A New Media Format From......BitTorrent?

One of the big problems of the modern digital music industry is bundling, or more accurately, lack of it. Back when the business was a roaring success at the top of its game, the CD album (and before that the vinyl album) brought in most of the revenue. Sure, singles were a reasonable business (at least in the vinyl days), but the album was where the big money was made. Of course, that's all gone away in our current Music 3.0 world where the single song is the king.

Now comes an interesting new bundle that's not exactly an album or movie, but more of a combination of music, video, flyer and store. And it's all built into the same file. The only potential problem is that it's from the service that most creatives love to hate - BitTorrent.

Basically the BitTorrent Bundle is a file that acts as a graphic, telling you anything an advert normally would, but the other pieces can be unbundled as the user buys in. For instance, Ultra, the label that brought you such EDM artists as David Guetta, Tiesto, deadmau5, and Calvin Harris, is trying the new bundle with Kaskade.

The bundle acts as a virtual flyer over social media, and if someone subscribes to his mailing list they then unlock behind-the-scenes footage. Want to buy some music - it's already there. Make a donation, and see some video. It's all up to how to configure it.

The music business needs a new concept in bundling and potentially this could be it. The big problem, of course, is that it's from BitTorrent, which the industry (not to mention artists and songwriters) view it as a bastion for piracy. That said, they do have 170 million active users that you can immediately access.

The Ultra BitTorrent Bundle is a first alpha release, so we don't know what the bugs are yet, but on the surface it's a great concept. Check out this video for more info.

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It's All About Song Skipping

Probably the holy grail of listening to music is the ability to skip a song when we get bored. It was pretty difficult with vinyl records, easier with CDs, and much easier with digital music. Of course, it's always been impossible with radio, but digital streaming brings us many possibilities.

One of the features siad to be in Apple's new iRadio music streaming service is the ability to skip songs, and apparently that's become a big problem for Sony Music. It's not that they're opposed to it, it's just that they'd like to get paid full rate even if a listener only played the song for a few seconds. Apple would naturally prefer pay a portion of the royalty using a formula that determines the royalty rate based on the amount of the song that's actually listened to.

Of course, whatever is hammered out with Sony will no doubt be applied to the deals with Universal Music and Warner Music Group as well, since it would be a shock if they didn't have a "favored nation" clause built into their agreements that would keep the compensation equal regardless of who got the best deal.

Yet another feature of iRadio is said to be the ability to rewind a song. As a listener, I love the thought of this feature since there are so many times that I'd love to repeat a section of a song to analyze it. The problem then becomes, how much is paid for each rewind and how is that rate determined.

It's funny how some things that we take for granted with music we own become an issue when it comes to streaming. That said, this is another reason why I think that much better days are ahead for songwriters and artists. The compensation may be small but the increased number of revenue streams should increase income substantially.

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Is Viral Success A Myth?

Everyone is searching for viral success with one of their videos. There's been books written about it (a good one is Contagious: Why Things Catch On), presentations given at conferences, countless web articles, and much speculation about assumptions and formulas, but few are able to recreate the a success like OK Go's "Here It Goes Again," Rebecca Black's "Friday," Baauer's "Harlem Shake," or Psy's "Gangnam Style" (not to mention the numerous cat videos that routinely make the rounds).

But is it possible that what we think of as viral isn't actually viral after all? A number of recent articles and presentations propose that these videos were given a big corporate helping hand first before getting any kind of traction.

Take for instance Psy's "Gangnam Style." In a recent article on Pando, Brandon Mendelson postulates that the video's success is "actually the tail end of months and months of preparation, buying fake views and comments, an extensive PR campaign, and his video fitting a very specific need for the business model that fuels the web: The Page View Based Economy."

He goes on to state that Psy's record company purchased views and comments by using companies like Microworkers and Fiverr to trick the YouTube algorithm into thinking the video was exploding. It actually was, only as a result of gaming the system. 

Another article by Keven Ashton on Quartz points out that Baauer's "Harlem Shake" had only a few thousand views as a result of YouTube comic George Miller's video compilation. It was only after Warner Brother's owned Maker Studios made a version of the video to promote the studio itself and promoted it across it's many YouTube channels and Twitter did the video begin to get some traction. Other companies, DJs and bloggers jumped on, mostly to promote themselves, which caused Baauer's record label to take notice and begin its own promotion. Ashton provides a pretty thorough blow by blog of how it all took place, and it a lot less to do with what we think "viral" is rather than self-promotion. Here's the very first version the "Harlem Shake."

The gist of both articles is that what we believe and what's reality are frequently two different things when it comes to social media. It's becoming easier to manipulate many of the metrics that we use to measure success, if you have the money. 

