I’ve been thinking about a clever way to describe our new Song to Opportunity (S₂O) Matching system and that’s the best I’ve come up with so far. It turns your song into an opportunity magnet.
Today we’re rolling out (in beta) what I consider to be our first tech-sexy feature – Automatic Song to Opportunity Matching; or as we lovingly call it – S₂O Matching.
Here’s how it works:
After years of drought, we may now be moving into the best time to be a musical act in decades, if not ever. A time when there is less incentive than ever before for any business person to prey upon the aspirations and naivety of artists and a time when artists can hire their own business teams and be off to the races.
What does this mean? Mostly it means that if as an artist you want to stand out (and in addition to great music) you need a team. You need differentiating factors that will help you rise above the noise of every other artist out there trying to gain traction. It’s not unlike the challenges that are faced by a new company trying to enter a crowded market. You have to have marketing know-how, smart people who can execute a well-thought-out plan and you have to have the resources (read “money”) to make it happen.
Let’s say you don’t work in the music business. Let’s just say you’re an average fan and a musician somehow gets your attention long enough to convince you to listen to their music. You listen. You hate it. Maybe it’s just not your style. Maybe it’s just plain bad. Either way, you’re less likely to give the next musician the chance. And you’re even less likely the time after that and so on until finally you’d rather kiss your sister than listen to another artist try to convince you to give their song a spin.
I do not blame any artist for feeling jaded. The music industry has a long history of mistreating artists and you don’t have to look very far to find artist-facing internet sites that are well-meaning but that can’t live up to their promises. Many times that’s due to the fact that they can’t muster the traffic it takes to help an artist promote their music. Other times, they don’t have the ability to attract industry professionals to their sites to do deals with the artists. Either way, there are simply a lot of dead end sites for artists out there. Artists end up uploading their music over and over again to tons of sites and have little to show for it. Frankly, with over 13 million artist profiles on MySpace alone it’s no wonder it’s harder than ever to stand out.
The official line is that the group fought with EMI (their label) to be able to post this video online and make it freely available. But we know that’s not true. Making viral videos has become OK GO’s trademark. Not allowing the video to go viral would be shooting themselves in the foot.
OKGO is [...]
In the November 2009’s issue of the BBC Focus Magazine you can read a 5 page feature article on Music Xray and how we’re helping labels and industry professionals find the best new music. down load the whole thing as a pdf and read it by clicking here
It’s important to note that much of the [...]
ReverbNation has teamed up with AudioLife to create the Reverb Store. This looks like a great new offering for new artists and existing artists who do not have the resources to be able to create and sell their own merchandise. As the press release states “Free Service Empowers ANY Artist to Sell Music, Ringtones, and [...]
I get this question from time to time from bands and musicians who are seeking their big break.
The world of social media is so new and is changing so quickly that it’s hard to give an answer and it’s even harder to know if any answer will hold true tomorrow. At any rate, I had [...]
The realization that a competitor who is socially networked better than you will eat your lunch has started a stampede of businesses and brands that are jumping on the social media bandwagon even faster than individual users were adopting Facebook last year – when 100 million users joined in just 9 months.
