Our 2013 Online World According To Nielsen

It's always fun to look inside the Nielsen Interactive numbers to see if you can find the significance. In the charts below you'll find the usage numbers for January 2013. Take a look at the first chart of the top 10 entertainment sites.

Top 10 Entertainment Sites

Rank     Brand                            Unique Audience     Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1          YouTube                           124,073,000               1:57:28
2          iTunes                                 44,965,000               1:11:58
3          Comcast Ent sites                 33,825,000               0:54:42
4          Yahoo! Sports Websites        32,581,000               0:25:02
5          IMDb                                  29,783,000               0:17:49
6          Netflix                                 28,076,000               0:46:31
7          ESPN Digital Network          27,366,000               1:02:05
8          Omg! Websites                     25,298,000               0:08:55
9          VEVO                                  25,204,000               0:07:54
10         FOXSports.com on MSN      24,385,000               0:09:59

Of course, what immediately catches your eye is the fact that YouTube (in red) was watched more than the others. It's significant that iTunes isn't all that far behind. If you factor in the fact that Apple's iRadio streaming network will be implemented sometime during the summer, this chart could look a lot different in 6 months. Also, if you combine all the sports sites (Comcast, Yahoo Sports, ESPN and FoxSports), it shows that sports is bigger entertainment sector than anything else, with nearly 2:30 of viewing.

Top 10 Web Brands by Unique Audience (U.S. Total)

Rank     Brand                          Unique Audience     Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1           Google                                   170,629,000     2:05:30
2           Facebook                                145,297,000     6:41:44
3           Yahoo!                                   135,100,000     2:32:52
4           YouTube                                124,073,000     1:57:28
5           MSN/WindowsLive/Bing         123,133,000     1:15:40
6           Microsoft                                  86,986,000     0:47:26
7           Amazon                                    84,735,000     0:38:14
8           AOL Media Network                 83,826,000     2:09:36
9           Wikipedia                                 76,310,000     0:24:25
10         Ask Network                             69,447,000     0:12:30

No surprise here that Facebook leads the way in stickiness, with nearly 3 times the amount as the next in line. Everyone complains about Facebook, but we still use it a lot.

Average U.S. Internet Usage for January 2013

Metrics                                            Total
Sessions/Visits per Person                   62
Domains Visited per Person                96
Web Page Views per Person            2417
Duration of a Web Page viewed       0:01:12
Online Time per Person                   29:10:34
No. of People Who Went Online      208,703,000
No. of People with Internet access    276,778,307

What's interesting about this chart is the fact that we don't stay too long on most websites that we visit, which makes the Facebook number in the previous chart all the more impressive. Also, with a total US population of 313 million, it's pretty interesting that 208 million of them went online in January, and 276 million of them have Internet access. Yes, it is almost everywhere.

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The Upcoming Subscription War

There's no doubt that we're headed for a battle that will be nearly as epic as any in past music business history. As the world slowly but surely shifts from a download "ownership" model to a rental "access" model, the parameters that we know today regarding the online and offline music business will be redrawn. It may happen incredibly fast, or it could happen so slowly that you hardly notice it, and that's what makes how the whole thing plays out so interesting.

Let's take the big premise first, that subscription will solve the music industry's problems and restore the revenues to what they once where. The dream all along of record label execs and insiders is to have 50 million US subscribers each pay $10 a month, which would give the listeners access to all the music they can listen to. That would generate around $6 billion a year, which is okay when you compare that the total US industry revenue in 2012 was $5.35 billion. What is usually forgotten is that the entire $10 isn't going to the record labels, it's going to be split with the service provider and the publisher. I'm not sure what the split would end up being between them, but if you put it at 50%, you get $3 billion. That could end up just offsetting the decline in download and CD sales, and basically it a wash. I don't see how that restores the industry to its former glory even if it does increase a little.

The labels are smart when it comes to subscription though, and they don't want to get caught in the Apple trap again where there's one big dog distributor that controls the supply chain. That's why they're eager to make deals with any number of potential or real competitors, like Google Play, the new Beats offering, Amazon, whomever. One thing's for sure, there's going to be a lot of alternatives for listeners to choose from in the future.

And what does that mean for Apple? There's a big change a-comin', because don't forget that Apple's fortunes aren't so much tied to the software that is iTunes as much as it's a vehicle for people to buy their hardware. Thanks to the reality of music streaming, there won't be a need for any new and improved dedicated hardware like the iPod soon, thank you very much. That means they need a new plan going forward if they want to control the music world as they have.