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

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

Google Launches A New Streaming Music Service

Yesterday Google introduced its new streaming music service called All Access, but surprise, surprise - it's not the same one that's been rumored for months.

Previous reports had it that Google's new service would be built around YouTube, which made a lot of sense since the majority of people discover new music through that video service anyway. It seems that both services will live in parallel, the difference being that All Access will be subscription only with no free tier. Users will have to pay $10 per month for the service ($8 if you subscribe by the end of June) with a 30 day free trial.

While we don't know for sure what's in store over at YouTube, We do have a little more information about the list of All Access features. It appears to combine your personal music collection with any available tracks in their catalog into a single searchable library, and of course, Google excels at search so everything should be easy to find. It also has auto-recommendation-based radio stations that allow you to customize your playlists.

A couple of things about Google All Access are very interesting:

1. Google beat Apple to the punch. The tough part about launching any kind of digital music service is making a deal with the major labels. The fact that Google accomplished this before Apple probably means that the labels pushed for a better deal and got it. This had the dual purpose of stymying Apple's attempts as well, as the company has reportedly only recently upped the terms of what they were willing to pay, and still haven't completed deals with Warners and Sony.

2. There's another service vying for marketshare. Although Amazon is king of the hill in terms of online retailers, their music site hasn't made nearly the mark that was anticipated, especially when you consider the marketshare that Android phones enjoy. As more and more consumers discover the joy of accessing music versus owning it, the marketshare that it has (about 13%) could shift in a hurry, especially if Apple doesn't introduce its service in the short term. Google as a behemoth company stands on the same ground as Amazon, and could easily eat their digital lunch and maybe Apple's too when it's all said and done. After all, they have an installed base of all those Android phones.

As has been the theme here lately, we're witnessing a big change in the music business occur right before our eyes, and it's going to be better for musicians in the long run. Today every artist and songwriter complains about the meager revenue they receive from streaming, but remember that as of now it's only expected to total $1.7 billion at the end of 2013. Considering that iTunes throws off twice that in royalties to the major labels alone every year, you can see where this is eventually going to go. Unfortunately, no royalty details were mentioned during the announcement yesterday (no surprise there).

Streaming probably won't replace the income of the glory days of CDs, but things will eventually be better than they are now in the transition period from one distribution method (downloads) to another (streaming).

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Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media for 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 Now Gets Cozy With Network Television

Recently I wrote about how the cable channel Fuse designed a new show around Twitter music trends. Now comes word that the social network is actively working with the major networks even more closely.

Fox's The X Factor has used Twitter for voting and American Idol used Twitter hashtags from the audience to gauge their sentiments during the show, but now the both networks are going beyond that relationship. In fact, Fox will be using Twitter to distribute clips of their various shows and events after the they have been aired starting in this summer.

This is a pretty good move on Fox's part, since most of the social narrative and online buzz revolves around Twitter at the moment. Facebook suddenly seems so last year, and as it imposes more restrictions on what a user can see thanks to their Edgerank algorithm, doesn't have the promotional cache that it once had.

But Fox isn't the only network getting in bed with Twitter, as the social network is currently having discussions with ESPN (they've already used it for expanded coverage of the BCS series), NBC and CBS as well.

All networks see a relationship not only a means to expand their distribution and show coverage, but as a potential means for advertising revenue as well. With measurable results available from Twitter, any network could build a new business angle that they didn't have before. It's also potentially good for Twitter since it expects to double it's revenue in the next few years to over a billion dollars, which is just what's needed in time for a potential upcoming IPO.

Sometimes it's difficult to see things change when we're right in the middle of it happening, but if you look closely, you'll see a social media changing of the guard going on right now. Facebook isn't going away anytime soon, but Twitter is now the rising star.

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Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media for 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.

RIAA Now Counting Streams For Awards

As we slowly see music turning into a streaming world, so apparently does the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the industry organization that doles out the gold (500,000 sold) and platinum (1,000,000 sold) record awards.

Wanting to get ahead of the curve, the RIAA just announced that it will now also include streaming music in the count for their Digital Single Award certification. As a result, 56 songs have immediately earned awards, even a number of oldies from Aerosmith and Whitney Houston.

What's interesting is that the RIAA counts 100 streams as equivalent to 1 download, which means that you'd need 100 million streams to reach Platinum in a streaming-only world, a figure that seems fair as it's as difficult to attain as a million sales or downloads.

The organization is including streaming figures in its count from a number of apps, including Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, Xbox Music and Muve, as well as video sites like YouTube, Vevo, MTV.com, Yahoo Music and others.

There are so many artists getting massive streaming counts, and they should be recognized, as streaming influence is perhaps greater than any other sales parameter at the moment. It's another indication that the music business is evolving right before our eyes.

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Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media for 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.

Can iRadio Save The Music Business?

