Photo: digital vincent/flickr.

Mr. Owl, How many clicks does it take to get to the rock n’ roll center of a retail mp3?

Let’s find out. A One… A two-HOO…too many!

Mr. Owl just BitTorrented right into your album because it was easier than buying it on iTunes. It took less clicks.

Jay Frank suggested counting “clicks to content.” iTunes and Amazon send you through more than 10 clicks if you don’t already have an account but P2P takes only four clicks on average, he said. Streaming takes one or two. Think YouTube or Google, who nailed it with OneBox—the player that appears in their search results. “Anything more than two clicks and you’re missing out on the majority”, said Frank, “Impress them fast.”

Ariel Hyatt asked NMS attendees to raise their hands if they’ve ever bought their own songs on iTunes. The crowd was split but most hadn’t. She used the analogy of cooking: you wouldn’t serve food to guests without tasting it first, would you?

“Make it easy to buy” said Tony Van Veen. Have “compelling offers” such as package deals or name-your-price, and “take away the fear of buying” with a money-back guarantee. He told the story about an 80s band (I forget the name of the band but please comment if you know it) who recently sold their entire back catalog + their entire future catalog + free entry to any of their shows forever all for $100. For a superfan that’s a compelling deal.

Ripping and Burning > P2P

Eric Garland and Tom Silverman talked about the so-called problem with illegal downloads. If it’s hosted on an upload site like RapidShare, then “there is a place we can bomb”, said Silverman, “but not with P2P.” Research showed that more music is actually ripped/burned than it is shared via P2P.

Bombing the service provider is no solution when “people and their insatiable appetite for free music are the real problem.” –Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampange.

The desire for free music isn’t going away. Don’t blame the consumer. Musicians need to find ways to work free into their strategy. e.g. Free downloads for email addresses. Use free to convert strangers into fans. Tony Van Veen said, “Free music is the way to do it. Aggressively offer free. Do swaps. Use P2P. …Don’t fear free. …Build your list. …Don’t be afraid to steal a good idea and make it your own.”

What features would you want in your favorite band’s mobile app?

I didn’t attend SXSW in person, but I sure discovered some great new bands by putting together this photo set. I was especially impressed by what I’ve seen so far of Sleigh Bells, Red Bacteria Vacuum, and The Very Best. What were your favorite SXSW events this year, and what are your favorite photos from this set? View more photo sets at virtualmusic.tv/photojournal/

Paramore outperforms both on and off the stage.

Why do I like Paramore? They are kick-ass live performers. But I’ve never seen them in person. Hulu delivered them to me last year when I saw them perform Ignorance on Conan O’Brien. I knew of them before via Andrew Kendall’s photos, but seeing them on Conan is what engaged me to find out more. I searched “paramore live” on YouTube. I was impressed with their energetic live show and fan-driven website, which I wrote about highlighting their fan community and presence in the social web. Paramore fans go the distance because Paramore does the same for them.

Live music trumps studio recordings.

The best music is live music. Right now I think live video footage is the next best thing—whether it’s live-as-in-streaming or recorded live events. I don’t have a cable television. But if I’m looking for home entertainment I go straight to Hulu. As far as TV goes, if it’s not on Hulu, then I don’t watch it. In today’s music industry putting out video content is a must, especially live video content. In fact I think that’s where über-commercial Vevo has it wrong—lacking rawness and intimacy. I’d rather watch bands on Hulu. The concert videos already on Paramore’s channel come from their live album The Final Riot! In my opinion, Paramore’s best videos are the live ones, and on top of the stellar performances the videos have stellar production. But even bands without access to top production can still produce video content by being creative, sourcing their fans to record or produce live videos, and distributing them with free tools like YouTube and Ustream.

Paramore tells a story.

In addition to music videos, Paramore’s Hulu channel contains a 30-min documentary on the making of their latest album Brand New Eyes. They attract fans not only because of their music, but also because they have a story to tell that their fans can relate too. Their story is about growing up—as a band, but also as people, and their fans can relate to that. The album’s theme is seeing people through brand new eyes—you have to accept the past to move on. Paramore has an intimate connection with the Internet Generation. The new channel enriches their existing fan community and exposes them to a wider audience—brand new eyes—on Hulu.

Timeline: Bands on Hulu.

In November 2009 Hulu partnered with EMI and launched a Norah Jones channel. The next month Hulu partnered with Warner Music Group launching the Muse channel in December, the Jason Mraz channel in January, and the Paramore channel yesterday. Hulu’s music content is hi-fidelity and free. Now what more can you ask for besides, well, more Hulu artist channels and frequent content, right?

Rage gets some air on stage during their encore at Lollapalooza 2008 in Chicago.
Image: flickr/revolute

With the smartphones coming, and all these apps coming, the music business gets one more kick at the can, and I hope they don’t fight this one, because there’s a huge opportune to grow the business faster than what they’ve ever considered. I think there’s a huge sense of optimism for the first time in about five years that this business can actually grow. –Terry McBride in his 2009 interview with tech reporter Matt Hartley [video above].

