The Songza Feature That Google Couldn’t Resist

In a deal rumored for weeks, Google has finally acquired the music streaming service Songza for a reported $15 million. There appears to be no immediate plans to change the service, according to a post on the Songza site, except to “make it faster, smarter, and even more fun to use.”

But what’s the real reason behind the acquisition? Certainly Google has the cash to buy either Pandora or Spotify, market leaders in the radio-like non-interactive and on-demand categories of the music streaming market. The fact is that even though both of those services have the largest user bases in the sector, they actually bring little value in terms of what Google needs. The company’s Music Play All Access service doesn’t have the kind of subscriber numbers it wants, but that could be just a matter of time, considering that YouTube (which it owns) is the number one online source for music discovery and access already. And the company already has a large catalog of licensed songs, so a purchase with that in mind is redundant.

What Songza specializes in is music curation, a feature that Beats Music used as its primary lure in its purchase by Apple. While Google may be the king of the algorithm, it’s been proven time and again that computer generated playlists can’t come close to the musical taste of human. It’s been reported that Pandora’s Music Genome Project, which many contend is the heart of the service, is already 10 years in the making. Google has the resources to bump that timeline up, but the way the streaming market is heading, time is of the essence. Google needs a similar feature right now. Read more on Forbes.

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YouTube Announces Yet More New Creator Features

About a month ago I posted about some of the new creator features that YouTube was working on. The company officially announced those features and more at the VidCon conference over the weekend. While the features aren't yet launched, you should see them very soon.

Here's the list of features, directly from YouTube's own press release.

• YouTube Creator Studio: Did you know that after Rebecca Black uploaded “Friday,” she went on a school trip, not knowing for several days the video was going viral? To help you manage your videos on the go, the new YouTube Creator Studio app lets you see analytics, manage your videos and more. The app is available now on Android and launching on iOS in coming weeks and you’ll see some redesign of the Creator Studio on desktop too.

• Audio Library, now with sound effects: You’ve used the hundreds of free songs in the Audio Library on millions of your videos. But until now, you’ve had to go through extreme lengths to make your own zombie screams and fighter plane sounds. To make your lives easier and videos better, from today you now have thousands of royalty-free sound effects at your disposal. We’ve also added more tracks to the Audio Library.

• 60 (yeah, six-zero) frames per second: Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you’re playing, when we launch support for 48 and even 60 frames per second in the coming months. Take a look at some preview videos on the YT Creator Channel. Make sure you’re watching in HD!

• Fan Funding: Your fans aren’t just watching your videos, they’re also helping support your channel through services like KickStarter, IndieGogo, Patreon and more. We’ll be adding another option for you, where fans will be able to contribute money to support your channel at any time, for any reason. 

• Creator Credits: Collaboration is a key to great videos on YouTube. You’re already giving your collaborators shout outs in your video descriptions. But what if those text-based shout outs were tags that let viewers click through to their channels, or let you search for a collaborator based on their work and location? That’s our vision for Creator Credits, stay tuned for more. 

• Subtitles contributed from fans: More than a billion people watch YouTube each month, but not all of them speak the same language and some are deaf or hard of hearing. Automatic speech recognition and automatic translation on YouTube can help, but your fans can do an even better job. In the coming months, your fans will be able to submit translations in any language based on the subtitles or captions you’ve created, helping you reach even more viewers. You can try this out now on Barely Political, Fine Art-Tips, Got Talent Global and Unicoos. 

• Info Cards: Annotations are useful, but not as ridiculously good looking as say, Blue Steel. In the near future, you’ll see our new interactive information cards with a clean look, which you’ll beable to program once to work across desktop, phones and tablets.

• SiriusXM & YouTube: We love supporting artists, and so do our friends at SiriusXM. That’s why we teamed up to launch “The YouTube 15,” a weekly show on SiriusXM’s Hits 1 hosted by Jenna Marbles and featuring the biggest names and rising stars in music from YouTube. 

• More ways to playlist: Along with playlists analytics we recently added to analytics, expect to see more ways to create playlists, so that all the time you spend building them translates into easier discovery for viewers and better results for you.

While there's no exact timetable for the launch of these features, YouTube say's they will be available "in the coming months."

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T-Mobile Jumps Ahead Of The Music Curve, And No One Noticed

Thanks to the latest Net Neutrality ruling by the FCC in May, the companies that control the digital pipes can that we all use now can begin to charge content providers for providing their customers with higher speed pipelines. 

AT&T’s new Sponsored Data Service is a good example, where content distributors pay for the privilege of their customers having no data restrictions so they’re able to consume more product without having their speed capped or charged extra. Of course, in the end this means that the end user will ultimately be penalized, since they’ll either have their data service throttled down by their provider if they breach their data limit, or charged a higher price by a music service to cover the cost of the sponsored service.