Amazon is a little different. Their model has never been tied to hardware, although the Kindle was used to kick start the ebook market for them. That said, they don't really care what hardware you use, as long as you buy from them. That means they're a lot less vulnerable to any forthcoming change. They also have the infrastructure in place to implement a subscription service in a flash.

Google may be caught in the middle here. They want to do some big subscription things with a combination of YouTube and Google Play and can easily roll that out. The problem is that they're not good at charging end users for their services. YouTube is a huge music discovery engine, but primarily because it's free. Try charging people and watch what happens.

That leaves Spotify, Deezer, Rhapsody, Rdio, et al. Some of these will fall by the wayside, some will stick around, but most likely none will grab a larger market share than the biggies mentioned above.

So what's the answer? If I had to guess I'd say the winner will be the best bundler. When you buy a device you get the service thrown in (or least for a period of time). That would put Apple on top, but don't discout Google (who owns Motorola) or Samsung, Google or even Beats. The phone is the center of everyone's lives right now and he who owns mobile owns the music business.

All we know for sure is that two years from now the industry could look completely different. And I can't wait for that day.

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Why A Metadata Standard Is Important

The Nation Association of Recording Merchandisers recently announced that they would be having a "Metadata Summit" at their upcoming Music Biz 2013 Conference in Los Angeles on May 6th and 7th. This is the first of it's kind, and is somewhat of a turning point for the industry.

Metadata, or the data about the data, in this case refers to the information about the digital audio file. This can be everything from the name of the song, the artist, it's ISRC code, the publisher and the record label. The metadata can include so much more though, from when the song was recorded and published, the producer and songwriters, and the musical genre, and much more.

The problem is that there's no standard as to exactly what metadata should be included, which means that most digital tracks are woefully inadequate when it comes to these details. Hopefully, the Metadata Summit will be a first step in the right direction.

On the surface, filling in metadata seems like a somewhat mundane task, but it can play an important part in search. For instance, if there's an artist you like and you'd like to find everything that he's been connected with, metadata can be an essential piece to search. It would be great to find other songs that he's written or produced, but unless that metadata is included, you'll have to find the info some other way. That's an opportunity missed by the artist, the publisher and record label alike.

A second reason for filling in the metadata is it can make accounting easier by clearly delineating who owns the copyright of the song and who administrates it. Getting paid is always a priority and this is one way to ensure that it actually happens. The only thing worse than not getting paid is having your royalty held up in an escrow account because it wasn't clear who should get the money.

Even if you're a indie artist you can still be diligent about metadata. As you're making an MP3, ACC or FLAC file, be sure to fill in as much of the data as you can. Two that are frequently overlooked are comments and artwork, but both can be important in search and grabbing the attention of a prospective listener. It may take a few minutes more to load the info in, but you only have to do it once, and it can be very worthwhile, especially if new standards are created and music search engines begin to utilize them more.

So don't overlook that metadata. Your fans want it, it will help them find you, and help you get paid.

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

6 Tips For Better Google+ Hangouts

Google+ has a unique feature called Hangouts On Air that's like a video conference with 9 other people except for the fact that you can broadcast it to the world simultaneously on YouTube, your blog or website as well. It's a great way to connect with fans and clients for either a chat or for an intimate concert. That said, your Hangout will be a failure unless you use some basic broadcast techniques so that you actually look good on camera. Follow these tips and your Hangout partners will thank you.

1. Pay attention to the lighting. Unless you're using a video camera with a larger lens, built-in computer and web cameras have a small sensor that need more light than you think is necessary. For best results, make sure that most of the light comes from in front of you at about a 45 degree angle off to one side, and from slightly above your head. Avoid any lights behind you that can be seen by the camera.

2. Pay attention to the audio. The closer the mic is to you, the better you'll sound and the less ambient noise will be broadcast. Of course, great audio gear always helps, but you'd be surprised what even cheap gear can sound like if used properly.

3. Use headphones. An echo can occur when your playback is loud enough to leak into your microphone, which can be very distracting to the others on the Hangout. If you must listen loudly, use a set of headphones or earbuds to hear what's going on.

4. Pay attention to what you wear. Because webcams are fairly inexpensive devices, they don't respond like larger cameras do, which means they have some quirks that you must work around. Therefore, try to wear solid colors, since any patterns on your clothing will be distracting. Also, lighter colors work better than dark, since dark requires more light.

5. Look at the camera. This can be tough because we all want to look at who we're speaking with and the camera is never ideally located. Just remember that when it's your time to speak, avoid the temptation of looking at the other Hangout attendees and look directly into your camera instead. They'll feel your eye contact and your connection will be deeper as a result.

