Next San Francisco Music Tech Summit Announced

Brian Zisk and his wife Shoshana will produce and host the third SanFran Music Tech Summit of 2008 on Monday, October 20. Three in one year - that's impressive! If you missed the first two, don't miss this one, as it's an outstanding event, and I'm guessing it will be the last one until 2009. I attended the second one in May and it exceeded my expectations. Not only were there great panel discussions, but the summit was an ideal size for interacting with music tech folks from across the country. I'll be attending this one as well; hope to see you there!

Here are a few details:

Monday, October 20, 2008
9:00am - 8:00pm
Hotel Kabuki
San Francisco, CA

Confirmed panelists so far include:
Dave Allen: Nemo Designs / Pampelmoose Blog and Label / Ex-Gang of Four Bass Player
Bob Heyman: Mediasmith, Chief Search Officer
Steve Jang: imeem, CMO & Head of Business Development
Ethan Kaplan: Warner Music Technology, VP
Rachel Masters: Ning, VP of Strategic Relationships
Jack Moffit: Speeqe, CEO / Chesspark, CEO & Lead Developer / IceCast Streaming Media Server, Creator / Xiph Foundation, Co-Founder
Sean O'Connell: Music Allies, Founder & CEO
Dave Ulmer: Motorola, Sr. Director Multimedia Products and Services
Carnet William: Sprout, Co-Founder & CEO
Brian Zisk: SanFran Music Tech Summit, Executive Producer / Future of Music Coalition, Technologies Director

You can purchase discounted passes now through August 8, so I would go ahead and register, as the event is likely to sell out early this time. For more information, visit their site.

Live Music Archive Revisited

Over the weekend, I re-explored archive.org and their Live Music Archive for the first time in over a year. I was impressed with some of the changes they've incorporated through their integration with etree.org (a lossless live show repository I've been using since 2000). For example, you can now stream most live concerts that have been uploaded, or even embed them on your site. That's a great free widget for bands trying to build a following, as you can introduce potential new fans to your live music directly on your blog with ease. Here's an example of a show from Gomez:



Your fans can also sign-up to receive RSS alerts for newly added recordings of your live shows by other fans. Here's an example for Ween (located under their photo). It's also a great way to see what your fans think about your live shows, like Jack Johnson's recent performance at Bonnaroo (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

There has certainly been a great deal of discussion about free music and the potential benefits it has on generating new listeners and larger audience attendance. For some bands, it does seem to have a positive impact, for others, little to none. So my only suggestion to Archive is that they allow an option for bands to sell their downloads if they like. But until that happens, Maybe the Live Music Archive is where you allow your fans to freely exchange your live shows, but not your studio work or commercial recordings - there are scores of bands on Archive doing just that. Not to mention, most recordings are in high-quality lossless formats like SHN or FLAC, even 24-bit FLAC, and most bands have MP3 files as well, so this should suit everyone from the general music enthusiast to the audiophile. However, with any music repository, there are some potential licensing issues to consider, so you may want to seek guidance from an attorney first.

To get started allowing your fans to record and upload your live shows, just send archive.org an email. To learn how to upload music, go here, or if you have additional questions check out their FAQ.

Separately, from a consumer's perspective, there are literally thousands of live shows from hundreds of bands you can download. Chances are, one of your favorite artists has a show there for you to download.

Top Rockstar Set to Launch September 1st

There's a new music contest about to launch called Top Rockstar. Beginning September 1, Top Rockstar will award cash prizes of up to $5,000 for the top artist each month in each of their genres. Additionally, every six months, one of the previous monthly winners will be selected as the overall Top Rockstar and will win up to $100,000. That's some serious cash!

Here's how it works: You simply create an artist profile and upload your music, videos, bio etc. The Top Rockstar community will then vote for the winner in each genre, each month, as well as the overall winner every 6 months.

Sounds interesting, especially given the amount of cash they're planning on awarding to artists, so I've got a few questions:

1. What are the genres? How were they determined?
2. What are the rules, as they're not published yet? Are there any limitations? Do you have to be based in the United States? Are there any fees required to participate?
3. Can an artist win more than once during a one year period?
4. Is the Top Rockstar contest open to all artists? If not, what are the restrictions?
5. What are some of the tactics Top Rockstar will deploy to prevent voting fraud?
6. How does Top Rockstar make money?