Last week T-Mobile launched their Music Freedom service that flies in the face of that idea though, as it provides no data limit for consumers accessing a number of major streaming services, including Pandora, iHeart Radio, iTunes Radio, Spotify, Slacker and Milk Music. This means that a T-Mobile subscriber can listen to an unlimited amount of music from these services without the fear of going over a monthly data limit.

Of interest is the fact that a number of music services weren’t included, at least in the initial announcement, the largest being Google Play All Access. This could ultimately be a distinct disadvantage for services not in the plan (especially smaller services without the deep pockets to make them competitive), but it’s not entirely clear if any of the services left out will be added as time goes on.

Studies have found that as much as 77% of all music streaming is done via smartphones, so it’s possible that whatever service provider offers the best mobile music deal will also get the most subscribers in the end. That’s why T-Mobile is out ahead of the curve with Music Freedom, while its competitors seem to look at the music part of their offerings as just another feature. Read more on Forbes.

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Teens Not Abandoning Facebook After All

It appears that all the noise about teens leaving Facebook for newer social networks are untrue. A new report from Forrester Research indicates that teen involvement with the platform is actually growing.

The study found that 80% of teens still use Facebook and are more active on the network than any other platform by far, and more than half of the respondents (all between 12 and 17) said they use it more than they did a year ago.

Here are some other points made clear by the study:

• YouTube had the highest adoption rate with teens at just over 80%
• Instagram is next with around 50%
• Google+ and Twitter were around 45%
• Snapchat is next with just under 40%
• WhatsApp, which was supposed to be the Facebook killer with teens, comes in last at 20%

While Facebook itself concedes that there has been a slight deep in teen usage, it appears that the platform is in no danger of losing that important demographic.

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Apple Removing Music Download Apps From Its App Store

There's something brewing in iTunes land as Apple has removed many of the popular music downloading apps from the iOS App Store, which also includes those from third-party file sharing sites. Users that search for "music download" in the App Store now get a message inviting them to try out iTunes Radio instead. Most apps for streaming music services that don't have a download feature are unaffected, although both Soundcloud and YouTube have also made the blacklist.

The speculation is that there may be an update of both the iTunes Store and App Store coming in preparation for the upcoming iOS 8 operating system, and that Apple wants to pump up its flagging download sales. The new App Store reportedly will employ a new search algorithm, app bundles, and improved discoverability.

But it's not only music apps that have suffered. The App Store has also removed apps that include social sharing and ad watching as well, plus many developers report that Apple has asked them to alter their apps to remove any trace of music downloading.

It looks like the Apple Police are on the march, although that's not always a negative. Both iTunes and the App Store have a low degree of malware as a result, especially compared to other platforms. Let's see how this plays out when iOS 8 launches.

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Who's The Most Powerful Player In The New Music Business?

The record label was once the most powerful entity in the music business, but that's no longer the case. In this excerpt from Music 4.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age, you'll find that there's a different position that exerts more control today.

"Managers of talent have always been powerful (especially with a big-selling act in the stable) and have, for the most part, stayed behind the scenes. After all, it’s the acts that should have the most attention. But as the music industry transitions into Music 4.0, managers are more powerful, and more needed, than ever. The reason is that the fortunes of the manager are directly tied to the act. If the act makes money, so does the manager; if the act tanks, the manager starves. As a result, the manager has to truly believe in the act and represent it with a passion. The manager’s singular vision must be to make that act successful. Any other member of the artist or group’s team, from producer to attorney to record label to publicist and so on, will not have his or her fortunes tied so directly to the artist’s success, and, as a result, his or her passion can’t be expected to ever be as high. With most service contractors that an artist employs, you can never be sure where their loyalty actually lies. Is it with the record label, distributor or promoter, or the artist? With a manager, the answer to that question should never be in doubt. 

So why has the manager’s role become more profound in Music 4.0? Because as the choices for the artist have expanded, so has the manager’s influence. In Music 1.0 through 2.5, the manager’s main focus was on dealing with the record label and getting the act booked. The label was the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and the manager was the keeper. With the record label’s influence now decreased to that of a chimpanzee, the manager has ascended to become the giant in the act’s life. As we’ll see in later chapters, there are far more possibilities for every aspect of the act, and that means far more decisions are required. 

An interesting trend is that management is now adapting to Music 4.0, bringing multiple talents in-house for instant access and attention by the artist. These talents include concert promotion, Internet promotion, dedicated social networking, the handling of street teams, and where it’s legal, even acting as a booking agent.

Not every artist is able to connect with forward-thinking management of this type, or even any kind of organized management, but that’s okay. Personal management is ineffective unless the manager is passionate about you, since passion can overcome inexperience. Passion is something that you can’t buy or contract—the manager has to truly believe in you or you’re wasting your time. And as the act gets bigger, it’s easier for a less powerful manager to plug into a larger management company and “four-wall,” or get the best of both worlds: the power of the larger management company with the attention of the smaller."