6. Pay attention to your position. If you're too far away, then people can't see your eyes and you lose any connection with them. The correct distance is when they can see your shoulders in the frame.

Just follow these quick tips and you'll find that you'll have much better results on your next Hangout.

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Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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Tweaking Your Website's Contact Page

Believe it or not, many artists create a fantastic website and forget to include what may be the most important section of all - the contact page. After all, how can you take advantage of any prospective opportunities if people can't easily connect with you? What if a promoter wants to book you? Or if a record company exec wants to hear more? Or if a fan wants another piece of merch? None of that will happen unless they have your contact info.

Here are a number of items to consider when adding your contact info to your site:

1. Be sure that the contact section is easy to find. Don't bury it deep in a menu. Try to keep it as a top-level link that will be available on every page.

2. Include multiple ways to contact you, not just an email address. Some people are more comfortable on the phone, so include a phone number. Phone numbers also have the added advantage in that they tend to make people feel secure that you're actually reachable and will respond. If you don't want someone calling your cell, get a Google Voice number that will ring all your numbers, and that you'll be able to screen. Also include a snail mail address in case someone (like a fan) wants to send you something. You don't want to give out your home address, so open up a post office box just for this purpose.

3. Make the contact info prominent on the page. Make it the primary object of the page, not buried in graphics or other none-related text.

4. If you're looking for bookings, have a dedicated booking page that has all of your contact info there as well. You can check out this post for more on what to include in a booking page.

Remember that the more options you provide, the more likely you'll have someone connect or buy something from you, and the more secure they'll feel about doing it.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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

A Look At Facebook's Graph Search

One of the things that's always bothered Facebook users is limited the search ability, both within the network and outside of it too. That prompted the development of the new Graph Search, the search tool that Facebook is slowly rolling out that allows you to do much more precise searches, and even employs Bing to search for things on the web.

While now it's pretty easy to find friends via the Facebook search, soon you'll be able to find things like:

• public posts
• people
• pages
• events
• applications
• groups
• places
• check-ins of users and friends
• objects with location information attached.

Users can also filter results and search only a user's News Feed.

Unfortunately Graph Search isn't available to everyone at the moment, and if you do a search you'll be greeted with a prompt like the graphic on the left that asks you to sign up to be alerted when it's available. That said, it looks like it will be a useful tool whenever it's finally rolled out. Check out this video that shows just what it will do.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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

Music Celebs Extend Their Brands

It used to be that a celebrity musician was loath to do anything commercial for fear of "selling out."

If you were successful with your music, you risked all of your credibility with your fans if your music appeared in a commercial, or your image was found on a consumer item.

Those days a long gone, as music celebs everywhere do whatever they can to extend their brands. It's a money grab that's now condoned, accepted and even expected by management and fans alike. And all without any stigma whatsoever.

I've posted about musician's private brands and even custom items like toothbrushes and clothing (even Jimi Hendrix!),  but once again we have multiple examples of music celebs reaching way beyond the music that made them famous.

Take for instance, Beyonce and Taylor Swift becoming the new faces of Pepsi and Diet Coke respectively. Depending upon which study you use, these are mostly unhealthy products endorsed by women who exude health.

Then we have Sean "Diddy" Combs and Mark Wahlberg investing in the premium water AQUAhydrate for fit, active party people. At least it's healthy.

Hip hop girl group OMG Girlz are the new spokespeople for Wat-AAH, another premium water product.

Pop-Water, a new flavored low-calorie product (I thought water is supposed to have zero calories) is backed by Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter. Then there's Golnside, a tea product, courtesy of manager Kevin Liles (Nelly, Big Sean, Trey Songz and a dozen others).

The fact of the matter is that success in music is merely a departure point to consumer product success for most artists these days. But can you really blame them?

In the days when "selling out" was considered taboo, artists weren't used to making or spending the kind of money available to them today. And those that did actually make that kind of money in music could have it sustain over long periods of time because the business was healthy, selling more product than ever, and even growing at the time.

Today, with the industry roughly half the size that it was before, success is much more fleeting, and the money that's here today probably won't be there tomorrow, which makes artist's desired to catch whatever financial wave they can more understandable. Plus, management is smarter than ever at exploiting every opportunity and even creating new ones for their artists.

That doesn't mean that some self-aware artists understand that expanding their commerciality beyond their music isn't inherently good for their brand. That still happens, and those artists should be applauded, but even those they will look for products that best fit with their brands, even it they won't be found on a convenience store shelf.

