Write a Feature Article on IMT

If you would like to write a guest article on Indie Music Tech (IMT) and have it featured for about 24 hours promoting your new music tech startup, app/service/features, or discussing a music tech topic, just send me an email or submit your news via the tabs above. As Greg Rollett of Gen-Y Rock Stars suggests, writing guest posts on blogs is great way to build your brand, and if your content fits, I'll post it.

IMT reaches thousands of music industry professionals, artists, companies and media each month in almost 100 countries.

500 Songs for Kids!

The Songs For Kids Foundation is a non-profit that enriches the lives of children in need through music. It brings musicians year round to hospitals, specialized support camps, and places where kids are in need. Here are a few of the organizations the foundation helps.

To raise money and awareness for the foundation, they are hosting their 4th annual 500 Songs for Kids charity event, April 29 through May 08, 2010 at Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta. Like previous years, it's 500 artists performing 500 songs over 10 nights, but this year they'll be covering the 500 greatest era-defining songs, like "Hey Jude", "Suspicious Minds", "One", "Tiny Dancer", "Rio" and 495 more! The event always attracts major artists and quality indie bands, so get your tickets now, and support a great cause. Previous years have included performances from Arrested Development, Shawn Mullins, Mute Math, Angie Aparo and the Zac Brown Band to name a few.

If you can't attend, but would like to make a donation, go here. You can also follow them on Twitter.

Bandsintown is on the Move: Announces Partnerships and Expands Board of Advisers

My friends over at Bandsintown just announced significant API partnerships with EMI, Shazam and ReverbNation, as well as the appointment of Paul Vidich to their board of advisers. Paul is a former EVP with Warner Music and a former director at Ticketmaster UK.

These are key partnerships for Bandsintown, as it will expand their reach considerably. For example, Bandsintown will now deliver tour dates and ticket links to more than 60 million songs tagged each month on Shazam, Shazam Encore and (SHAZAM) RED apps. Additionally, Bandsintown will also provide concert information to over 20 million music fans throughout ReverbNation's network looking to purchase tickets, and a similar arrangement with EMI artists as well. Nice work guys, congrats!

If you haven't had a chance to explore Bandsintown, now's the time, and they have a great iPhone app too. Not to mention, they've made tremendous progress since their launch in 2007, just take a look at some of these stats:

• aggregate ticket information from more than 100 different ticketing companies in 160 countries
• expose concert data to more than 50 million people monthly through their partner network
• over 150,000 upcoming events
• an active developer community with more than 70 developers utilizing their data in various global music sites and applications - here's just a few of them

To read their full press release regarding these partnerships and the appointment of Paul Vidich to their board of advisers, please go here.

Indie Music Tech now Available on the iPhone

Thanks to the good folks at MobBase, Indie Music Tech is now available on your iPhone for free. For those of you that don't know about MobBase, I wrote about them a few months ago, and their mobile development service for the music industry is impressive (disclosure: MobBase gave me a free account/service).

Essentially, MobBase makes it easy for bands, musicians, labels, music bloggers, etc. to inexpensively create, launch and manage their own, custom iPhone and iPod Touch applications for sharing music, news, photos, videos, tweets, merch, tour info and more with their fans, on their mobile devices.

Many thanks to Alan Khalfin and Charles Feinn for making it happen in less than 4 days! Not to mention, it was a breeze setting up - took less than one hour. Go here to download and install Indie Music Tech, and look for enhancements soon.

Twestival-fm

This Thursday, March 25, 2010, thousands of people in hundreds of cities around the world will come together at local Twestivals to raise money for education related projects in their areas - from building schools, to supplying classrooms with computers. All of the events are organized entirely by volunteers, and 100% of all ticket sales and donations will go directly to their specific, local educational related projects.

To help raise awareness and donations, SoundCloud has created Twestival-fm, a geographical music site for listening and downloading songs in exchange for donating to this year's Twestival, but they need help from artists willing to donate a song or two. So, if you have some music to promote and a Twitter account then please visit Twestival-fm.

According to Dave Haynes of SoundCloud, "it's really simple, you provide the music and your fans donate. 100% of the proceeds then go to Concern Worldwide, a charity that Twestival chose to support this year's event because of their great work bringing education to the world's poorest children." Hats off to SoundCloud for taking initiative and creating Twestival-fm. Not only are they helping to raise $5,000 for Twestival, but they also have a matching grant too, so every dollar raised from Twestival.fm will be doubled!

This year's Twestival follows the success of last year's event, which was held in 202 international cities to support @charitywater, which assists in providing safe, clean drinking water. Over 1,000 volunteers and 10,000 donors raised over $250k, which resulted in more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India, having a direct impact on over 17,000 people. For more information, follow @twestival.

