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.

Ian Rogers' Keynote Interview from NARM 2009

Ian Rogers of Topspin gave an insightful keynote interview on the music industry at NARM about two weeks ago that's not to be missed:

Techdirt Founder Mike Masnick's Presentation on the State of the Music Industry

Techdirt founder Mike Masnick's latest must see presentation on the state of the music industry, which he gave at NARM a couple of weeks ago is now available:

If you've never had a chance to see Mike's presentation on Serving your Fans, the Trent Reznor Case Study, you should take the time here as well.

Band Metrics to Present at C/O Pop in Cologne

Band Metrics is excited to announce that we're presenting at this year's C/O Pop music festival and conference in Cologne, Germany. It's one of the leading international music events that brings together over 30,000 artists, publishers, labels, technology companies, music enthusiasts and investors, and we're honored we've been invited. In addition to presenting, I'm also speaking on the Creative Music Business panel and I'll provide more details as soon as I have them. We're also going to make an announcement during the conference, so please keep in touch, and let us know if you're going to be there too so we can meetup. In the meantime, you can learn more about the conference by downloading the C/O Pop press kit.

CD Baby to Unveil New Website and Single Sales in July

Its been a couple of years since CD Baby made significant changes to the design of their web site, but in about a month (July) they're going to unveil a new sleek design, while maintaining a minimalist UI (one of the design attributes which helped make CD Baby successful). Below is a screenshot that Brian Felsen posted about a week ago - note the cool new logo!

They're also rolling out some new features with the new website, such as the ability to sell singles at the price artists want to charge. These improvements should help increase revenue for artists, as more of their fans will opt to purchase music from CD Baby. Not to mention, artists should encourage their fans to purchase their music directly form CD Baby instead, as they will earn a larger percentage of the sales price for each song sold directly on cdbaby.com.

Band Metrics to Present at SanFran MusicTech Summit

Just a reminder, we're presenting at the SanFran MusicTech Summit this coming Monday, May 18th at the Hotel Kabuki around 1pm. We're excited to finally showcase the initial version of our technology at this premier one-day music tech event. If you would like to meetup on Monday and learn more about Band Metrics, just send me an email. Go here, to purchase your tickets to the summit.

Gauging Artist Popularity

Traditional music rankings seem to display an antiquated way of determining popularity and gauging success. For example, companies like Billboard and CMJ posit to accurately rank/chart artists based on variables such as CD sales, digital downloads, radio plays and ticket sales. However, CD sales are diminishing, and digital downloads and ticket sales represent only a portion of how an artist's popularity can be measured, as music enthusiasts have changed the way in which they consume music. Not to mention, many artists are giving away some of their music, and tours are only temporary reflections of popularity.

Online music providers from Deezer to Rhapsody also fall short, as true popularity can not be determined from web silos that collect data solely from within their own community.

With that said, a more holistic approach must be developed - one that considers the dynamics and trends of plays, sharing, recommending, comments, blog posts, faves, et al. from scores of web apps, and this is part of the service that we at Band Metrics have been working on long before our announcement at TechCrunch50. Internally, we call it the Popularity Profiling System, a patent-pending technology that scores bands and musicians using algorithms and other approaches. At present, there are 10 ways in which we score bands and musicians, and many of these scores are now available on our system. Since only a limited group of bands and individuals have seen our service in action, I'm not going to tip our hat at this time as to what these scores are, but, thousands of bands and musicians will be able to see their scores over the next few days as we continue to expand our private beta, so I'm sure word will begin to travel, and we'd love to hear your feedback!

In sum, my hypothesis is not intended to be critical of music ranking companies, but rather, cursorily unpack how we understand and gauge popularity relative to bands and musicians, as it seems this can only be sufficiently achieved through a scoring system that examines online information about artists from across the Internet landscape.

Btw, our system is far from perfect, but it will continue to evolve and adapt so please be patient, and please let us know how we can improve our scoring and analytics.

Insight into Retaining your Fans

Brian Mansfield of USATODAY wrote a great piece in Friday's edition about different ways artists are retaining their fans through interaction. Here's a snippet: "As CD sales decline, advances from record labels dwindle and audience demographics break up into smaller niches, more and more artists from all levels of popularity are seeking to retain fans by including them in the creative process."

The article may give you some ideas, and the comment thread is interesting as well.

Serving Your Fans: The Trent Reznor Case Study

You may have seen this before, but I just watched Techdirt founder Michael Masnick's keynote presentation at The Leadership Music Digital Summit, and I gotta say, it was fantastic, a must watch for anyone in the music industry. Here's the one he gave at Midem, but I missed due to meetings:

The difference between today's presentation and the one he gave at Midem is an additional 160 slides for a total of 440! Hopefully, the folks at LMDS will post the video soon.