So to all you old school people longing for the "days of artist integrity," get over it. It's a new world. You may not like it, but it's not going back to the way it was any time soon.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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.

Social Media Listening Tools

Simon Tam wrote a great piece on Music Think Tank about the social media that every artist should be doing. One of the best aspects of the article was a section called "Free Listening Tools" that listed a number of tools that could be used to monitor your mentions on social media. It's worth repeating, so here it is:

"First, let’s talk about some of the free tools available to you. Here are some that I use everyday:

• Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a basic way to discover when a website is posting about you. However, it doesn’t capture everything and it certainly doesn’t cover social media or most blog sites. Still, it’s a good, automated, entry-level way to get some feedback about any kind of search query emailed to you. Sign up at www.google.com/alerts.

• Hootsuite/TweetDeck: Both Hootsuite and TweetDeck offer some tools to consolidate and manage your social media accounts. You can also add search columns that are scanning Twitter in real time. Not everyone who tweets about you will be using your hashtag or tagging you so this is a convenient way to spot what is being discussed and reply immediately.

• Icerocket: Icerocket specializes in blog searches. Their “big buzz” option also captures activity on Facebook, Twitter, and image sites such as Flickr too. It’s free, easy to use, and does not require registration of an account.

• Social Mention: Social Mention collects aggregated data across multiple platforms. You’ll see results from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, photobucket, etc. and there are some basic analytics that help you determine if the sentiment is positive or negative, how many different sources are active, etc. It’s also free and doesn’t require registration.

• Topsy: Topsy is similar to Icerocket and Social Mention; the main focus is around social media, especially multimedia and blogs. You don’t have to register, but you do have the option of creating an email alert (it ties into your Twitter or Facebook).

None of the tools are all-inclusive. They catch bits and pieces of what is out there but don’t always get it all. If you run a search every day, it will only takes a few minutes to scan through anything new. Make a habit of searching and listening. In addition to the above, I also run searches on Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go twice per day."

I've talked about most of these in individual posts in the past, but this is a good list of them all in one place. For more good tips from Simon, go to his article.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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.

Studies Show Piracy Doesn't Affect Music Sales

If you've read this blog for any length of time, or my Music 3.0 Internet music guidebook, you know that my mantra is "Your music is your marketing." I've advocated that you never worry about piracy, and should in fact embrace it, since that's the single best way for people to become aware of your music. In fact, sales will grow precisely because your music was interesting enough to be freely shared.

This was born out by the latest studies by the NPD Group and IFPI, as shown in this recent post. Now a new study from the EU has concluded that "digital piracy should not be viewed as a growing concern for copyright holders in the digital era."

Digital Music Consumption On The Interent: Evidence from Clickstream Data is a 40 page study full of statistical detail by the EU's Information Society Unit that used data from 5000 Internet users from the EU's five largest countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. While most of the data pertains to Europe, the conclusions are the same as previous studies.

No artist, songwriter or copyright owner wants their property stolen, but an odd quirk of music online shows that the more it's available for free, the more it sells. A number of artists have found that when they take the free music down from their website, their iTunes sales fall. Put it back up and the sales rise. You can look at it loosely like radio, where a song is heard for free, but it exposes it to people who might want to buy it.

It used to be that you'd buy the song or album because you wanted the convenience of hearing it when you wanted, instead of waiting for it to be played on the radio. Today you can find most songs instantly anywhere online, so the convenience factor is gone if you're into streaming. That said, some fans want to pay simply as a way to support an artist. Then again, it's been found that the biggest sharers of music are also the ones that buy the most.

Regardless, unless your music is heard in some way, it's invisible. That's why it doesn't matter how someone hears your music, just that they hear it.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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.

Soundcloud Goes Pro

SoundCloud, the song hosting service that provides instant audio streaming of your material, has just announced a new subscription service called SoundCloud Pro. The new Pro and Pro Unlimited plans replace the previous Premium Lite, Solo, Pro and Pro Plus programs.

The company didn't mention many details in their press release last week, but it leads one to believe that this has much to do with its recent agreement to be the audio backbone of Twitter Music. In fact, you could see this coming when SoundCloud basically rebuilt it's platform in December, improving the user interface and making it Flash-free.

My guess here is that SoundCloud saw in Twitter Music an opportunity to scale in a way not possible otherwise. They could get massive growth in a short period of time, which is a way for their investors to make their money back and more. In fact, SoundCloud received $50 million in January 2012 from KPCB, one of the most revered venture firms in Silicon Valley. KPCB also happens to be an investor in Twitter as well, so this collaboration was probably baked way back then and only coming out of the oven now.