Band Metrics Releases Public Beta

Its been a long time coming, but I'm happy to announce that we finally released the public beta of Band Metrics this morning from Midem.

What took so long? Great question. We had to re-engineer the entire system, as the previous two versions were flawed. This was a difficult decision that consumed our time, but it's better to get the architecture right before releasing it to the public. We now feel confident we've built a system, which is entirely Ruby/Rails that will not only collect, store and analyze artist data accurately, but will be fast and scale rapidly, as we also moved our entire system into the cloud via Engine Yard. As an example, Band Metrics now pulls-in and displays initial artist data within seconds, not days or hours. Needless to say, I'm proud of our developers.

We also streamlined the site, and added a couple of new features, including Fan Segmentation and Influence Measurement. Essentially, this allows artists, managers, labels and the like to see a breakdown of fans (based initially on Twitter comments), and a fan's influence among their friends (below is a brief screencast).

We still have lots of work to do, including design enhancements and new features, as well as incorporate our existing analytical tools into the new site (we ran out of time as we wanted to release at Midem), so we greatly appreciate your ongoing support, as this is just the beginning!

Introducing Music Scout

As briefly mentioned last week, I've been quietly working on another project for the past few months, separately from my work on Band Metrics. Needless to say, I'm pretty tired, but today I'm pleased to announce that the initial beta of Music Scout is live.

While there's still a ton of work to do, and the design is rudimentary, we wanted to go ahead and get it out there so we could get some feedback, and incorporate your changes and feature requests, as we've got a significant product road-map for Music Scout in 2010.

Essentially, Music Scout is location-aware mobile music app for the Android and iPhone that enables music enthusiasts to express their thoughts and sentiments about the band they're watching in real-time directly from the venue. Not only can users rate and express their feelings about a band or musician, but Music Scout will begin to trace and identify the individuals that are actually scouting and discovering the next hot bands before they become known acts, providing of course, they're using the service, but to help encourage use we're building in a future reward system.

But it's not just a tool for music aficionados, critics and music lovers, just imagine the kind of feedback that this app could produce for a band, manager, A&R rep, etc. - from the live sound, to the songs selected for each show, to the venue, etc.

The Android app is available now for FREE, and the FREE iPhone app will be available once it's approved by Apple (should be in about 2 weeks). Again, this is just the initial release - we have miles to go before we sleep.

Music Scout - coming 01.05.10

a skunk works project I created and have been working on separately from Band Metrics, but that's all I'm going to say for now... stay tuned.

Band Metrics Selected as one of 15 Music Tech Startups to Showcase at MIDEM

It's an honor, and I'm humbled as the competition was strong, so my sincere thanks to Midem, the judges and Music Ally for their support! Go here to read the official news release.

If you're going to Midem and would like to meetup, please send me an email.

Band Metrics on NPR

If you were listening to NPR this weekend, you may have caught a fantastic segment of On the Media called "Charting the Charts" by Mark Phillips, airing on over 100 U.S. radio stations yesterday and Saturday. It's a must listen for anyone interested in music charts like Billboard's Hot 100, as Mark eloquently explores how the art of ranking artists has evolved, and where the evolution is headed from industry leaders like Robert Levine of Billboard, Chicago Tribune music critic and author Greg Kot, Chris Molanphy of Idolator, Eric Garland and myself. If you missed the show, you can listen to it here or below if you have Flash enabled, and many thanks to Mark for his excellent research and production - it was an honor to be a part of it.

Band Metrics Receives an Investment from the Georgia Tech Edison Fund

Happy to announce this morning that we've received an investment from the Georgia Tech Edison Fund. We're quite excited as this is a tough economy for raising capital, and we've got a ton of work to do like improving our visualizations, increasing the accuracy of our data collection, enhancing our UI, adding more data sources and features, moving into the cloud, releasing our public beta, and much more - all before the end of this year, not to mention 2010!

So, if things seem a little quiet at Band Metrics during the next 8 weeks it's because we're buried in code and building out our next release... stay tuned, as I think you'll like what we've got in the works.

You can read the press announcement here.

Music Technology Group on FriendFeed

While searching FriendFeed I was unable to find a group that consolidated feeds from music tech related blogs, so I just created http://friendfeed.com/musictech. You can also subscribe to this group allowing you to pull all of the posts from these blogs into one feed. As of today, the group pulls feeds from the following:

• Artists House Music
• Berklee Music Blogs
• Buzzsonic
• CNET's Digital Noise
• Future of Music
• Hypebot
• Indie Music Tech
• Interactive: Incite
• KnowTheMusicBiz
• Media Futurist
• Music Machinery
• Music Think Tank

What did I miss/what should I add? Should I add Twitter accounts as well, or just keep it to blogs only? Let me know by commenting on this post - hope the group is helpful.

