Indie Music Tech

Guitarati's Quest to Synthesize Music and Emotions

Have you ever wanted to find new music for the mood you're in? This is exactly the problem that recently launched Guitarati is trying to solve. Incorporating aspects of Color Psychology, Guitarati has developed a technology that correlates music styles and genres with a listener's emotions, expressing these relationships in a wide range of colors. Guitarati, suggests that for every mood, every state of mind, colors can more accurately represent the kind of music a listener wants to hear, as musical notes elicit emotions as diverse as the color spectrum, something that text based tagging is not able to achieve. Here's how it works: You pick the color that best represents your mood and Guitarati will automatically provide you with a list of songs representative of that color. If you listen to a few samples and the tracks are still not quite the style or genre you were looking for, you can then narrow the list down by selecting a darker or lighter shade of the color you selected, or even filter the results by only the genres of music you like.

Guitarati is a fascinating service with a great deal of promise if they can truly create the complex, psychological/sociological calculations that can predict musical preferences based on a listener's emotive response to colors, especially since color relationships are always in flux and will vary depending on age, ethnicity, gender, income, etc. However, the accuracy of Guitarati's music to color relationships will improve as their users assign colors to songs.

Guitarati's music catalog is still growing, as they just launched their beta, so if you're an indie artist, you may want to submit your music to Guitarati. You get to set your sales price and keep 75 percent of the revenue, and Guitarati also pays a small amount for plays.
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I was listening to Phish when I wrote this post

Promote your Music and Expand your Fans with idiomag

A couple of weeks ago I learned about idiomag, a personalized digital music magazine that keeps you in the loop with your favorite musicians/bands by aggregating various types of content about these artists in a centralized and interactive format. The content includes audio, articles, photos, gigs, videos and more. What's compelling about this service is that idiomag deploys an intelligent system which adapts to a reader's interests as he/she rates the appeal of the content they are viewing, helping to refine the viewer's preferences.

An interesting service, I see at least three ways indie artists could benefit from using idiomag:

1) Bands and musicians can submit their MySpace profile for inclusion in the magazine for FREE. Within 24 hours, your MySpace profile and information will be sent to idiomag subscribers and readers that like your genre of music, enabling you to reach new fans.

2) Artists can promote their music on idiomag to relevant viewers for as little as $10. To do so, just send idiomag an email.

3) You can submit your band's feed for inclusion in idiomag, and then create a personalized magazine focused on your band that you could also publish on your Facebook page. Here's an example of what it could look like:

We7 CEO Provides Insight on their Business Model

A couple of days ago I asked a few questions about We7's business model, and Steve Purdham, the CEO for We7 graciously responded with some good insight. As such, his comments warranted a new post. Here's what he had to say:

1) Can advertising support the business: We obviously believe yes otherwise there would be no point, however there are challenges. The biggest being the disparate economics of the current Music and Ad worlds. However, early signs are looking very promising in particular for Streaming and we believe downloading will follow.

2) What's to prevent people removing the ad: In streaming its not practical; In downloading, its definitely possible to remove the ad, it is just an MP3 file. However you wouldn't use We7 if your end game was just a track with no ad, you can already achieve that in a myriad of dubious ways. The point is you get the music free from We7 because you are paying with time rather than your money, it is an open contract.

3) How long do you get the ad: Two mechanisms here, first; time related after 4 weeks you can re-download a track and the ad is removed. The second method is our new download manager (coming soon) which will plug-in to iTunes which will remove/change the ad after a number of plays.

4) Artist do have a choice with us Ad funded Stream, Ad Funded download or Paid for Download. And they can choose to use any combination now. The issue is, although some people are prepared to pay for some indie music, how many artists don't get heard because the consumer decides that they don't want to pay, for many artists discovery is as important as payment.

Great feedback Steve! Many thanks for your time and comments! Best wishes to you and We7!

MOG Raises $2.8 Million

In case you haven't heard, MOG, a music sharing and discovery site announced they've received a $2.8 million investment from the Universal Music Group and the Angels’ Forum. According to CrunchBase, MOG has raised at least $6 million since their founding in June of 2005 by David Hyman.

