles, and a link to purchase the album. We’ve seen a few companies launch similar music widgets for artists, with some variants such as maps for tour dates, etc.
The Radiohead widget currently lacks interactivity for the end user, otherwise it would be a bit more like Splashcast’s widget offering, which has also been taking advantage of the open platforms across networks like Facebook and MySpace.
But given Clearspring’s other efforts to move forward in the widget space, having launched an ad network and other tools for web publishers to extend widgetizing content offerings, what we’re seeing is a standardization of widget features that are widely being adopted by musicians, combining viral sharing tools, self-promotion and easy access to content that can be monetized.’
A little more interactivity please Thom & Co and the ability to upload our fellow Fat dieters, Bon Bon’s really rather good video to Numb.
Q: “How are G-Unit Records doing in these times of file-sharing?
“Not so good….The advances in technology impacts everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music.”
“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”
“A young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”
“The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. Read the rest of this entry »
Artist microsites are a necessary facet of any album PR campaign and often a creative example of design virality, sites created to promote debate on design forums and amongst the existent fan base.
Arcade Fire’s, Neon Bible site is great example of clean, engaging functionality, a visual feast and a little hypnotic…’ must buy album, duh duh…’.
A sleepless night spent sweeping imaginary spiders from beneath my 2 year olds bed on Friday led to an early night on Saturday where, as the wife snored, I was shocked to find myself transfixed by ITV’s The Kylie Show. Part PopPorn Lite, part sketchy sketch show, one song had me reaching for my You Tube the following morning.
So I thought I’d use this unreleased track as an exercise in how to capitalise on the new methods of musical promotion out there and look at a few of the areas where technology and sequins combine: Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook is using it’s virtual spy planes and blanket ruling that the phrase ‘privacy issues’ must never be raised at Facesoft Towers to develop Facebook Music and steal the sampled thunder from MySpace.
Here’s how it works:
Major and independent label artists and will register their sub-domain name through Facebook. Like “www.facebook.com/insertbandnamehere” for example.
On this page Facebook users will be allowed to become “fans” of the artist and connect to the media hosted on the “artist page.”
In the first generation of Facebook Music “fans” will be allowed to listen to artist’s music, watch videos, upload pictures, add music to their page, receive tour information and interact with other fans. Read the rest of this entry »
Er yeah it does, some London scientificos working for Canadians say so:
‘The two researchers at the University of London that conducted the study for the Canadian Government estimated that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is actually an increase in music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year.’ (via Mashable)
0.44 of a CD = Less than half a Radiohead album, all of the Westlife catalogue and a night in a Dublin Hotel, 3 of Girl’s Aloud (any 3) a Hummer limo and a lingerie photo shoot or Lily Allen and a packet of Marlboro Lights.
I recently got talking to one of the founders of a popular music site, who shall remain nameless. They have an all you can eat monthly subscription business model, part of which is a royalty divided amongst the music publishers they have deals with according to the volume of sales. It works, it’s successful and though occasionally unlicensed music will creep into the inventory, Read the rest of this entry »
‘Daft Punk, the French electronic duo known for making music that scares your cat and using robots for live shows, are being hip again. This time, they’ve decided to promote their new live album, Alive, with an embeddable widget, which allows visitors to listen to previews of new tracks, buy the single, read Daft Punk’s biography, read the newsletter, and see a photo gallery of the band.
The widget below is yet another proof that “standard” promotional tools are giving way to web based promotion and social networking. And, since the creation of such a widget costs next to nothing, we expect to see more and more bands take this route and move much of their marketing activities online.’ (via Mashable)
It’s Friday and normally Friday posts are lite hearted web porn lite, but I uncovered this story from the 2500 posts I’ve yet to read through in my RSS reader. At Fat Man Towers we’ve been binge eating and developing widget concepts as promotional tools so this is sweet electro funk to our ears. The widget sphere is open for innovation and savvy content creators and brands should be looking to provide ‘value’ widgets, micro applications that people can share, or to return to a familiar theme, appvertising made portable.
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