Band Metrics Turns One

I can't believe it, but one year ago today we announced our service from TechCrunch50 in San Francisco. While we've been working on Band Metrics for much longer, today marks our one year anniversary since this is when we came out of stealth mode and debuted our plans publicly.

Yep, it has taken us much longer to build our initial application than we had planned, but without elaborating as to why, let me just say that it's behind us, and we're now developing steadily with some exciting and powerful features in the works, and my commitment is that we'll continue to innovate and build compelling analytics for artists and the music industry. In appreciation of everyone's support, if you don't already have a private beta account, please register and I'll provide access for the next 25 signups.

Cheers!

Duncan

Band Metrics Adds Multiple Band Management

If you haven't yet noticed, we quietly released our latest product feature earlier this week that allows you to manage multiple bands through one login - it's a fantastic tool for artist management companies, labels, venues, A&R reps, promoters, music supervisors, publicists, marketing agencies and others. We're still tweaking it, so please let us know how we can improve.

Btw, this is a premium service, so please call us to get access at +1/404.492-6511.

Band Metrics Partners with The Orchard

Are you looking for deep social, radio, and fan analytics that show geographical correlations to your digital and physical CD sales? Than our new partnership with The Orchard (NASDAQ: ORCD), which has a client base that represents 15% of all digital music may be what you're looking for, as that's what we aim to provide in the coming months.

Below is a clip from The Orchard's press release this morning:

The Orchard announced that it is launching a groundbreaking platform, using an API (Application Programming Interface) to provide clients access to third party business solutions from a marketplace within The Orchard’s proprietary client Workstation. For the launch, The Orchard has tapped many of the entertainment industry’s leading marketing, sales, and analytics application companies, including ArtistData, Band Metrics, TheBizmo, BMAT, FanBridge, Mediaguide, Mobile Roadie, New Reach Technologies, Peekok, Topspin, Trendrr, and uPlaya.

These launch partners will offer turn-key products geared to serve the needs of Orchard’s global client base, which represents 15% of all music available digitally. Within the Workstation’s marketplace, clients will be able to easily choose from this broad array of tools, each the best in its class. Over time, as the market continues to proliferate with innovative applications and services, Orchard will include additional qualified partners and continue to build out and manage the largest and most robust platform of third-party developers in the industry.

At launch, the applications, all selected with client needs in mind, will include various forms of sales and analytic tools, marketing vehicles, email and mobile services, widget creation, iPhone App creation, and data tracking. Orchard clients will receive a discounted rate for the services they choose, enabling these clients yet one more way of reducing their operating costs through their Orchard affiliation, without sacrificing sophistication or reach. Payment for use of the third party apps is secured through The Orchard and is reflected in client billing.

When clients opt in to a third party tool, the application will draw information (e.g. metadata, audio and video files, art work) from The Orchard’s secure interface to power customized marketing tools. To close the loop, clients can choose a data solution, which uses The Orchard’s metadata, to track their online exposure.

Band Metrics Expands Artists Mapping Platform

Last week we announced our Artists Mapping Platform for Band Metrics, and today we're excited to say that we've expanded it to now also display how your fans are sharing your music from over 20 sources, including the following:

• Blip.fm
• Foxytunes 
• IMEEM
• Lala 
• Last.fm 
• Napster
• Song.ly
• Songtwit
• Songza 
• Spotify 
• TinySong 
• Trackz
• Tweetj 
• Twisten 
• Twitum 
• Twt.fm
• #musicmonday and scores of other hashtags

Why is this important? Great question. Let's suppose you're trying to figure out where your hot markets (fan bases) are so you can earn the highest profit margin while on tour, because in this economy, you're better off playing 10 at capacity or oversold shows than 20 shows at 50 percent capacity. With today's addition of the social sharing display to our mapping platform, artists, managers, venue owners, booking agencies, promoters and the like can now gain insight into what cities have the highest concentration of not only your fans, but the highest concentration of your passionate fans and music enthusiasts talking about your band and/or music. The conclusion here is that the more passionate a fan base you have in a particular city, the more likely you are to draw a large crowd to your show. Below is what it looks like, but please know we've still got a great deal of work left to do on it, and you may encounter some bugs, but we thought you all would like to start using it anyway, so please let us know how we can improve it for you.

