Photo: bjornkeizers/flickr.

10 seconds to engage someone—to impress them.

In his research for Futurehit.DNA, Jay Frank discovered an impressive trend: Shorter song intros lead to better sales. “2/3 of bestselling songs have an intro that’s less than 7 seconds.” The average intro length for Top 25 songs is 6.6 seconds. “You really have 10 seconds to engage people.” Get to the hook. “Make it impactable.”

Frank stated that “people are going to come to you first through song.” Through Google. Essentially, bands can expect fans to find them through song names and lyric clips because that’s how fans search and discover. “Make sure you search your own song.” That is, search the title before you release it suggested both Jay Frank and Ariel Hyatt. Based on the initial search results an artist can tweak their titles for SEO.

NMS NYC 2010 | Day 1 | First Movement: The Next Music Business Unveiled
LTR: Ariel Hyatt (moderator/Ariel Publicity), Jay Frank (Futurehit.DNA), Gwen Lipsky (SoundThinkingNY), Eric Garland (BigChampange), and Mike Doernberg (ReverbNation). On this slide they brought up the issue that a lot of artists are trying to monetize too early. Create, grow, and then sell. Photo: virtualmusictv/flickr.

“Don’t try to sell something if you’re trying to get fans because that’s an obstacle when what you want is their attention.” –Mike Doernberg, CEO, ReverbNation.

Even superstar Rihanna had trouble getting high in Google with “Russian Roulette” because there were already so many results for that term. What an artist can do is either make titles more unique, or, even better, tag-along existing popular search terms by using slight variations. Be clever—keep a handle on artistic integrity. Ralph Simon later pointed out that based on Google Trends, people search for ‘lyrics’ more than they search for ‘sex.’

10 seconds. You already lost me. 28 hours later a different panel, The Creative Conundrum, critiqued the three artists who made it to the Artist On The Verge finals. Only half the panel had seen the show the night before and the rest were judging based on a 10-second video clip. Were they insensitive? Yes. They were ruthless. But were they true to life? You tell me.

In a VideoSong

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).

2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

VideoSong is medium defined by Jack Conte with those two rules. In addition to his solo production, Jack is the orchestration half of the indie music duo Pomplamoose, who chose video as their social medium of choice largely due to the magnetic attraction emitted by YouTube. They popularized their music on YouTube with videosong—a format that seemed functional and easy—and inspired viewers.

Last Friday, Kevin Breuner at CD Baby interviewed Jack Conte in DIY Musician Podcast #096. I recommend giving the full podcast a listen. Jack explained why he and Nataly chose to cover the songs that they did, and how it helped them become sustainable on mp3 downloads alone—covers and originals. Here are two excerpts from the podcast—the first is about the attraction to videosongs, and the second is about why Pomplamoose resisted record deals from all four major labels.

Update: Read post-event coverage here.

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Related: Connect with the Buzz in your Music Scene

If they’re stealing from you, then you’re on the right track.

“You’ve just got to be open and free, because that’s the way people want to get content on the web”, says Dallas Penn. “Don’t be afraid of someone stealing your work so much, just have more work to give, and, if people are stealing it, you know what you’re onto something. You’re moving in the right direction.” continued Penn, who runs the vlog internetscelebrities.com. Frank Talk summarized it in poetic terms, “If they’re stealing from you, [then] you’re on the right track.”

Everything can be adapted into digital content—think YouTube or think Flickr. Take hip hop producer Oddisee, who describes his internet-centralized strategy as being circular, wearing many hats, and promoting himself with content: “Everything I do is circulatory…You can’t just rap, you can’t just make beats, you can’t just do one thing anymore. It’s just impossible.” Oddisee uses free content as a means of promoting paid content. He distributes his music via oddisee.bandcamp.com.

If I Ruled the Blogosphere was a panel discussion hosted last month by the Future of Music Coalition and Words Beats & Life. The talk covers many sides of producing/curating music-related content on the web. It’s a bit long—in two parts below—and includes Q&A in Part 2. But when it came up in my Reader feed (via Digipendent) I put it on play while I was working and listened to it all. Anyone involved in blogging, music, or using the internet—pretty much everyone—should find insight from it.

The price of music on the web is heading towards zero. Artists need to use the web to centralize their fan base and reach out to them. But for that to work, fans need to connect with the individual as much—or more than—the music itself. “If people invest in you as an individual before they invest in you as an artist…you know…I mean’s there’s a lot of talented rappers out there…there’s a lot of talented poets…you know…painters…illustrators, but if nobody can connect with that person’s individual story, then they’re just another person doing it.” says blogger FWMJ of Rappers I Know.

As far as avoiding blog shutdowns, Meka Udoh from 2dopeboyz.com encouraged embedding players from other sites rather than posting mp3′s on your own server. I gave similar advice in February when several blogs were shutdown because of the DMCA. Especially in the case of Bandcamp embeds, the data goes back to the artist. It’s a win-win-win—it helps the blogger, the readers, and the artist.