ArtistDish Releases Podcast #5

The ArtistDish released its 5th podcast today about some of the shifts and trends in print and digital media, gatekeepers, fandom, the gaming industry and more. It's our longest episode to date (1 full hour), and we are joined by music industry veteran, Barney Kilpatrick of Rattlesby Records, and one of our advisors, who provides a great deal of insight and sage advice, so if you’re an artist, you definitely want to listen to this episode.

Special thanks to Montana Skies for providing the intro music with their song, Gringo Flamenco.

Unpacking MPTrax: what it is and what it's not

Recently, I spoke with David Sherbow via email about his company, MPTrax, and I asked him to highlight what MPTrax is NOT as a way to help bands and musicians understand what MPTrax can do for them. Here's what he had to say:

•    MPTrax is NOT a social network.  It is a utility for connecting artists with their fans for live music interactions.

•    MPTrax is NOT a booking agent or agency. It is a tool that enhances the ability for artists or their managers or booking agents to get bookings from a new pool of potential buyers: The Fans.

•    MPTrax is NOT just another profile page.  The information that an artist puts on their MPTrax booking page, i.e price, distance they are willing to travel, booked and available dates, gig requirements, will help a potential buyer make an immediate decision about whether or not to book a date.

Rather, MPTrax is focused on helping to foster and create live music connections between artists and anyone interested in booking them. MPTrax expands the definition of booking to include house parties, private concerts, after parties, and personal appearances. Sounds interesting, but what does this mean? Here's a quick video that explains more:

How much does MPTrax cost? According to David, MPTrax charges a $10 fee to the Artist and a $10 fee to the Host for each transaction. MPTrax takes no commission. The Artist keeps all performance fees. For more information, please visit MPTrax.com or call 866-839-1788.

Your Band's Marketing and Promotional Tactics that Work

I'm curious about the online marketing and promotional tactics bands/musicians are using (e.g. communicating with fans via social media, or giving away free tickets to shows) which have been successful in growing their fan base. If you'd like to share it would be great to hear from you, so just add your comments to this post for all to benefit.

Rock Stars Tool Kit

Greg Rollett has published a follow-up to the 100 Social Media Resources for Musicians called Gen-Y Rock Stars Tool Kit. Essentially, it's a scaled down one page check-list of the most important things you should be doing to market and promote your music, garnered from his previous report. To get your FREE copy, just go here, and provide your email address and Greg will send you a link to the file.

Bandize Introduction

Yesterday morning I learned about a new music tech startup called Bandize when they started following me on Twitter.  Even though they're still in Alpha testing, they're worth noting now, as they're working on a really cool web app to organize your band's operations and manage it more like a business - a much needed tool for career musicians. According to their site, Bandize will provide product management, contact management, task management, asset management and several other features. Here's a screen shot of their accounting feature to track your band's finances:

While the quality of this image is not great (they probably did that on purpose), you get the idea. Bandize certainly looks promising, and it seems to have an easy-to-use interface similar to Basecamp. I spoke with one of their founders today via email and I'm going to begin experimenting with Bandize. As soon as I get the green light from them, I'll post a follow-up review as well.

ReadWriteWeb on Band Metrics

Many thanks to Richard MacManus, Founder and Editor of ReadWriteWeb for his great write-up of Band Metrics - very much appreciated!

Leadership Music Digital Summit 2009

In its fifth consecutive year, the 2009 Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville has an impressive agenda this year. If you attended Midem last week, this should be a nice follow-up conference, as there seems to be a focus this year on the value of understanding the actions and behaviors of an artist's fans. What's nice about this summit is that it's an intimate gathering (about 1,000 attendees), providing more opportunity for conversations with other music industry professionals. Not to mention, the most expensive ticket is only $179, and it's in the Music City!

According to their email, the attendance breakdown is as follows:

• 30 percent are executives and management from the majors and indies: record labels, publishers, PROs, marketing companies, etc.
• 30 percent represent artist or songwriter teams: managers, publicists, attorneys, business managers, fan club managers, outsourced marketers, etc.
• 15 percent are actual creators themselves: artists, songwriters, producers, etc.
• and 25 percent come from various media, tech companies, startup entrepreneurs, organization heads, students, academia, etc.

Band Metrics will be presenting as well, so please say hello, or email me so we can find some time to chat. I will be arriving on Sunday, March 22 and will depart in the evening on Wednesday, March 25.

MixMatchMusic Acquires Mix2r

MixMatchMusic just announced it has acquired Mix2r, a web app that enables electronica artists to upload their music for remixing and for creating derivative works by other electronica artists, fans and music enthusiasts. Mix2r's community of musicians, DJs and fans features more than 6200 songs and music stems.

"MixMatchMusic's combination with Mix2r adds a lot of dynamic new music to our library and brings us closer to the critical mass of stems and community needed to fuel our next stage of growth," said Charles Feinn, MixMatchMusic co-founder and CEO.