This round of funding for MOG pushes music technology investments since the beginning of the year to over $60 million. That's impressive. Who's next? If you know of more, or one in the works, just send me an email and I'll add it to the list.
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I was listening to Honestly when I wrote this post

We7 Expands Ad-Supported Music Delivery Service

Last year I wrote about an ad-supported music service that enables users to download tracks for free in exchange for listening to and/or viewing advertisements from marketers. We7, a similar type of music provider to SpiralFrog announced today that it's expanding its offering with an ad-supported audio streaming service to over 500,000 tracks from the Sony BMG catalog. All We7 users have to do is listen to a "short audio advert" before each song is played. Ad-based music delivery models like We7 are intriguing, and I think they have a chance of becoming viable businesses. Here's what I like about We7:

1) Artists are getting paid. I'm assuming it's at least the minimum amount for audio streaming as set forth by the US Copyright office
2) We7 discourages illegal file sharing by providing individuals with the ability to download music for free
3) We7 is providing a framework for music related cross-promotions. For example, allowing venues to advertise to certain types of music enthusiasts via their adverts.
4) We7 is allowing their users to purchase music without ads if they decide they do not wish to hear ads
5) We7 states that they will use non-personally identifiable information to determine what ads will be included with downloads

But, I do have a few questions (if you work for We7, feel free to post a reply):

1) Can advertising really support the company's bandwidth, catalog storage, royalties, operations, etc.
2) What's to prevent someone from removing an advert
3) How many times do you have to hear an advert once you've downloaded a track, and/or how long does the advert stay attached to a track
4) According to Derek Sivers, people are willing to pay for indie music. Why not just provide the ad model for major recording artists, but require people to pay to download indie music at a price set forth by the artist. We7 then takes a percentage of that price.

We7, a company backed by Peter Gabriel is doing quite well in their first year. Presently, they have over 130,000 subscribers, and they've distributed over 3 million downloads from 750,000 tracks since their launch in May of last year.
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I was listening to The Shins when I wrote this post.

San Francisco Music Technology Summit

Last week I wrote about the sizable investments (over $58 million) in music technology companies since the beginning of the year, and it seems this activity is spawning conferences like the SanFran MusicTech Summit. Interested? Here's a brief FAQ I put together to help encourage you to attend:

What's the purpose of the summit? The purpose of the summit is to "bring together the best and brightest developers in the Music/Technology Space, along with the musicians, entrepreneurial business people, and organizations.... to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to deal making environment." Sounds brilliant! I'm seriously considering attending this event.

Who will be speaking and/or presenting? Here's a brief sample, or you can view the entire list here. As you can see, it's an impressive group.

• Ann Chaitovitz - Executive Director, Future of Music Coalition
• Richard Conlon - VP New Media & Strategic Development, BMI
• Tim Westergren - Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Pandora
• Ty Roberts - Co-Founder and CTO, Gracenote
• Derek Sivers - Founder, CD Baby
• Lars Murray - Senior Director Digital Media and Marketing, SONY BMG
• Paul Anthony - Founder and CEO, RumbleFish

How much does it cost? It depends. For students/musicians it's $99.00, developers $199.00 and $299.99 for general admission. Wow, that's inexpensive! You can purchase your tickets here.

Also, here's an interesting video clip discussion on the future of radio from the inaugural music tech summit held just a couple of months ago:

This summit sounds like a great way for indie artists to learn about current and developing technologies they can use to more effectively manage their careers. It also sounds like a good networking event for folks building music tech companies like myself, but I can't discuss any details until we launch, so that will probably prevent me from attending.
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I was listening to The Grateful Dead as I wrote this post.

7digital and Feeder Create Competition for Unsigned Artists

London based 7digital, a next generation music distribution provider that enables artists and their managers to build digital download stores using the same technology that powers bands like Coldplay, is holding a music competition with Feeder. The competition is aimed at finding the best independent musicians and bands, and helping them reach a large audience by opening up for Feeder at one of their eight pre-tour shows next month. These "rehearsal" shows will be held at venues around the UK to introduce Feeder fans to their much anticipated release, Silent Cry.

Here's how it works: Sign your band up for free at indiestore.com. If you're band is already a member of 7digital, just opt in for the competition. Then go out and get your fans to vote for you on 7digital. The top 16 bands with the highest votes will be selected as the semi-finalists. On May 12th, Feeder will then personally select the final 8 musicians and/or bands to open up for them (one artist for each night). The competition is open to all unsigned artists, but closes May 2, so act now! Who knows, they may like you enough to take you on their global tour later this year, as Grant Nicholas of Feeder commented that they are “really looking forward to reviewing the entries and choosing potentially the next big act to support their gigs.”

I'm glad to see companies like 7digital partnering with major artists to support the indie music community and I hope to see more activity like this, so hats off to the folks at 7digital!

Btw, I didn't see any geographic limitations, so even if you're based in the US you should consider entering this competition, as it could immediately help you reach the masses if you're lucky enough to be selected.