Now I like autoplay on YouTube because I know it’s coming and how to control it, but on official band sites and MySpace or Facebook pages, I think it’s too in-your-face, it looks amateur, and it’s disrespectful to your visitors. The way I see it, here are the pros and cons of autoplaying audio:

Having the option to play audio may increase user engagement, but I think forcing it does the opposite—it decreases quality engagement. Besides, if you really want to engage your website visitors, then use video (in a highly visible part of the page with autoplay turned off).

Ultimately, the decision is a matter of taste. Bottom line—if you have a really good reason to turn autoplay on, then do it, but don’t do it because “everyone else is doing it” or because you think you need it to compete. Before turning autoplay on, ask yourself, do I want to send some of my potential fans into orbit? Or better yet, ask, what is my reason for turning autoplay on?

Thumbnail Photo: johnnyvulkan/flickr

1. High-Octane Friend-Filtered Content

The voices of consumessegers are magnified by the network. Facebook’s upgraded social plugins (e.g. the epic like button integration) are putting fan-driven music into overdrive by making it easier to share your likes with your friends. Take a look at likebutton.me when you’re logged into Facebook and you’ll find an aggregation of your friends likes. Ask yourself, what is it that people share on the web? The answer is better content. Whether it’s entertainment or information, people tend to share the content that they regard as better a.k.a. worth sharing. A lot of shared content comes from mainstream sources, however—like unknown awesome bands—there is plenty of awesome less-discovered content. With the new like button integration, Facebook is changing the mentality around sharing—it’s as easy as liking now. They’ve made it extremely easy to share. The outcome of this is higher-octane friend-filtered content which should help us discover the best content out there.

2. Different Strokes For Different Folks

For some, music is a career, for others it’s recreation, and many players feel stuck in the middle of the spectrum like a pedestrian on a highway median. The overall music scene is expanding and becoming more diverse genre-wise. There’s enough lanes for a steady flow, and that stuck feeling is mostly mental. Music selection is heading towards infinity. Listeners want what listeners want—each has their own taste—but they have to be exposed to it first (unless they decide to create it instead). Is there maximum amount of creativity in the world? Hell no! The roadblocks of physical world don’t always exist on the web. They are a mirage. But everyone sees from a different perspective. When you stop squinting and open your eyes wide, do you see the open road, of a traffic jam?

3. Fans Behind The Wheel

It all starts with a few people who believe in something to the point that they are motivated to share it with their friends. These fans create ignition sparks by influencing their friends. Who’s controlling the music-industry steering wheel now? It’s the fans who dominate social media and communication.

4. Where’s The Free Petrol?

Chris Anderson in 2008: From the consumer’s perspective, though, there is a huge difference between cheap and free. Give a product away and it can go viral. Charge a single cent for it and you’re in an entirely different business, one of clawing and scratching for every customer. The psychology of “free” is powerful indeed, as any marketer will tell you. (Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business)

7:30 Kevin Breuner: I find myself kind of caught in the middle of that being an artist myself who is making music and putting it out there for sale. but at the same time, someone passes me a band that I’ve never heard of, and technically it might be illegal to download the tracks. But at the same time I’m thinking I wasn’t going to buy it anyway, it didn’t cost them anything to get me this copy, and I might actually show up to a show because of it. (CDBaby Podcast #086)

8:00 Chris Anderson: Every band that puts there music on MySpace, which is to say every band, is on some level volunteering to give their music away for free in one form to drive demand for the others. (CDBaby Podcast #086)

9:10 Chris Anderson: Free music has been part of music for as long as there’s been radio. Radio is free music. No one—I don’t know of anyone—who objects to their music being played on radio, even though they may often get no money from that, because they understand the marketing value. (CDBaby Podcast #086)

Kevin Breuner in 2009: The future of music lies completely within the artist’s hands, period. If they want to focus on selling recorded music and their fan base will continue to buy it, selling music will be a big revenue stream for them. If they are fantastic live and want to give away a track to entice people to come to a show, then live shows may be their big revenue stream, but it’s all up to the artist and what their fan base will allow. The future of the music business is NOT in the hands of companies who dream up business models that artist should follow. The future is NOT free music because some guy with a degree and years working in the industry says so. The business plays by the artist’s rules now, and that scares the pants off the gatekeepers that used to make a living deciding what the artists could do. (Music will be free + Touring is where the money is = BS!)

Digital freebies are essentially a free source of advertising, but only if there’s a method behind it. For example, there’s giving away an mp3 in exchange for an email address. Why’s email important? Ian Rogers, the CEO of Topspin Media (an avant-garde service for midstream–mainstream musicians), reported that close to one-third of their artists’ revenue is driven through email alone and stressed the importance of “being where the fans are.” But here’s a question—does a single fan today account for more, or less, net revenue in the long run? What free tactics do you have packed in your trunk?

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?

Human Brain Connections by ethanhein on flickr

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]