While you could look at all this cynically as just a money grab, I don't think it is. On all sides there are well-regarded, highly competent people that have a tradition of caring for the customer as well as for making money. That's why I look forward to both the new SoundCloud and Twitter Music. What we see now is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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 Ins And Outs Of Cookies

We're exposed to so much technical jargon every day that we think that we know everything just because we're familiar with a term. Take "cookies," for instance. So many of us have heard of the term, and we may loosely be aware that they have something to do with our browser, but that's probably it. If that's you, then let me take some of the mystery out the term.

A cookie is a small piece of data that a website stores on your browser while you're looking at a website that's used to track the number of visits and unique visitors to a site. In other words, the next time you visit the site that deposited the cookie, it records the fact that you've come back and how long you stayed.

There are two main types of cookies; transient and persistent, although sometimes they're called "session" and "user" respectively. A transient cookie is set when you visit a site and disappears when you leave, but measures everything about the experience while you're there, including what you clicked on and how long you looked at a page.

A persistent cookie is set the first time that you visit a site and stays with your browser for a period of time that can be finite (say 12 months) to forever. These alert the browser the next time you return and any preferences that you might have set, then act like a session cookie during that time. While this sounds somewhat insidious, it's important to understand that persistent cookies don't contain any of your personal information, and have only a simple character string that the company that inserted it can read. It's also important to understand that you can choose to delete it at any time, and each different browser has a way to do this in their Settings section.

Another type of cookie is a "secure" cookie, that's used on encrypted HTTPS sites, like for banking or sales. It's encrypted along with the transaction info of the site so it's less likely to be exposed to any outside eavesdropping.

Then we have first and third party cookies. First party cookies come from the site that you visited itself, while third party cookies that come from a different domain name. These are sometimes used by sites to measure what happens once you leave a site. For instance, Yahoo may insert a cookie that watches when you go to eBay, or any site with banner adds needs to utilize them to track the click throughs. Sometimes these are rejected by your browser, or you're specifically asked if you want to accept them.

There are many other types of cookies as well, but the idea here is to give you a reason not to fear them. A cookie is just a way for you to personalize your settings on a site, and for the site to measure what you do once you're there. No more, no less.

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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.

Twitter Jumps Into The Music Discovery Game

Twitter Music Test Tweet

Music rumors at SXSW keep swirling, and the latest one is that Twitter is getting ready to enter into music discovery thanks to their recent purchase of We Are Hunted. WAH scoured the web to find new artists that didn't necessarily have much visibility, but fit with your playlist tastes.

Once again, music discovery is the holy grail for most of the deep pockets in the industry, and a startup with any kind of working discovery technology is bound to find money or be purchased in no time. The reasons?

• Music discovery means it's easier to find new acts that fit the listener's tastes, which grows the industry.

• More new artists means less reliance on old catalog for the labels as a revenue generator.

• Being found by a discovery engine makes it a lot easier (or even possible) for a new artist to jump out of pack of hundreds of thousands of releases every year.

• Bottom line: a healthier industry with increased revenue streams, which hopefully benefits everyone, although the big dogs always seem to benefit the most.

On the surface, Twitter seems the perfect delivery vehicle for music discovery. Imagine that you tweet that you're listening to something and add a few hashtags to indicate same. The discovery engine reads that, finds a match of new artists, and tweets you back. If it knows what your music delivery platform is choice is, the links are to that platform. This is just speculation on may part, but seems like it would be a great way to implement it.

The leaks about Twitter Music (the name of the new standalone app) are different though. It will stream from Soundcloud, and have a number of tabs for song selections. Suggested recommends songs based on your tastes, #NowPlaying brings in song links from people you follow on Twitter that use hashtags, Popular brings in the current trending songs, and Emerging tracks up and coming artists.

The fact that it's linked to Soundcloud is interesting, since it's more of a storage platform than a delivery service. First of all, will artists and songwriters get paid? Who determines what songs can be used by Twitter Music? What happens if your songs are hosted but you haven't registered?

Supposedly there will also be links to iTunes previews, but there's no info about connections to other services yet. Of course, everything but the purchase of We Are Hunted are well-placed rumors reported by several insiders (check out CNET for more), so much can change before the service is even launched.

All of this means that music delivery and discovery is getting a lot more exciting. There may be some questions about Twitter Music at the moment, but it's a welcome addition to our music world.

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