Respected digital music and direct to fan pioneer Ian Rogers has left Topspin to serve as the CEO of Project Daisey for Beats Electronics. Rogers will remain on the Topspin board of directors and serve as
Executive Chairman. Beats will make a substantial investment in
Topspin to "help create meaningful business opportunities for artists inside
project Daisey".
Continue reading "Topspin's Ian Rogers Joins Beats As CEO New Digital Music Service Daisey" »
Yesterday EDM star Avicii launched what sponsoring partner Ericcson terms the "world's largest collaboration." Called Avicii X You, the project aims to crowdsource an EDM hit using the web. It's off to a good start with hundreds of participants, positive press for Avicii and more support for Ericcson's focus on the "Networked Society."
Continue reading "Avicii & Ericcson Partner To Crowdsource EDM Hit" »
By Liv Buli, Resident Data Journalist for Next Big Sound.
You’ve just tuned in to your favorite television show, be it Gossip Girls, Grey’s Anatomy, or Glee, and are enthralled by familiar characters and gripping plot, but how often do you take note of the songs that score these scenes?
Continue reading "Do TV Show Music Placements Lead To Greater Artist Awareness?" »
Although the numbers are absurdly small, the UK's Official Charts Company keeps up with not only cassette sales but the sales of cassette singles aka cassingles. In 2012 they tripled to 604 units sold. But the sales figures and notable cassette releases captured in the charts may be the least important aspect of music on cassette when one considers the subcultures the charts cannot track.
Continue reading "2012 Cassette Single Sales Triple In UK" »
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
For years, pointy-headed freaks with golden ears have told everyone within earshot that MP3s, CDs, and just about every other popular format sounds like garbage. Instead, they say, we should all buy expensive headphones or speakers (which are the biggest factor in sound quality), and then seek out the hardest-to-use, best-sounding audio format we can find for a particular piece of music, be that SuperAudio CD, DVD Audio, any of several lossless formats, or even that rarest bird of all, the better-than-CD quality digital file.
Continue reading "Can Celebrity Products Like Beats, Pono, Motörheadphönes Popularize High-End Digital Audio?" »
How has your first week of 2013 gone so far? It’s back to the grind and path to reaching your goals. What are your goals for your music career this year? On Music Think Tank, Shaun Letang offers a free ebook on steps to help you move your career forward. Check out his post and download the ebook here.
Continue reading "8 Steps To A More Successful Music Career In 2013 (Free Ebook Download)" »
By Tim Cushing of Techdirt.
If you asked most people what a single track is worth, most would answer with the going market price, which ranges from ~$0.79-$1.29. This is what the market has shown, for the most part, that it will bear. You veer too far away from the high end of that range and you'll find most people will opt for other music, cheaper music, or your music, fully detached from the high-end price tag.
Continue reading "Gaggle Prices Single At 3000 Pounds To Raise Awareness Of Music Costs And Value" »
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
It’s 2013, which means nearly five years have past since Radiohead became the story in digital music by releasing its stunning In Rainbows album on the band’s website for any price the customer was willing to pay — including nothing at all.
Continue reading "Searching Spotify For Radiohead's In Rainbows" »
Bootstrapping a startup doesn't sound too hard if you're talking about software and a tight, devoted crew. But try bootstrapping hardware for years with a maximum of two week's operating funds in the bank and you face a very different challenge. The creators of "Guitar Hero" lived that challenge when building their company before going on to bootstrapped success leading to acquisition by Activision.
Continue reading "Guitar Hero Co-founder On Bootstrapping A Product Retailers Didn't Want" »
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
One of the big stories of 2012 was that the big music services, most of which are losing money themselves, are stiffing artists. Hopefully, 2013 will be the year when payouts from subscription services make the big leap we’ve heard they will, and maybe even when physical distributors will stop bullying labels into giving them part of their download revenue.
Continue reading "How MP3.com's IPO Changed SEC Regulations" »
Guest post by Cortney Harding (@cortneyharding) for sidewinder.fm, a music and tech think tank.
Many of us spend a lot of time and money attending music tech events, as the number of them has mushroomed over the last five years. In fact, it seems like
there is a nomadic class of people who do almost nothing but attend these various summits, conferences, meet ups, demos, panels, and hack days. But as
these events multiply, their quality overall seems to have gone down; and it’s a shame, because there are a lot of great discussions to be had around new
ideas and strategies at the intersection of music and technology.
Continue reading "How To Improve Your Music Tech Event " »
Upticks in cyber-bullying and ever nastier pranks point to a viral net that is turning ever uglier, creating landmines for musicians that rely on their social connection with fans. Now the notorious Internet trolls from 4chan's /b/ message board are taking aim at Justin Bieber with a faux viral social media campaign that appears to show people cutting themselves in an effort to urge Justin Bieber to not use marijuana.