Word leaked out last week that Apple has finally come to terms with Universal Music regarding a licensing deal for their new streaming iRadio service. They also are reported to be inching closer to a deal with both Warner Music Group and Sony Music, although Sony still seems to be the toughest of the bunch to hash out an agreement.

It's also been rumored that the terms of the deal is much more favorable to the record labels in that it would pay more per stream than Pandora, plus the rights holders would get 50% of any ad revenue generated by Apple's new iAd business, which is still in its infancy.

iRadio is potentially a huge opportunity for artists, songwriters and record labels alike in that the audience from streaming will increase by multiples the minute the service is launched. One of the problems that everyone on the creative end of the business has at the moment is that the payout from streams is so abysmally low. That's like saying that you're not making enough money when you only play at largest venue in a small town in Iowa. There are plenty of fans elsewhere in the world if you can only get to them, which would increase your revenue.

Though both Spotify and Pandora have seen significant increases in total users, it's still a drop in the bucket to what Apple can potentially deliver. With iTunes now available in 119 countries (the App Store is in 155 and more than reaches 90% of the planet - and each one spends an average of $40 per year!) and more than 500 million active users, artists can look forward to a boost in revenue simply in terms of the increased audience that represents.

Will the revenue streams of the glory days of the music business be revisited as a result? Unless some new ideas in song bundling (an album is a song bundle, but now outdated) come along, probably not, but artist's are going to see a definite improvement on those meager streaming royalty statements over time, and many will be quite pleased with the result.

iRadio is going to do for streaming audio what iTunes did for music downloads, which is turn it into a viable business for content creators, this time by virtue of its installed user base. Google is said to be readying a similar music service to be launched later in the year through YouTube, and that competition can only be good for streaming in general.

I've talked and written much about Music 3.0, which was more about the music business embracing digital music and the artist socially connecting to his fans. Right before our eyes we're seeing it evolve into Music 4.0 - the age of streaming.

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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.

What Your Site Visitors Hate

Recently a friend asked me to critique his website. While it was slick and modern, there were a number of problems that both he and his designer overlooked. Here's a short excerpt that covers a number of those items from my upcoming book, Social Media Promotion For Musicians, about the things your site visitors hate.

"Technology marches on, and as we know, the pace seems to get faster and faster all the time. The problem is, we all have to keep up in order to both stay relevant and keep our fans engaged. Now comes some research courtesy of getsharesquare.com (a site that helps mobilize your site) that’s an eye opener in terms what visitors really hated about artist’s websites.

• 33% of the survey respondents said their most frequent complaint about an artist site was text that was so small that it required zooming.

• 31% stated their biggest complaint was video content that was broken or unavailable. 

• 28% said they hated when buttons or links were too small to click.

• 20% hated when streaming music was broken or unavailable.

• 17% complained that recent news and event info was difficult to find.

• 29% said that they missed the ability to exchange an email address for free content.

• 25% said they really missed the ability to download an artist's song.

• 21% complained that they couldn't purchase tickets or merch directly from the website.

This is a fascinating report in that it indicates that a lot more commerce could be going on if only artists would pay more attention to their websites. Many artists take their site for granted, but it should be the main point where all of your fan contact is directed since it's the one portal online that you have total control of."

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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 for 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 And Television

For anyone who discounts the influence of Twitter, understand that when other mediums begin building programming around it, you can no longer afford to wait to finally jump on board. It's amazing how many musicians still discount the social network, but it's quickly becoming the center of online social life, maybe even more so than Facebook.

The latest example of how important it's become is a new television show based around Twitter trending music topics called "Trending 10." The new show will be shown on the Fuse cable music channel and be sponsored by Trident gum. It's scheduled to air weekdays at 4:30PM.

The idea of the show is to feature the top 10 music-related Twitter topics of the day, which is determined by Fuse's "heat tracker" algorithm, and look at which musicians are the most discussed. The show will also feature interviews and articles, but everything will be based on the latest music trends on Twitter.

It's unclear if Twitter actually has a part in the show, but it does show that at least one channel thinks it's significant enough to build a show around it. I'd say that's a pretty good indication of influence. More on Trending 10 on the Fuse website.

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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.

Trey Songz Fan App Nets $50K Per Month

Social networks can be very powerful, and many fans will pay for exposure on them, as singer Trey Songz is now finding out. The artist, who's had a number of big R&B hits, began his own private social network via a smartphone and tablet app called Trey Songz - The Angel Network, and has been reaping the reward with as much as $50k of revenue per month since it was launched in December.

How? Well, it's not from app sales, which would only be a one-time fee a best. In fact, TS doesn't even charge for the app; it's all about what happens later.