Music is becoming more of a service than a product and Terry believes that in these digital times, context trumps content, access trumps ownership, and customer service is as important as ever. P2P filesharing should cease to be an issue as listeners increasingly prefer instant-access streams.

The second interview details the history of the Nettwerk Music Group as a DIY all-in-one company that developed by adapting to meet the needs of musicians and their fans. Towards the end he talks about joint ventures between musicians and non-music brands as being likely in the next five years.

I really think that the paradigm is shifting. I think within the next five years you’re going to have other brands inside the market signing artists. Brands will look at this going, well, we already use music within all of our TV, and radio, and, you know, internet media. Um, why don’t we just sign the artist? –Terry McBride, in his 2008 CMU-Tube interview [video below].

On my previous post, Musicians—Money Is Not Motivation, Dave MacDonald had commented that Terry McBride recently spoke positively about the music industry at TEDxVancouver in November 2009. That video isn’t available yet, but I hope they air it soon on TEDxTalks—I’ll keep you posted.

[homepage thumbnail photo: Flickr/stephen_dyrgas]

Science

In his above TED talk, Daniel Pink makes a strong case relating the science of motivation to creativity and business. The verdict is that money is not a primary motivator for people doing creative work. Sure, it does play a factor today as people need enough money to meet their essential needs. Once those needs are met, money is out of the picture. I look forward to reading his upcoming book, Drive.

Spotify

I felt compelled to deliver the point—money is not an artist’s true motivation—in response to the exorbitant editorial negativity surrounding yesterday’s news of Lady Gaga getting paid $167 for 1+ million Spotify streams. Where I live—in the US—Spotify is not yet available so I have not been able to try the platform. Spotify is a new service and its revenue model is understandably in a shakedown period where they are still determining what works, what data they have, and how they can best leverage that data to generate revenue.

Mr. Ek [Spotify CEO and Founder] revealed how the company has been working on making its advertising as personally tailored to an individual’s tastes as possible. “We have a lot of information about people. We know our users’ age, gender, location and even mood – which figure out by through BPMs [beats per minute],” he explained. Depending on whether a person has listened to lots of fast or slow music, Spotify is trying to make its mood analysis as accurate as possible – so it can serve highly targeted adverts for users to properly engage with—which should in turn, increase the amount it can charge brands to advertise on the platform. Mr. Ek said Spotify was “beginning to figure this stuff out”. (Spotify chief, Daniel Ek, rules out 2009 US launch | Telegraph)

It sounds like Spotify is on track to me. I like the ad-based model and there are many variations to explore. I brainstormed launching an ad-based free music service back in 2007, and I think Spotify is the closest service to what I would have done, but they’ll need to continue to evolve, as do musicians.

Whether it is really relevant to measure the success of Spotify in this way remains to be seen as it is still a service in it’s infancy. Much like Twitter, it is phenomenally successful in terms of usability but is still finding its feet in terms of making money. As it continues to attract users its appeal to advertisers will grow and so too will the financial returns. How this filters down to the individual artist is then probably more of an issue with the labels than with Spotify. (A Ga Ga approach to marketing? | The Naked Pheasant)

Industry

It’s smart business to think years down the road by expanding your fan base even if it doesn’t pay off immediately. I think Lady Gaga and many other artists see that. The long-term benefit of those 1+ million streams is immense, and I think many people are blinded to that fact—such a level of exposure leads to sellout shows and non-music revenue streams. The one thing I dislike about the situation is that the major labels still have major pull and they can afford huge production and marketing investments. But the need for heavy financing is down—thank you, Internet. In today’s connected, music-abundant world why does any one artist get so popular? Is it hard work, affinity, or talent? To me, talent is relative—it’s not what you can build, but rather it’s what you can build with what you have. It’s the Internet Age—indie musicians have the power to take the industry back but they must embrace change and creativity to do it—they must creatively leverage the internet and mobile apps.

The connection from the fan to the band, financially, has been broken. The fan knows that their purchase will hardly help the band, or more precisely that the marginal benefit from their purchase to the band is near zero, so why do it? The cost to the fan is much higher than the marginal benefit to the band, so the fan just torrents the damn song. (Why Music Is Broken – The Artist To Consumer Connection)

P2P rocks—it turned the industry up-side-down letting the label-lords know they had lost control. I see P2P as a massive benefit for musicians. Do they have P2P streaming yet? They will. With all that said, I believe that many music fans are as-motivated-as-ever to pay for music when they know their money is going directly to the artist. Maybe subscription services like Spotify can find a way to work this, or endorsement deals that fans would want to support, into their business model. I think that fans—and people in general—need to feel like they are part of something and they want to feel empowered.

flickr.com/photos/jahdakinebrah/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The fan artwork you see above is a creative visualization of Pink Floyd’s Money. The image squares depict the story of the song lyrics. What motivates you? What do you think motivates music fans?