You can read additional excerpts from my Music 4.0 Internet Music Guidebook and my other books on the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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What Do We Listen To Every Day?

A new survey by Edison Research has determined that people in the US listen to over 4 hours of audio every day. It's pretty interesting how this is broken out.

• Broadcast radio gets the bulk of our attention, at 52.1%, or just over 2 hours a day. About 92% of Americans over the age of 12 listen to broadcast radio every day, according to Arbitron.

• The music that we already own, like digital music files and CDs, gets 20.3% of our listening time.

• Streaming music comes next with 11.6%. This doesn't seem that significant a number until you realize that 47 million Americans over the age of 12 listen to Internet radio every month, a figure that skews much higher to 75% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 24.

• SiriusXM gets 7.7%.

• Television music channels, podcasts and misc program make up the 8.4%.

This study just goes to show that radio, broadcast or online, is much more a part of our lives than we sometimes think.

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Does The Music Business Really Need YouTube?

We’ve known for months that YouTube will soon introduce its own streaming music service, and in doing so it's revisiting its licensing agreements with all the major and indie labels. For a monthly fee the new service will reportedly allow users to download their streams to enable listening offline, and also eliminate those annoying adverts that we all hate so much but are so necessary to the revenue stream of the content owners.

The negotiations aren’t going so well on the independent label side though, as indie label associations worldwide are refusing to sign what has been labeled as an unfair agreement. As a result, YouTube is threatening to block all current YouTube content from indie labels that don’t sign the agreement and prevent them from uploading anything new as well.

The indie label’s point of contention is that they’re not being offered the same royalty rate as the major record labels, and what is being offered is reportedly lower than that of Spotify. As a result, the American Association of Independent Music (which represents US indie labels) has petitioned the US Federal Trade Commission to intervene, and the Worldwide Independent Network in London has filed a complaint with the European Commission.  

That said, YouTube is well within its rights to refuse service to a company that doesn’t agree to its terms as much as a grocer isn’t obligated to lower the price of a single loaf of bread to the same price that a restaurant might pay for a hundred. The difference is that it’s also the same as not allowing you to purchase anything else in the store unless you buy a hundred loafs of bread like the restaurant. Read more on Forbes.

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Jack White's Lazeretto Goes To #1 Because Of Vinyl

It used to be that you needed sales of 1 million+ and massive radio airplay to get to #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, but those days are long over. Today the sales requirement is a lot more modest, sometimes as low as 50,000, which includes all sales of CDs, vinyl and downloads. That's why it's so interesting that Jack White's new Lazaretto album went to #1 this week, but chiefly based on his vinyl sales.

Lazeretto had total sales of around 138,000 in the week ending June 15, but 40,000 of those where vinyl copies, which also garnered him a #1 on the vinyl chart as well. To put that into perspective, the CD sales were only 41,000 and the rest were attributed downloads.

But the 40,000 vinyl sales were significant in another way. They were the highest weekly sales since Soundscan began sales measurement in 1992.

One of the things that really helped the vinyl sales of Lazeretto is the extra features that White included to make the record unique, like:

• 2 hidden vinyl-only tracks beneath the label. One plays at 78 rpm and the other at 45 rpm.
• Side A plays from the outside in.
• Dual groove technology plays an electric or acoustic intro depending upon how the needle is dropped.
• The dead wax area on side A contains a hologram designed by Tristan Duke.
• Zero compression used.
• Different mixes from the CD version.

Jack White has always pressed the limits of technology and music, and this time it appears to have paid off.

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The 1000 True Fans Theory Explained

In the latest version of my Music 4.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age book I explain that making a living in music is considered the new success, as we shift our priorities to DIY. That said, the way that's accomplished is by have a group of core fans. In the following excerpt from Music 4.0, this "1,000 True Fans Theory" is explained.

"The “1,000 True Fans Theory” by Wired magazine’s “senior maverick” Kevin Kelly states that all an artist needs is 1,000 true fans to maintain a fruitful, if unspectacular, career, thereby relieving the artist of the need for some of the nastier things in life as a regular job. True fans are sometimes called superfans or uberfans, depending on whose theory we’re talking about.

Kelly wrote the following:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author---in other words, anyone producing works of art---needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living. 

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the superdeluxe reissued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the T-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans. 

The idea is that if each of the 1,000 fans bought $100 worth of product every year (the figure equals an arbitrary full-day’s pay), you’d have an income of $100,000, which, even minus expenses, can still represent a reasonable living for most artists. The trick, of course, is how you expand your fanbase to that magic 1,000-fans number (providing that you buy the theory, of course). 