 

Band Metrics Releases Artists Mapping Platform

For the past few months, one of the things we've been working on that we're really proud and excited about is the Band Metrics Artist Mapping Platform. Essentially, it displays all kinds of data relative to artists, and their fans' activities. Earlier this week, we unveiled our initial Conversation Map that displays where your fans, non-fans, and music enthusiasts are talking about your band online from around the world as seen here:

We also unveiled our Popularity Map which displays the countries where your band has fans, ranging from the least amount of fans to the most by color intensity and popularity numbers as seen here:


Today, we unveiled our terrestrial Radio Map which displays not only the geographic locations where your band is getting plays, but also which stations, and the total number of plays.


We're still polishing our maps and mapping platform, so hang tight while we refine them and fix some bugs, but the above maps are only the beginning, so please stay connected as we add even more!

Win a pair of AUVIO Balanced Armature Headphones

That's right! IMT has been given three pairs of AUVIO's latest Balanced Armature Headphones to give away. All you have to do is answer the question at the bottom of this post to be eligible, but first, a little about these fantastic headphones.

AUVIO's Balanced Armature drivers offer high-definition audio reproduction and extreme detail and precision, and the Comply™ Foam ear cushions comfortably seal the ear canal to provide high levels of noise isolation and retention. This Unique breathable memory foam is activated by body heat and becomes ultra soft, reducing fatigue and ensuring all the sound gets to your ears. Music enthusiasts and audiophiles will find that these compact headphones sound amazing and are perfect for your iPod or computer. Additionally, each set comes with 3 pairs of ear cushions and a black carrying case with magnetic closure.

Now that you've read how great these headphones are, here's your chance to score a pair for free, including shipping, a value of over $90! Just tell me what you think is the best summer music festival (can be anywhere around the world) and why. The three most creative/interesting responses win! Good luck!  Btw, the same festival can be listed more than once.

Artist Reports Now Available on Band Metrics

We just released segmented reporting for artists using Band Metrics. This new feature displays quantitative details of activity relative to your band/music within social media, micro blogs, terrestrial radio and more. Below is an example of what it looks like this morning, but we're also building many more enhancements during the next couple of days, including: PDF exporting, graphical visualizations, trending percentages, and the ability to review reports for different time periods.

Since this is a new feature there may be a bug or two. If you find one, please let us know at help.bandmetrics.com

Band Metrics Opens Up its Private Beta

About time, right? Yeah, we agree. Unfortunately we encountered some significant hurdles during the past 10 months that put us behind schedule, and while many of you have been waiting for several months (we truly appreciate your patience!), please know that we plowed through these hurdles as fast as we could. The good news is that they're behind us, so you should now see faster updates and features from us going forward.

What I can say is that data analytics for the music industry is all that we do, and we're working on delivering a sophisticated system, not just a web app. Additionally, we're doing some innovative development through our patent-pending band scoring system, and initiatives like the Music Data Exchange Format (mDef). So hang in there with us, because at the end of the day, I think you'll be glad you did. Moreover, we're not planning on charging for our service anytime soon, as understanding your needs and building the appropriate music metrics for you is a joint effort that we're committed to, and so you get to enjoy Band Metrics as we build it to meet your needs.

With that said, we're excited to announce that we let several thousand users in our system this morning. However, some of our features may not function correctly or fully, but we're working to fix and expand them as soon as possible, as well as rollout additional features. Because of this, we're going to remain in private beta a little while longer while we polish our service. So if you didn't receive a welcome email from us this morning, than please use the code indiemusictech to gain access, but it will only be good for the next 25 people that use it.

In case you're curious what you can do with Band Metrics today, here's a brief list:

• track plays, fans, profile views and comments across MySpace, Last.fm, iLike, SoundCloud and YouTube
• track radio plays from over 3,500 terrestrial radio stations 
• view real-time reviews about your music on Musebin  
• view real-time comments about your band on Twitter
• view 8 different types of scores relative to your music including hotnes, fandom, and brand strength, among others

And here's a screenshot of the inside of Band Metrics:

  
Curious about what's next for Band Metrics?

• daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly stats/reports
• enhanced charts and visualizations
• advanced data porting
• additional social media site monitoring and management
• automated actions
• manage multiple bands from one login
• view real-time comments about your band in Facebook and within the blogosphere
• API
• Sentiment Analysis

We also have a few tricks up our sleeve that we have not yet disclosed, so stay tuned for some exciting announcements.

Finally, if you tell us in the comments section of this post why you think your band should be displayed on our home page, we'll select the top five artists we believe gave the best reasons.