I've also got an email out to the founders and hope to schedule a call with them next week. As soon as I know more information, I'll publish a follow-up post. In the meantime, you may want to signup for their email list to make sure you're included in their initial competition.

MixMatchMusic: Collaborate, Mix, Repeat

Most everyone knows about the success Radiohead had when they allowed their fans to create remixes of Nude. Even Terry McBride of Nettwerk Music recently suggested the importance of creating this kind of artist/fan interaction to not only develop one's audience base, but also create new and unpredictable sounds never heard before, which in-turn could equal even more listeners. What if you too could grow your fan community by allowing them to easily create and share remixes of your music....

MixMatchMusic is going to help you do just that starting this fall by providing the means for musicians to upload recorded stems, loops and/or phrases, and utilize an online sequencer with social networking features to share, exchange, collaborate and create music with people from all around the world. Imagine having parts of your songs remixed with unique rhythms, beats and instruments indigenous to a country thousands of miles away.

While there are already a couple of companies providing a similar service like ejamming, MixMatchMusic has created an elegant system with a unique monetization model, but I can't say more than that, as they're currently in private beta. However, I'm testing the service and will post a full review when the company is ready to move forward with a public beta. Founded by musicians Charles Feinn and Alan Khalfin, Silicon Valley based MixMatchMusic is a privately funded company.

Also, MixMatchMusic created a survey last week to understand how musicians from around the world collaborate online. If you haven't had a chance to participate, please take a moment to respond as it takes less than 5 minutes and the data collected will be used to help them refine their offering.

5 Things StumbleAudio is Doing Right

While another music recommendation app may not be interesting, StumbleAudio is doing at least 5 things right that their competitors should take note of:

• StumbleAudio does not require you to register and/or login to listen to music. With so many sites to test, this is a huge plus.
• There is no limit as to how many songs you can skip when listening to music.
• If you find an artist you like, you can listen to every song available from that artist
• The site is simple and fast, enough said.
• They're focused on indie music, and they're apparently paying indie artists when their music is played on StumbleAudio - how much, I do not know. Maybe someone from StumbleAudio will respond to this post and provide us with some details.

As an added bonus, their site is ad free, at least for now. StumbleAudio has plenty of product/technical challenges ahead, not to mention the music recommendation space is already crowded, so it will be interesting to see how they differentiate themselves and monetize their offering.

8th Annual Independent Music Awards Reminder

Don't forget to submit your music to the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards. IMA winners will receive yearlong print, broadcast, online promotion and distribution, as well as performance opportunities through arrangements established with IMA sponsors including: eMusic, PureVolume, CMJ Music Marathon, broadcasters ManiaTV, The StreamTV, HM Magazine, Venus Zine, Planetary Group radio promotions, Hip Video music video promoter, MediaGuide; Burnside Distribution, and the Coalition of Independent Music Stores.

Music categories include: Alt. Country, Americana, Blues, Punk, Children’s Music, Contemporary Christian, Country, Cover Song, Dance/Electronica, Folk/Singer-Songwriter, Gospel, Holy Hip Hop, Hard Rock/Metal, Jazz, Latin, Live Performance, New Age, Pop/Rock, R&B, Rap/Hip-Hop, Social Action, Song Used in Film, TV, Gaming and/or Multimedia, World Fusion and World Traditional.

Submit your music via this application or online via SonicBids. Entries must be postmarked by midnight Friday August 1, 2008, and you may submit as many entries as you like. For more information, go here. Please visit IMA for rules and eligibility.

The Advance Guard's take on DIY, Social Media, Marketing, Podcasts and more

Recently, The Advance Guard worked with scores of key music bloggers to promote the New American Music Union, a music festival sponsored by  American Eagle Outfitters (our ticket give away was here). I thought this was a clever way of promoting an event, so I reached out to C.C. Chapman, Co-Founder of The Advance Guard and founder of Accident Hash, a Boston based music podshow to get his thoughts on DIY marketing for indie musicians and bands.

Here's what C.C. had to say:

Question: 1) With all of the free DIY marketing/promotional content, and music being generated by indie artists, what are some examples of online tactics an artist and/or band can deploy to rise above the noise?