In fact, fans pay for the privilege of being an "Instant VIP" to have a profile picture appear high on a board, pay to send TS an email, and pay for virtual goods. In fact, it's been estimated that some fans are paying as much as $32 per month during the course of their engagement.

The fans don't use actual cash in any of these transactions, instead purchasing 250 credits for $1.99. Bidding credits for higher profile picture position can go anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 credits, while sending Trey a message goes for a mere 100 credits.

The irony is that TS doesn't even engage his fans on the app all that often, checking in briefly only a few times per week. That said, that doesn't seem to deter his primarily female audience, as more than 45,000 of his estimated 5 million followers have downloaded the app. That means there's still some obviously room for growth with his fan club, but it's a healthy start so far.

What this proves is that fans indeed crave engagement, even if it's with one another. Point them in the direction of a mutual cause or artist, and they thrive if the right environment is presented.

I'm not sure that the Trey Songz social app is directly transferrable to other artists as is (maybe for Justin Bieber), but it is an interesting case study. More on this to come as the app matures.

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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.

LMFAO Sues Management For Getting Them Work

A good manager gets his act work, but in California and New York that can mean some pretty negative consequences down the line. When a musical act is first starting out they have no leverage, not hits and no juice, so most promoters and agents won't take a chance (as many of you probably know only too well). In this early career stage, a good manager is the only thing between them and obscurity. The act needs work and the manager does whatever he (or she) has to do, which means booking gigs without the help of an agent.

But the problem is that in California and New York, this is illegal as an agent always must be involved thanks to a law known as the Talent Agencies Act. As a result, many an act has used this law to break their contract with their manager after becoming more successful. For example, here's an excerpt from Chapter 27 of producer Ken Scott's memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust where he describes the same situation he endured as manager of Missing Persons.

"Even though I had a contract with them, they found a way around it in a way that could only happen in California or New York. There’s a very strong law in this state whereby a manager cannot ”procure employment” for an act, only a licensed talent agent can. It’s an arcane law more designed to protect the movie agents of the 1930s than a music artist of today, but it is a law. Well, early on I got them an appearance on Solid Gold, which was one TV show that helped them sell a load of records. Since they got paid scale for it, that meant that I, the manager, had gotten them employment. As a result, they threatened to take me in front of the California labour board, which could have ended up turning out very badly for me. If you go in front of the labour board as a manager and it’s found that you did indeed procure employment, then the labour board can determine that the contract that you have with the band is null and void and never existed, thus any monies you had received because of that contract have to be paid back to the band. That’s what happened with the band Weezer, and both Ke$sha and Lady Gaga are bringing the same action against their former managers right now so they don’t have to pay them commission."

Now the same situation plays out again with a twist. LMFAO's former management company RPMGRP is suing the act for $7 million in commissions it feels it deserves after the act fired the company and poached two of it's employees to act as salaried managers just as the band was hitting it big. LMFAO claims that because RPMGRP got them jobs at various parties and clubs in the early days of the band, their original contract is null and void thanks to the TAA.

This can be a pretty cut-throat business sometimes, but the spirit of this law stinks as it's a no-win situation for any manager. Management is a key commodity in the music business these days, but you'll see fewer and fewer managers taking chances on young acts as long as a silly law like TAA is held over them.

For more excerpts from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.

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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.

Should Artist Royalties Be Private?

There are so many things in life that are meant to be private yet turn up before the public. Executive salaries, artist contract riders, tax returns, rehab, criminal and medical histories are just some of what comes before our eager eyes on a daily basis. There's a school of thought that says that a celebrity's total life should be totally open to whatever scrutiny the public desires, since that's what the artist signed up for in the first place. Others believe that some things are sacred in their privacy, regardless of how popular you are.

One of these privacy battles is now being played out in the class action lawsuit against Universal Music Group over digital income. After the successful appeal by Eminem's production team against UMG in 2010 where the court agreed that a digital download was subject to a license fee rather than a royalty, other artists like Rob Zombie and the estate of Rick James were quick to sue UMG in order to gain the same advantage. After all, earning 50% of the license income from a download is far better than the 15 to 20% a royalty would generate.

The real problem comes from the fact that the attorneys in the matter want UMG to turn over the sales and royalty data from other artists not involved in the suit so they can have enough information to calculate the damages. UMG has balked, more from the standpoint of self-preservation rather than a defense of their artist's privacy rights. It's now up to a judge to decide.

The problem is that each artist has a slightly different contract, and of course, their sales are different, which makes you wonder just how useful the data would actually be even if turned over.

While various approximations of artist sales have always been around, the exact numbers have always been somewhat of a mystery, sometimes even to the artists themselves. While definitively determining that number might not be such a bad thing, having the terms of one's contract available to someone else's prying eyes can only open up a can of worms for all concerned. Sometimes things are better off left private.

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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.