Continue reading "#CutForBeiber: Internet Prank Turns Ugly" »
2012 was a big year for both Kickstarter and for music crowdfunding. Though music had the most funded projects of 2012, other categories made more money. But the crowdfunding achievements of musicians on Kickstarter alone made it clear that music crowdfunding is no fad though, based on musicians' accounts, it's also no walk in the park.
Continue reading "Top 10 Music Kickstarters Of 2012" »
![image from cdn.slashgear.com image from cdn.slashgear.com](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20130110205431im_/http://www.hypebot.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2017ee721b706970d-250wi)
Facebook sent out invites to a press conference on Tuesday January 15 at its California HQ. No details beyond "Come and see what we're building" were provided, as to what the company is set to announce. The rumor mill is pointing to a much talked about smartphone, and others are concerned with how design changes might help or hurt the hundreds of apps and business that have been built based on the ever evolving social platform.
Continue reading "Facebook Schedules Big Announcement For Jan. 15" »
By Tyler Hayes, who run
s the music discovery site Nxt Big Thing.
Bandcamp is the darling of music services. Providing bands a simple and seamless way to host and sell their music, the site is often seen as a refuge from iTunes or Amazon. In 2012 Bandcamp attempted to branch out and released a pseudo web page/app called Discoverinator, then changed the name to Bandcamp Discover. The effort fell short of anything useful and points to the fact that the company is really only focused on being a storefront for artists. With a little work though, the site can't still be used as a decent music discovery platform.
Continue reading "Discovering New Music Via Bandcamp" »
Spotify is on a hiring spree. With 700 employees globally including 150 based in NYC, the music streamer has a lot on their plate in 2013 and are ramping up to meet the challenge. Projects on deck that we know about include reshaping their music discovery platform, rolling out in more countries, and to move toward profitability by selling more ads and subscriptions.
Continue reading "How To Get A Job At Spotify [They're Hiring!]" »
Decksi is the first product from Creative D, a company that declares, "We create platforms that engage audiences and make money." Employing a trading card deck metaphor, Decksi creates a game context for collecting digital content from music to graphics to video. It's a potentially powerful platform for monetizing content and Decksi CEO Richard Kanee says they love working with indie artists.
Continue reading "Creating New Music Content Revenue Streams With Decksi Digital Trading Cards" »
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
In 2012, much of the world became accustomed to seeing what our friends were listening to on Facebook. It was the year when millions of us stopped listening to digital music alone quite so much, and began tuning in together, whether at the same time or asynchronously.
Continue reading "Ime Archibong Discusses Facebook Music In 2012 And What Comes Next" »
Cricket Wireless has announced that it's Muve Music services finished 2012 with 1.1 million subscribers, that appears to trump Spotify, who near the end of 2012 proudly announced that it had 1 million paying customers. Since its commercial launch in January 2011, Muve Music has become one of the fastest-growing on-demand digital music services in the U.S.
Continue reading "Muve Music Has More Paid U.S. Subscribers Than Spotify Does" »
According the A2iM, The American Association For Independent Music, Billboard and SoundScan stats show that independent labels grabbed 32.6% of U.S. album sales in 2012. As in 2011, indie labels outpaced each of the major
label groups grabbing the #1 sales spot followed by Universal,
Sony, Warner Music and EMI respectively. This chart breaks sales down by label group:
Continue reading "Indie Music Grabs 32.6% Of U.S. Album Sales In 2012" »
Doron Ofir, a man who's proud of the accomplishments of Pauly D, is casting a new EDM reality show that he believes will be a "star-making vehicle." EDM purists and pundits are taking the news poorly, heaping abuse on the concept, on Jersey Shore and on Doron Ofir. But keep in mind that Pauly D's doing quite well for himself and it's quite possible that a new star could appear without the approval of EDM insiders.
Continue reading "Will EDM Reality Show Be DJ Starmaker Or Celebrity Wannabe Humiliator?" »
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
It’s easy to make fun of CES, as we found out when we announced our excitement at not attending it in 2012. Now, even stalwart, general technology reporters like the New York Times’ David Pogue are getting in on the act, questioning whether we really need to watch a bunch of shiny new hardware unveiled for 2013 — especially when we already have pretty good rectangular touchscreens for delivering apps, text, video, and music to us, wherever we are, just fine, thank you very much.
Continue reading "6 Reasons To Attend CES 2013" »
Sony Music is again partnering with Bertelsmann's BMG, this time in a bid for Parlophone Records and a number of other EMI properties put on the block by Universal Music. Parlophone is one of the crown jewels from EMI and the label has a roster that features artists such as Coldplay, David Guetta, The Beastie Boys, Lady Antebellum and Sigur Ros.
Continue reading "BMG Rejoins With Sony For Parlophone Records Bid" »
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