While the phrase "word of mouth" gets thrown around constantly these days, when it comes to music I still think it is the #1 way people discover new music. The key thing is to leverage your fan base whenever possible. Give them tools to help spread the word. Constantly contact them and talk WITH them and never AT them. Encourage them to share and reward the really passionate ones.

Podcasts and other online media are other great ways as well. Work with content producers so that they know they can use your music. If your song gets played in a video that becomes popular that can help you out in amazing ways. Always ask for links and attribution so that people can find you and get more.

And insure you have a solid website with contact information and lots of links on it. You want it to be as easy as possible for people to learn more about you and instantly listen to the music. Don't make it hard or required to purchase a track in order for someone to check out your music.

Question: 2) Are paid music promotions via Facebook or Izea for example, an effective way at marketing music? If so, why? If not, why? What are the pros and cons? What are the challenges?

It depends on if the promotion is a good one or not. I recently saw an ad pop up on Facebook for an indie artist. I'm assuming it showed up based on my self identified favorite artists. I clicked on it and ended up listening to a couple of tracks. It wasn't right for me, but I bet it will be for some others.

Music is a tough thing because while everyone loves it, you never know who is going to love what you are promoting. So you have to cast a very wide net and a focused one at the same time. What I mean is that you obviously want to focus on the people or groups that you think would be most interested in what you are promoting. But, then you've also got to cast it out to a more general audience as well because you don't know what might click with someone.

The thing to keep in mind is that you can have the biggest budget in the world and if the program isn't solid and appropriate it will fail. People have to realize that throwing money at something doesn't automatically make it a success. Take the time up front to really plan it out and realistically think about the goals and outcomes.

Every day more people are competing for all of our attention online and you've got to figure out a way to rise above the rest to get noticed.

Question: 3) Most indie artists will connect with anyone on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. to promote their music, regardless of who is requesting the connection. Is the quantity of connections proving to be a more effective marketing strategy than the quality of connections?

Quality is always better then quantity. But, with that being said I also think that anyone that friends a band on any social network site they should gladly accept. You never know who might be a connection to someone else or how that individual may be able to help them. Connect with them and then get to know them if possible. If they are just a bot or a spammer then get rid of them and move on, but perhaps they have a skill, know someone at a club or can provide the artist with something else. Why in the world would you want to miss that?

Question: 4) In your opinion, what are the top 5 social media and technology tools a band must not only have in its marketing toolkit, but master as well?

1. Ego Searches - Learn how to put yourself into Technorati, Summize (now owned by Twitter) and Google Alerts and how to get those every day so you can stay on top of who is talking about you, what they are saying and how you can connect with them.

2. Video - People love to consume video. Even if it is rough footage of your practice sessions or grainy footage from the crowd at a show. It doesn't matter. Figure out how to get video footage up on the web and on multiple systems so people can find it and consume it.

3. Podcasting - Become familiar with the music podcasting community and how you can get your music out there for people to play. Become friends with podcasters or engage with a digital PR firm that specializes in music and work with them to get your music out there and played on the variety of shows that exist.

4. Marketing - YOU are your biggest fan and thus have to be your marketing department as well. Set up an e-mail newsletter and encourage fans to sign up at shows. Put your URL on everything you do from t-shirts, to posters, to every e-mail you send out. Embrace the web fully and when you are curious if a new service is right for you ask your fans or someone you trust.

5. Communications - Don't let fan letters go unanswered. Take some time every day to engage with your fan base wherever they roam. Reply to e-mails, comment on their walls and answer their questions. This will build a deeper connection with them.

Many thanks C.C. for your time and great feedback! The Advance Guard is focused on smartly and strategically creating radical marketing through branded entertainment, social media and emerging technology. It's led by award-winning Podcaster C.C. Chapman, and digital advertising veteran, Steve Coulson. Clients include Verizon FiOS, Coca-Cola, HBO, mDialog and American Eagle Outfitters. For more information, please visit their web site at: http://theadvanceguard.com/

ArtistDish Looking for Music and Topics

If you're looking to get some exposure for your music, than contact ArtistDish as they're looking for music for the intro and outro of their shows. A new artist will be highlighted each show with a clip of their music (about 40 seconds total). The next ArtistDish broadcast is in about two weeks so you'll need to contact them by July 25. ArtistDish is also looking for suggestions for future shows. If your topic is selected, you'll receive props during the show.