Mix2r founders Duane Nickull and Matt MacKenzie will be joining MixMatchMusic's management team. Nickull, who is a well known senior technical evangelist for Adobe, said the Mix2r site uses Adobe® Flash® Platform technologies including Adobe Flash, Flex and Adobe® AIR™. These technologies will be used to create future versions of the combined site.

"Emerging and indie artists win as a result of this combination," said Nickull. "The breadth and depth of content and the number of people contributing to it adds energy and creativity to the community, and that in turn will attract more people and more great music."

This is big news for both Mix2r and MixMatchMusic and I look forward to seeing what the combined companies will provide. Congrats to both!

Editors note: It's fairly early in 2009 and we're already seeing acquisitions. Will this be the year of M&A for the music tech community?

Introducing Audiolife: A Conversation with Brandon Hance

Are you looking for a single location to create, sell and manage custom swag, physical CDs, digital music, and even ringtones across multiple websites, blogs and social networks? If yes, than Audiolife may be what you need. They're still in beta, but this music tech startup has potential with a minimalistic, fast and easy-to-use UI.

For additional information about AudioLife, check out their video, or you can read my interview with Co-Founder Brandon Hance below:

Was curious, why did you start Audiolife?

Brandon: We started Audiolife because we wanted to help create a "middle class" in the industry. We wanted to empower musicians to build a sustainable career doing what they love doing most- music. Putting together a comprehensive e-commerce solution takes lots of time, money and expertise- most of which artists have very little of. We wanted to create a solution that was easy, free, and powerful that would let them sell all of their digital and physical products from one central location.

Good stuff, how does AL make money, and what % do do you guys take from DD sales, physical sales, merch, etc.?

Brandon: We like to think of it as having a partnership with artists- we make money when they make money. For each product (downloads, Cds, etc.) there is a minimum price that has our cost included, and we give artists the ability to set their own retail prices on top of it. For example, we'll manufacture and ship the CD directly to a fan for $5, so if the artists sells a CD for $15, they'd make $10 profit/CD. The beauty here is that artists have no up front costs for the CD's, no membership costs, and no hassle of making, shipping, etc. They simply upload their designs, set their prices and begin selling immediately. They have the flexibility to change their music, artwork and prices as often as they'd like...for example, artists can have a live CD for every show.

Very cool! One thing I like about AL are the step-by-step wizards you created for an artist to add merch, DD, ringtones, etc. What features do you see adding in the future?

Brandon: We are in the process of adding a comprehensive record label solution, warehousing and fulfillment services, and a re-sizable and re-skinnable storefront. There are a handful of other really exciting things in the pipeline, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag yet.

Gotcha; no worries, so how long have you guys been building AL and can you provide some details about the team and your background?

Brandon: We founded Inhance Media in June of 2005 and Audiolife about one year ago. There are 3 founders: Brandon Hance, Aaron Wiener and Nishit Rathod. Aaron is the musician that we essentially built the business around. Nishit is a PhD computer scientist/musician and I was a music business major at USC and worked in the industry as a music manager prior to starting Audiolife.

Nice! Are you guys working full time on AL? If so, how are you all funded? Self, Angel, Venture, etc.?

Brandon: We're working double time :-) and we’re Angel Funded.

LOL! I definitely understand, can you provide any details about the angel round?

Brandon: We did a seed round, Series A, and Series A-1

Congrats! One last question, do you have any other info you would like to provide/share that we didn’t discuss?

Brandon: just that companies like Audiolife and Band Metrics give artists the power of a record label- they can literally run their entire business through us, but they still have to have the skill, discipline and drive to DO IT! I've found that artists get very excited about services (not just ours) but don’t get around to it. And this is the most exciting time in the history of the music industry for up-and-coming bands if they take advantage of all of the opportunities that are out there.

No doubt - well said Brandon! :-)

Rumblefish Agreement with YouTube is Most Significant Music Tech Deal of 2008

This afternoon I reflected a little bit on the last 12 months of news from the music tech industry, and I would submit that the Rumblefish Agreement with YouTube is the most significant music tech deal of 2008. A bold claim? Maybe, but hundreds of millions of people are watching billions of videos each month when you consider the entire global Internet population. That's a ton of potential revenue for artists and labels working with Rumblefish, and the deal will surely bring thousands of new artists to Rumblefish.

Another way to look at this deal is to conduct a simple search for videos on YouTube. It seems there are are currently about 360 million videos on YouTube. Even if you cut that number in half to account for duplicates, vlogs, channels, removed videos, erroneous search results etc., you're still talking about 120 million plus videos, and growing every minute, a trajectory that seems to be in line with Kansas State University's YouTube statistics from January through March of 2008.

It's easy to see that these numbers represent substantial revenue opportunities for the music industry, and I'm excited for artists, as this agreement will become an easy way for individuals to incorporate legal music into their videos.

So hats off to Rumblefish!