Free Concert Discovery App

Updated:
Flyer is a free concert discovery app that searches your iTunes music library and provides an up-to-date listing of shows for those artists based on the geographical area you define (see video demo below).

Presently in beta, the initial version of Flyer is a desktop-based app that utilizes the Bandsintown API, and works with both Macs and PCs using iTunes. If you have any questions/comments, please contact Shane O'Donnell.

G2.fm: an artist booking management system

Based out of Chicago, G2.fm is building a service similar to Sonicbids. According to their website, the founders have built an artist booking management system based on their personal experiences as musicians, promoters, and booking agents. "Our successes, as well as lessons from past frustrations, inspired us to create a solution that would streamline the booking process, save artists time and money, and create new revenue streams for our venue partners."

While I'm not sure what fees G2.fm charges artists and/or venues, if any, here's how it works for musicians and/or artist managers:

1. signup and create a profile for your band (bio, genre, location, etc)
2. upload your media (music, photos, videos, etc.)
3. search venues and apply for gigs - you can then check the status of your application

Here's how G2.fm works for venue owners/managers:

1. signup and create a profile for your venue (venue description, location, size, etc.)
2. create and customize a calendar with your available dates/times
3. browse applications and book desired talent

Indie Ambassador: helping artists build sustainable careers

Not quite sure what Indie Ambassador does, as I haven't seen their application, but it looks like they're going to provide some management tools for touring, including a comprehensive review database of venues, similar to Onlinegigs.

Founded by two recent Berklee graduates, Indie Ambassador is still in private beta, but you can request access here. According to their web site, they plan to release their public beta this Summer. Here's a short intro video about their progress.

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.

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.

Inference is the Difference: Gaining Insight from Music Data Analytics

One of the goals of Band Metrics is to help artists and music industry professionals gain insight from the quantitative and qualitative data we collect, as identifying correlations can be the difference between increasing revenue for your band, or spinning your wheels guessing as to how your fans interact, share and listen to your music. Below are two recent screencasts that help demonstrate a couple of the areas we're working on to make meaning out of your music data (view more of our screencasts here).

The first screencast demonstrates how radio play data (soon social data) could help you build relationships with broadcast stations that are, or are not playing your music. The second one provides a suggested tour map based on the data we're collecting about your band. These are both experimental mapping features at this point, one of the reasons why we're still in private beta, but we thought you might like to see them if you don't have an account:

Live Music Machine

By the look of this post and recent tweet from music industry veteran David Sherbow, he's announcing his music tech venture, Live Music Machine, a booking utility and platform for "connecting fans to the bands they love for their own live music events." While similar to SonicBids, they seem to be focused on the fan communities. For example, their app will help fans connect with other fans of a particular artist in the same geographical area that are interested in hiring that artist for an event. Here's an example of how it works in both MySpace and Facebook, and a demo as well:


Good luck David!

Bandloop launches iPhone App

Bandloop announced today from SxSW the release of their iPhone app, a global, geo-located concert listings for bands and venues that allows music enthusiasts to quickly find live music shows - from local bars to stadium concerts.  I haven't tried it, but it looks really nice - congrats guys!  Here are some of its features:

• Automatically detects where you are, zooming into your vicinity without having to type in your location
• Fast-loading interactive map
• Represents as many artists as possible, no matter how underground they are
• Website links and MySpace images provided for almost every artist

Eddie's Attic on NPR

NPR Radio of Atlanta (WABE: 90.1 FM) produced a short story about open mic night at Eddie's Attic. It's a good quick listen for anyone interested in the history of this legendary venue that has helped launch the careers of several national acts for almost 20 years, like Shawn Mullins, Jennifer Nettles and John Mayer. If you're interested in performing and competing at the Open Mic Shootout, you'll need to contact them months in advance due to demand.