Published on
June 16, 2006 in
blog.
One company is attempting to help music lovers deal with the tidal wave of media that is so prevalent in the digital-age of the internet. MusicIP, which has invented a music recognition and identification technology that can be likened to an acoustical fingerprint, was recently awarded $2 Million in Venture Capital by J.L. Albright Venture Partners to expand their marketing and sales efforts.
MusicIP has been on my radar for a while, but I’ve never quite figured out what they do, outside of the technology they pioneered. The following chart is the most information they’ve got on their music eco-system, and how their technology powers it:
So instead of wondering, I placed a call. The services they provide sound really exciting, with the ListerLink service being the most applicable to Independent Labels. Where Last.fm associates artists to artists based on what their community is listening to, and where Pandora associates albums to albums and artists to artists based on what they have in their catalogue and the humans who stock it, MusicIP gets down to the track level associating moods to other moods regardless of artist, album or even genre. And because it’s all driven by their fingerprint algorithm, it should scale quite nicely as they add new tracks to the mix (about 100,000 or more a month). I’ll post more once I get to play with it, but until then, I suggest signing up for the their ListenerLink program and give it a whirl yourself.
Published on
June 15, 2006 in
blog.
From the not-so-obvious-places-to-promote-your-music-department:
A new website, The Trip Wire, has emerged that aggregates the week’s top posts in the Music Blogosphere. While it has more of an idie-rock leaning, the articles it posts and re-posts are funny and insightful. Take this tidbit of wisdom:
The Rules Of Indie Rock Success:
Rule #1: Put a hot girl on keyboard or bass.
Rule #2: Cover Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
The quote, which comes from Music Blog ‘My Old Kentucky Blog‘ is like many of the music bloggers out there. Most are just documenting their own experience in the musical landscape. A quick read of his sidebar lists such diverse artists as Amon Tobin, Modest Mouse, El-P, Ben Folds and Gang of Four. These are excellent opportunities for independent artists and labels to get their music out to the new taste makers. Most of the blogs have contact information (including mailing addresses) to send music to, and if they’re anything like every music lover on the planet, welcome receiving free music. Obviously you want to pair the music with their tastes, and give them shout outs and back links on your site, but other than that, treating these bloggers like your other press contacts is in your best interest. This means don’t just drop ship them a box of CDs, introduce yourself (by email), include one-sheets and other info they can use in their write ups, and then send them the CDs if they show interest. Only by building a relationship with them can you expect to create a report that will carry over in to how well they receive your music.
Music fans are reading these blogs for clues on what’s hot and worth checking out. By browsing these sites yourself, and using The Trip Wire site as a jumping off point, you are sure to find a literal treasure trove of people hungry for new music.
Published on
June 15, 2006 in
blog.
In an announcement that rivals Footloose for the internet age, the RIAA has now taken to sending Cease and Disist letters to YouTube users that have videotaped themselves dancing to popular music. While no loss of income can be proven, the RIAA is claiming that because the clips contain un-licensed music that their interests and rights are being trampled by kids like these. As you can see the quality of these amateur videos is abismal, and the viral nature of video, with users posting links to each other, has been a nice organic form of marketing that you can’t buy if you wanted to, but RIAA officials, and the Big-4 they represent are starting the crack down. While most of the C&D letters will not amount to much, they do amount to this: a scare tactic, targeting largley uneducated (in copyright law) and underage music lovers that are cheap to send, and is largely a show of force. I don’t konw about you, but this seems like it would fall easily into the category of Fair Use.
If you’re a music lover and want to tape youself dancing to a Polyvibe track, post your video online and let us know about it. First person to Email Us with their video, will get a big bag of swag.
*Update*
Mega-Blog, Boing Boing, previously looked into a similar threat to fan-made films that contained commercial music in them. A Site called RPG Films used to host amateur videos staring popular game characters “dancing” to commercial music. Eventually they received a Cease & Desist letter from the RIAA to take down the clips. Further investigation revealed that the letter was actually not sent by the RIAA. This may be what’s happening to the YouTube users.
Published on
June 5, 2006 in
blog.
Leading technology + culture website, Ars Technica, disects the world of movie rentals and details their experiences. It’s an interesting read detailing the current landscape of brick and mortor rentals, online rentals by mail, and moves into more digital realms with a discussion of DVRs and Video on Demand.
The moral of the story? When working a niche genre of content, availability is king… and with more and more of the best content being created at the cottage industry level, the larger content providers (i.e. RIAA/MPAA content providers) are only marginalizing themselves by not making the content their audience wants in the format(s) they want. It gets even worse the lower down the totem pole you move. Distributors of content will soon find themselves out of business if they don’t start looking at how to service the niche customers better than they can now.
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