Apple's Music Streaming Pulled At The Last Minute, Twice

There has been a lot of speculation about Apple's new streaming service over the last year, but it appears to be much closer than you think. Apparently Apple was all set to make the announcement in September during the iPhone 5 introduction, but it was pulled due to a last-minute snag.

The word is that publisher Sony/ATV caused Apple to pull the plug at the last minute because it could not agree on the per-song rights fee. Considering that Sony/ATV administers 2 million copyrights, including those by everyone from Taylor Swift and One Direction to the Beach Boys and Beatles, the company supposedly push for a higher rate, and Apple had to wait until things could get ironed out as a result.

That was bad enough, but it happened again in October when Apple introduced its iPad Mini, when once again, Sony/ATV refused to sign off on a deal.

It's been said that the iPad Mini is an especially good fit into Apple's long-term strategy of being a media controller, so the streaming music announcement would've fit nicely with that, but once again it was not to be. Look for this to be resolved soon, but Sony/ATV looks like it's driving a hard bargain, which hopefully will be good for its songwriters.

In the meantime, Pandora's stock is taking a beating and it's execs are selling off their shares. Everyone sees the writing on the wall as the 800 pound gorilla prepares to enter the market.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Customize Your YouTube Channel Background

YouTube is changing a lot lately in that it's allowing the user to customize features that were previously frozen. We'll look at some of these new possibilities in upcoming posts, but today we'll feature on how to customize your YouTube channel's background image.

It's pretty easy actually.

1. Go to your YouTube channel page and click "My Channel."

2. Click the "Settings" button on the main channel page.

3. Upload a background image.

Couldn't be easier, right? Well, you have to remember that the image is going to be used in a unique way, so it's best to remember the following before you hit the upload button:

• You're a lot better off with a wide panoramic shot instead of a close-up because of how the image is going to be distributed across the page. You probably won't see much of the following because.........

• The center of your picture will be obscured by the meat of the channel, so a picture with content on the sides will usually work out better.

• In order to have the image tile properly, use one that's at least 970 pixels wide.

• Use a larger image that fills the page rather than a smaller one that tiles the background. Tiling usually looks pretty cheesy and unprofessional.

That's all there is to it. Go customize away!

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Cutting-Edge Social Media Measurement Tools

Social media measurement tools have reached a new level of sophistication beyond what many ever conceived would happen. While not a total panacea, these new tools are just another part of what's required to understand where you stand in todays social media strata. Here's an excerpt from Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age that covers some of these next-level services.
-----------------------------

"As social media becomes more sophisticated, so does the measurement tool requirements to determine both your impact and branding possibilities. Three new methods of analyzing social media data have shown a lot of promise, but it might be a bit too early in the learning curve to completely trust the data. Still, it's good to know about what's on the horizon.

• Sentiment analysis is a process that tries to determine the attitude of a speaker or a writer with respect to the topic they're writing about. If you actually read a blog or posting, you can tell the writer's sentiment immediately, but this analysis method tries to define and measure it as points of data.

• Cluster analysis tries to analyze how certain words are gathering (or “clustering”) relative to a search topic. It finds the words that are mostly likely to be associated with your search word, which may provide unexpected insight into what’s being said about you and even predict sales before they happen.

• Semantic analysis is another measurement tool that strives to understand what words mean in context to one another. Once again, it's something that we do for ourselves as we read, but this tool puts a number to it.

All of these tools are trying to measure what we can immediately see for ourselves empirically by just wading into the social media pool. They put a number to something that we can feel.

New measurement platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 are said to be using these tools to provide a more precise look at how you or your brand integrates with the social world.

If you need data for a meeting, to sway an investor, or appease a boss, these tools are important. If you're a marketer on a very high level, you might find the data immediately useful. If you're a band or artist just trying to make the next sale, the next gig, or make it through the next day of social media management, you'll find them interesting as best and parlor tricks at worst. But while these tools may be cutting edge today, you never know if they'll be an essential part of your marketing toolbox tomorrow. Stay tuned."

To read additional excerpts from Music 3.0 and my other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The 6 Top Earning Dead Musicians For 2012

Forbes recently posted an article about the top 6 earning dead musicians that I found interesting in a number of ways, particularly who was on the list and who was not. Let's look at them:

1. Michael Jackson - $145 million. A full year after he died, Michael has sold more than 8 million albums in the US, more than twice what runner-up Taylor Swift has done. His 50% stake in the Sony/ATV publishing catalog will continue to throw off cash pretty much forever, and his Cirque Due Soleil show already grossed $160 million on only the first leg of its tour. This number won't go down much in the near future.

2. Elvis Presley - $55 million. Believe it or not, the King's revenues were flat this year, yet he still continues to be a goldmine in the afterlife.

3. Bob Marley - $17. In death he's bigger than in life, at least revenue-wise, having sold more than 75 million records since 1992 alone. Now that the reggae king has added an energy drink and lifestyle company to his brands portfolio, expect this revenue to climb in the future.

4.  John Lennon - $12 million. The Beatles have sold more that 62 million albums in the US alone since 1992, and the Love Cirque Du Soleil show continues to be a big hit.

5. Richard Rogers - $6 million. Rogers and Hammerstein vast catalog of show tunes continue to be standards, and their publishing throws off cash accordingly.

6. George Harrison - $5.5 million. As with Lennon, GH still gets a cut of The Beatle empire as well as publishing from perennial favorites "Here Comes The Sun" and "Something."

What's interesting is who didn't make the list. Whitney Houston never wrote her songs so there's no publishing income, plus she never made back her last $40 million label advance, so no income there. Jimi Hendrix, Les Paul and Tupac Shakur all pulled in a bit more than $3 million, which somehow seems low. That said, it just goes to show that some celebrities can truly live forever, at least financially.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Peter Gabriel Crowdsources A New "Sledgehammer"

I'm not sure why crowdsourcing isn't used more. There are so many talented people in the world, and if they're a fan, they're willing to do almost anything to help an artist. Peter Gabriel, who has always tried to stay on the cutting edge, is now giving crowdsourcing a shot by asking his fans for help in remaking his big hit "Sledgehammer" for it's 25th anniversary and the reissue of the So album.

Like with most video and film crowdsourcing projects, he's asking the fan to just pick a single scene to animate, and the best will be picked from the entries by both Peter and the fans via posts on YouTube. The song will eventually be released in 3 different versions, and the winner of the best clip submission will receive a TDK wireless boombox autographed by Peter, while the runner-ups will receive posters (I think they're being a little light on the prizes myself).

"Sledgehammer" was one of the most played clips ever on MTV since 1986 when it came out, mostly because it was pretty cutting-edge for it's time. It should be interesting to see how creative the fans are this time around. Here's the original video below.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.