Music Technology Turns up Investment Volume: a few stats and trends

Is it me, or is music technology off to a great year! Since January (just over 100 days ago), VCs have invested over $58 million into music tech companies, and that doesn't even include deals where the terms weren't disclosed, like INGrooves. Moreover, most of these investments were aimed at companies marketing their services to the indie music industry, so that's great news for musicians and bands looking for tools to build and manage their careers. Here's a couple of stats and a quick summary of some of this activity since the beginning of 2008 (If you know of more, just drop me an email and I'll add it to the list):

updated April 29, 2008

• MOG secures $2.8 million (April 29)
• Imeem secures additional funding (April 15)
• Sellaband scores $5 million (April 8)
• MTraks raises $500K (April 7)
• Imeem acquires Snocap (April 7)
• MySpace announces joint venture with major labels (April 2)
• Universal Music Group invests in INGrooves (April 1)
• OurStage secures $13 million (April 1)
• Universal and Interscope invest $25 million in Buzznet (March 29)
• iLike users triple to 22 million (February 21)
• Imeem acquires Anywhere.FM (January 28)
• 7digital raises $8.5 million (January 28)
• The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announces that global digital sales for 2007 were up 40 percent from the previous year to $2.9 billion (January 24)
• We7 secures an additional $6 million (January 21)
• Motorola acquires Soundbuzz (January 7)
• Also, the term "Music" has been mentioned in about 20,000 blog posts almost every day since January 1 (see below):

It looks like the music industry's tail is becoming a powerful whip! Btw, I review these kinds of music related companies here, so if you're involved with one and would like me to write about it, just send me an email.
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I was listening to the : Red Hot Chili Peppers as I wrote this post.

Overlay.TV: Enhancing the Music Video Experience

A few days ago, Faisal Sethi, Art Director for Overlay.TV contacted me about his company's recent beta launch, and how their technology can assist indie artists trying to promote their music through videos. According to their site, Overlay.TV provides a way to easily enhance existing video by overlaying contextual information, such as external links. For example, indie artists can "Overlay" hyperlinks on top of any of their existing music videos posted anywhere online, like on YouTube. These new Overlaid videos can then be viewed within an artists' Overlay.TV channel, and/or embedded within an artists' social spaces. These Overlays could be anything from links to merch, digital downloads, tour dates, interviews, etc. - the possibilities are endless! With Overlay.TV, your videos become more interactive and informative.

Sounds cool, and I can see how these types of video "overlays" could increase sales, especially from the impulse buyer. But, it seems that YouTube could roll out overlays as a product feature fairly easily.  Apparently, their investors think otherwise and see a big opportunity, as Overlay.TV closed $4.6 million in Series A financing just a few months ago.

Music Videos as Viral Marketing: Lessons Learned

About 5 weeks ago, I worked with Greg Hester to release a music video that would hopefully help promote his band and grab some new listeners. The idea was simple: take a song he was already working on in the studio and develop a video that incorporated a current event that was of interest to a large audience, while at the same time, staying true to the content of the music. These are just a few things we learned from this promotional tactic:

1) It worked! In the 5 weeks since releasing the video, Greg has been offered gigs in Columbia, SC, Augusta, GA, Athens, GA, Charlotte, NC and Atlanta to name a few. His MySpace page views jumped over 15% from 9140 to 10635 in less than 40 days. He also added almost 100 new MySpace friends from across the country (a 15% increase as well), and his total music plays increased by over 10 percent to 9,461. And at the time of this post, his video has been watched on YouTube 950 times. Additionally, he now has a few more labels following him on MySpace.

2) Finding someone influential on Twitter to make a post about your video will certainly bring in traffic. For us, it was Dave Winer. We received over 200 views directly from his tweet alone - Thanks Dave!

3) This was an inexpensive tactic, only $200 to produce. Not bad considering the amount of increased exposure, and most musicians and bands will be able to DIY.

4) It provided us with an entertaining way to easily showcase Greg's band to a couple of major label artists considering working with us on an upcoming James Brown tribute CD (more on this project in the coming months).

5) It was a great way for us to pre-release the song before making it available for downloading later this year.

All in all, the video was certainly worth the expense, but there are a few things we would have done differently. For example, asked our friends with YouTube accounts to add the video to their channel, uploaded a high quality version to Vimeo, as YouTube is not a great medium for releasing high quality video/audio, reached out to our friends with music blogs, contacted more influencers interested in the content of the video, sent copies to the media, and spent much more time promoting it in social networks, to name a few tactics. Due to time constraints, we did very little, almost none, but I have a feeling we are going to be creating more of these kinds of music videos in the future, so hopefully the next video will have a greater impact.