Like most theories on such things, the detractors of the 1,000 True Fans theory point out several relevant issues. They are:

• The $100,000 amount is the gross income and doesn’t take expenses into account. Expenses for any creative endeavor can be quite substantial and must be accounted for in any income assumption.

• Even if you reach the magic 1,000-fan number, that doesn’t mean that each will spend $100 per year. That’s true, but remember that $100 is an average number. Some fans might spend $500, while others might spend only $20. Of course, you have to present them with the products and the opportunity to spend money. If you put out a single release and don’t tour, it’s unlikely that you’ll hit your target. If you’re touring, and a true fan attends three shows and brings five friends, that could easily account for $100 right there. And if you release two albums, a deluxe box set, and newly designed T-shirts, hats, mouse pads, and coffee cups, there’s an even greater chance that the true fan will just have to have whatever you’re selling.

• Music 4.0 presents a worldwide marketplace, so 1,000 fans don’t necessarily have to reside just in the United States. Again, this is true and can lead you to believe that developing your fan base is a lot easier than it really is. Don’t forget that true fans in some countries such as Russia, China, and Mexico might not be paying anything at all and still be enjoying your work thanks to the prolific piracy that those areas are accustomed to.

• You can expect some attrition of your new fans. Hopefully, the attrition of your fanbase will at least be offset by new members, and perhaps even grow some in the process.

• Other artists are competing for the same fans. There’s always competition in the marketplace for every dollar, sale, and item. You must differentiate yourself and your product from your competition to make the choice easier for the fan. For sure, you’ll lose some fans during this process, but if done well, you’ll make that number up, and more.

While the total number of true fans actually required to make the theory work (is it 300 or 1,000 or 4,000?) may be in question, the idea is that you need this hard-core group in order to sustain your career. Whatever the number that you’re lucky enough to develop, be sure to take care of and nurture them, because they truly want you to."

You can read additional excerpts from Music 4.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age and my other books on the book excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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YouTube To Begin Blocking Indie Labels

It's an open secret that YouTube is preparing to introduce its own streaming music service soon, and in doing so it's revisiting its licensing agreements with all the major and indie labels.

Apparently that isn't going so well on the indie side, especially in Europe where the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), a global consortium of small labels, is refusing to sign what it deems to be an oppressive agreement.

As a result, YouTube is threatening to pull WIN's content from the site and block them from uploading any new content.

This seems pretty harsh, and indeed it stops the WIN-associated labels and their artists from directly making money from their videos, but it doesn't mean that artists like Adele and Arctic Monkey's won't be represented on the service. The ban apparently applies to only master recordings, and since the majority of videos are uploaded by fans themselves, it seems that only the "official" videos are in jeopardy of being blocked.

In essence, Google wants to refashion YouTube more as a music service, complete with the ability to download a song for offline playback. They want to pay the indies less for this feature than they'll pay majors, which is why WIN is balking.

You have to hand it to WIN for standing up to one of the biggest corporations on the planet. That said, record labels everywhere are relying more and more on the income from YouTube, and cutting that off can have a serious impact on their bottom line, which translates directly to the artists.

Let's hope that this disagreement is resolved soon for everyone's sake.

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Amazon Prime Adds Music: The Good And The Bad

As predicted, Amazon Prime has joined the ranks of music streaming services today as its new Prime Music service has now gone live. This is a natural extension of the offerings available on Prime, which began as a $50 program to ensure free two-day shipping of purchased items from the online store. Since that initial conception, the program has expanded to include movies and television titles as well as books. Let’s look at the pros and cons of Prime Music as it now appears.

The Good

It’s a potential way to increase music sales. At least that’s how it’s being sold to record labels, and the company has an argument in that Amazon DVD sales have increased since Prime was introduced. The service has included Buy buttons that make it easy to fill out an existing music catalog that you might already have, but the big question still exists - why buy it if you can get it any time you want? Movies and TV shows rotate out of Amazon’s catalog all the time, so that might be a compelling argument to buy a DVD of something if it’s your favorite, but the rights issues involved in music prevent that from happening, although the average Prime customer may not be aware of that fact.

There’s no advertising on the service. This is a plus for the user but it also should be expected for a premium tier service. 

Many songs are synched with lyrics. Many, but not all, of the songs offered in the Prime Music catalog offer simultaneous lyric availability thanks to a deal with LyricFind. That’s not such a big deal for some people, a bigger one for others, but it is a unique feature of the service.

Lots of playlists. Curated music is the word of the day in the streaming music world and every service is now making darn sure that they have a horse in the race. Prime Music is no exception, as the company is said to have recruited a team of music experts to create to create hundreds of playlists that range from “best of’s” to ones tailored to a specific mood. Read more on Forbes.

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