Musician Survey on Collaboration and Revenue

Help contribute to understanding how musicians from around the world collaborate online, engage fans, and make money by taking this survey. It should take less than 5 minutes to complete (only 11 questions) and the first 100 people to complete it will get a MixMatchMusic t-shirt! We'll have the results in a few weeks and I'll post the findings here.

Btw, MixMatchMusic is a new music tech startup I'm beta testing. I've got the inside scoop and I'll post a review as soon as I get the green light.

Take the survey.

MoFuse: Wicked Powerful Mobilization Tools for Musicians

Yesterday Hypebot announced you can now receive their feed to your mobile device via MoFuse. Curious about this startup which launched last fall, I set-up an account and was immediately impressed with their features and ease-of-use. Not to mention, it's Free!  For indie artists, this means you could use MoFuse as a Free tool to connect with your fans anytime, anywhere by allowing them to receive your blog feed on their iPhone, or via SMS to many types of mobile devices. All you have to do is register for a free account and provide your fans your mobile address (mine is http://m.mofuse.com/indiemusictech). Your fans will then receive links to your band's latest news (e.g. show updates). It will look similar to this on your iPhone:

 

You may also want to notify your fan community that you're now providing a mobile feed, as well as add a badge to your mobile landing page (mine is to the right of this post), which will display either a standard web enabled interface like this one or an iPhone interface. MoFuse has several additional tools like automatic mobile redirect, click 2 call and a tool to test your mobile display. I see lots of artist uses for this app, especially when you start combining it with other services like GrandCentral. What are you ideas for MoFuse as a tool to build your fan community?

ArtistDish Releases Podcast Pilot

ArtistDish, a new podcast project I've been invited to be a part of with Pat Woodward and Bruce Houghton of Hypebot released its pilot podcast today. This initial broadcast is a discussion about Lively and Topspin, and the impact these technologies may have for indie artists. You can listen to the entire podcast here, or you can subscribe to the ArtistDish podcast and listen via iTunes.

ArtistDish is a 30 minute broadcast co-hosted by Pat Woodward, Bruce Houghton and myself on the state of the indie music industry, and the trends and tools impacting independent artists, labels and managers. Each show covers two topics approximately 15 minutes each. New broadcasts will be posted about every two weeks, and if you have any suggestions for us, please let us know. For more information, please visit ArtistDish.

TuneCake Set to Launch by Giving Back, Calls for Music Submissions

TuneCake, a new music discovery site set to launch August 1, will spotlight one unsigned artist each day, offering the artist's album for download at a deep discount for that day only. The artist's music will be available for seven days, but will only be showcased and offered at a discounted price on the first day.

Artists will receive 50 percent of the profits from their album sales. Those artists with the most weekly downloads will receive 75 percent of the profits. An additional 10 percent of all profits will be donated to New Orleans disaster relief.

If you're a musician and/or in a band and interested in providing your music to TuneCake, they are currently accepting the following music submission types: alternative, rock, indie, power pop and related genres. Websites focused on unsigned country and rap artists will launch soon. Submissions are accepted only through the mail and can be sent on CD to TuneCake LLC, ATTN: SUBMISSION, PO BOX 7186, Nashua, NH 03060. Artists can learn more about submitting music here.

FREE Concert Tickets to the New American Music Union

That's right, FREE! The good folks at American Eagle Outfitters have asked me to give away a pair of general admission tickets ($100 value) to their New American Music Festival in Pittsburgh on August 8 & 9. When I saw the line-up, including Dylan, Spoon, The Roots and more, as well as 15 of the best college bands, I figured you all would want in on the action. So, here's how it works... Just fill out the form below (shouldn't take more than 60 seconds), and you'll be entered for a chance to win. The tickets are transferrable, and you will also receive a concert T if you win, but will need to find your own transportation and lodging.

I will randomly select the winner on July 18th, and notify him/her via email, but you have to submit this form before 11:59pm on July 17th to be eligible. The winner will have 24 hours to respond before someone else is selected. Good Luck!