It looks like a new generation of Beatlemaniacs could be on the rise—wouldn’t you say? Thanks to YouTubers kevineseri0 and ponkiejp for the videos and to voteprime on Flickr for the peace sign photo displayed on the homepage. Thanks for watching—please share this post if you like it. :)

DepecheMode.com brings us the expected features of a band website, and then some. The site is photo-rich and packaged in layers of sleek design. The tour tracker adds interactivity by letting fans share their concert experience via messages posted by map location and photos uploaded to an immense fan gallery.

Photos posted by the band at each tour location can be seen in the tour blog. I only wish it were easier to sort and share the photos by location and date. The tour blog updates are not included in their RSS feed and they lack permalinks but the band does post them on Twitter @depechemode. I would like to see them integrate commenting to both the tour blog and the news feed.

Depeche Mode is currently on their Tour of the Universe and they are compiling a Universe of the Fans in a fan mosaic comprised of fan photos. “The more photos are uploaded, the more clearly visible Dave, Andrew and Martin will be.” One can zoom in on the mosaic to see the individual photos.

The downloads page includes two Depeche Mode iPhone applications—one free and one paid—but they lack integration with the more interactive features of the site. I would like to see a free app that extends fan involvement to the mobile environment by allowing mobile fan uploads and geotagging as opposed to the existing free app that contains sound samples, tour dates, and iTunes links. The paid app is meant to let fans remix the songs from Depeche Mode’s latest album, Sounds of the Universe.

Depeche Mode in Lima, Peru on their 2009 Tour of the Universe / flickr.com/photos/jos_ec/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Music SOTM Series: Do you know a band, DJ, or musician with an ace website? Please let us know at design@virtualmusic.tv and we’ll consider it for Music SOTM. Entries are based on interactive content, fan engagement, and mobility. Visit virtualmusic.tv/msotm/ to see more MSOTM artists.

Paramore.net is more than a website—it is a community and social network for Paramore fans. We need to see more music sites like this. Paramore fans can upload their own photos and videos to the site for everyone to view in an easily navigable fashion. Fans can connect with each other (and with the band) through the community, and they can subscribe to the fan club for exclusive content.

This video clip shows Paramore’s tight Monday night live TV performance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Paramore’s third studio album Brand New Eyes was officially released this week. Rock.

Music SOTM Series: Do you know a band, DJ, or musician with an ace website? Please let us know at design@virtualmusic.tv and we’ll consider it for Music SOTM. Entries are based on interactive content, fan engagement, and mobility. Visit virtualmusic.tv/msotm/ to see more MSOTM artists.

Listeners: There is music that you can download for free—legally or illegally—and there is music that you can stream for free. The trend is towards streaming. I support bands that are giving their tracks away for free. I’ll even admit it—I’m offended when bands expect me to pay for an mp3 download. Am I completely off base here, or do you agree?

Unlike these records, mp3′s can be easily duplicated and shared for free. We are in a new time and we need new rules. Welcome to the digital revolution.

Bands: Giving downloads away for free is an excellent promotional move. It puts out the message that you care about your fans, and that you want them to hear your music. It is a leader into other revenue streams. I recommend collecting fans’ email addresses in exchange for free downloads. This can be achieved nicely by Bandcamp, which, in my opinion is a super-slick service. Bandcamp enables downloads in multiple hi-res formats, and the platform encourages sharing on social networks. They even offer pay-what-you-want pricing options—the only drawback is that PayPal takes a percentage. [Demo: My Bandcamp Page]

I hope paid download services shift their business models to make the music more “free” for listeners. I think services could generate ad revenue that the artists could share in—in such a way that bands could choose the ads on their pages as to match the right advertisements with the music. I recently commented about Amie Street implementing this idea, but imagine if a mega-service like iTunes could work magic like that.

Find the buzz.

Realtime buzz. Twitter makes it easy for fans to join in realtime conversations. By leveraging Twitter’s search operators, musicians are able to find their fans and contact them directly in realtime. Fans can also use the search to connect with other fans. Both musicians and fans are likely interested in other artists in the same genre. It is their music scene, and, from a bands perspective, it is their target market. Anyone in their music scene is a pretty likely potential fan to them.

Know your scene.

Even if you are new to a particular scene you can still easily discover similar artists as there are many applications that support this feature. Due to its wide use, last.fm is a one relatively accurate similarity indicator. The point here is that one can search conversations about multiple artists simultaneously, and focus on a specific niche or microgenre. By combining the search operators one can create extremely effective searches that target a specific scene in a specific location.

Search like this.

• “Happy Mondays” OR “Psychedelic Furs” OR “Psych Furs” near:SF within:100mi
• “Bombay Bicycle Club” OR “Maccabees” OR “Macabees” OR @bombaybicycle OR @themaccabees near:London within:100km
• Geocode variations: near:California near:”Los Angeles” near:LAX near:90210 near:Disneyland

Participate.

Finding the conversation is not enough. Participation is key. Genuine and honest participation. Musicians that can effectively use social platforms to build true relationships with their fans will deliver the most entertaining and valuable experience to them. What fan would not want to be able to contact their favorite bands as they come to their city? What band would not want to be in touch with their local fans? For touring musicians this local connection is invaluable. Twitter is your street team. Spark impromptu fan meet-ups and improvised gigs. Make true connections.