Last.fm Moves in Right Direction with Artist Royalty Program

Last.fm announced earlier today that it will finally start paying royalties to independent bands though its new Artist Royalty Program. While we applaud this move, as artists will now be paid when their music is played on-demand, or via streaming radio on Last.fm, their royalty percentages seem to favor Last.fm a bit too much:

You will accrue an amount each time one of your tracks is streamed on the Last.fm service. The amount will vary depending upon which Last.fm service your track is played. A brief rundown of the various royalty levels can be found below:

- If your track is played on our free radio service you will accrue a 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue (see the definition of “Share” and “Net Revenue” in the terms and conditions) from the free radio service.

- If your track is played on our personalised premium radio service, you will accrue the greater of either 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the personalised radio service, or US $0.0005 for each complete transmission on the personalised radio service.

- If your track is played on our free on-demand service, you will accrue 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the on-demand radio service

- If your track is played on our premium on-demand service, you will accrue the greater of either 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the premium on-demand service, or US $0.005 for each complete transmission on the prepaid or subscription on-demand service.

Not surprisingly, a typical independent artist isn't going to earn much revenue from these percentages, but it seems that Last.fm stands to make quite a bit from advertising and subscription revenue on the aggregate of all indie music played. I'm all for Last.fm earning revenue that allows them to become successful, but it seems these percentages need some adjusting. After all, the artists are the ones creating the content. If not, it begs the question, will digital distribution providers attempt to become the next generation of "record labels"... Merlin may be helping to prevent just that, and has also raised some questions today about Last.fm's new Artist Royalty Program.

Analyze Song Structure with The Echo Nest

The Echo Nest, a Massachusetts based music technology company focused on developing a machine learning platform (i.e. a semantic platform) for the music industry, is releasing a suite of APIs for online music providers. Presently, The Echo Nest has released two of their APIs. The Analyze API is the most interesting to me, as it listens to music and generates detailed XML descriptions of a song's structure and musical content. For example, by deploying a perceptual model of human listening, their Analyze API can understand the following from a song: key, harmony, melody, time signature, instrumentation, beats, onsets, loudness and much more - impressive! I can see a ton of uses for this app.

The Echo Nest has an interesting history too, as it was started by two MIT PhD students conducting research on music synthesis at the MIT Media Lab. The Echo Nest is also a three-time National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant winner. With this kind of talent, I can't wait to see what API they will release next.

Topspin: Marketing Tools for Musicians and Bands

Less than 30 days ago, Topspin released its private beta. While little is known about their initial product offering or future service, as they're still in stealth mode, here's what we do know.

• Topspin is not just another digital distribution company
• Topspin is a marketing tools software company focused on developing demand creation, not demand fulfillment
• Topspin is building three initial products aimed at helping artists and their business partners build their businesses and brands
• Topspin's initial product offering is direct-to-fan marketing
• Topspin's product packages will include a physical component
• Topspin is founded on the principle that unlimited music choice for consumers only increases the importance of efficient music marketing
• For Topspin, marketing means both connecting and cultivating relationships with your existing fans, as well as tapping into new fans as well
• Topspin has a flexible technology platform that allows artists to sell their music for any price they wish, including a subscription model via their artist control panel
• Topspin's artist control panel will allow artists to customize the look and feel of their on-line communities/stores, as well as manage their fans, music catalog, and/or create and manage marketing campaigns

I'm definitely interested in what Topspin is doing, and I'd really like to see their demo and/or get access to their private beta (Hint, Hint) so I can write a follow-up article detailing what their tools can do for an artist. If you're a musician and/or in a band and would like to try Topspin, drop them a note and they may just let you take a spin. If you're a developer, love music and looking to live in California, you may want to contact them as they're hiring. Not to mention, they were started by industry leaders and have a strong crew, so expect great things to come from Topspin in the near future.

If you have more scoop on Topspin, drop me a line and I will post it here.

Indie Music Tech Workshop

Every day I talk with career indie musicians that are not utilizing various technologies that could help their career because they don't know how, or they only know the basics. This made me ask, would independent artists like to get together in Atlanta for a day of hands-on-instruction from music tech experts on topics like podcasting/vodcasting, social network marketing, virtual world streaming, etc. If yes, we would like to hear from you, so please let us know by filling out the form below. If the form does not work for you, please go here.

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