katieohalloranFeb-16-2011 2:36pm
If Ustream and Chatroulette Had a Love Child…
… Its name would be Yowie.
Yowie, a new contender in the live streaming sector, combines some of its competition’s most attractive features to turn the streaming experience into something even more personal for fans.
Ustream, as you may be aware, allows for interaction, but this interaction is text-based; fans can submit questions to an artist (or chat with each other) during a broadcast via the chat window. Chatroulette, on the other hand, brings face-to-face video chatting into the equation. However, there’s no audience - video conversations are limited to you and one other person… And the other person is selected at random… And there is a high likelihood of them being a pervert.
Enter Yowie.
When you begin a broadcast on Yowie, you’re greeted with a very Ustream-like setting: you’re on camera, and your legion of fans is watching. But from there, things can get interesting.
First, you can activate more than one broadcast window at a time. So, let’s say you’re in a duo. If your partner happens to be traveling, but you still want to hold a live stream for fans (and you want him/her to be part of it), you can easily make it happen with Yowie.
Second, and this is the cornerstone of Yowie, you can hold face-to-face video Q&A sessions with multiple fans. Here’s how it works: during the broadcast, fans can type out and submit questions. Whenever there’s a question you like, you can pick the fan who submitted it to appear on camera and ask it to you live.
Third, using Yowie’s media sharer, you can play video and audio content for you audience during the broadcast.
To see Yowie in action, watch this archived video of a broadcast that Neon Hitch recently held. You can also watch the introductory videos on the site’s home page.
Live video streaming has always been on the top of my list of fan-retention techniques, and the features that Yowie brings to the table have the potential to make the connection formed during a broadcast deeper, more personal, and more engaging for fans. While anyone can use Yowie, targeting artists appears to be a significant part of the company’s strategy, and it will be interesting to see how many artists (both emerging and big-name) jump on board, and how exactly they use it. If you have any experience with the service, let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Music Sampling: a few Do’s and Don’ts
Article By Vanessa Kaster
Music Sampling is the act of incorporating bits of someone else’s musical score or sound recording into your own music. Music Sampling becomes risky business when it’s done without proper authorization and licenses. To further complicate things, musicians and composers often view sampling as a logical progression in the music composition process; and often ignore the formalities and laws that regulate sampling.
Here are a few basic Do’s and Don’ts of music sampling.
- IT’S OK TO: sample from the song White Christmas (original score) because it in the public domain.
- IT’S NOT OK: to sample from Frank Sinatra’s sound recordings of the song White Christmas because these are not in the public domain.
- IT’S NOT OK: to sample ‘arrangement elements’ of Frank Sinatra’s sound recordings of the song White Christmas because the sound recordings are not in the public domain.
The common theme of these three examples is whether or not the sampled music is in the public domain. The public domain is the land of ‘free public property’ and music that is in the public domain is free for the taking, sampling, using, reproducing, or distributing.
What music is in the public domain? Any musical score that was published in the US before 1923 is in the public domain, due to expiration of copyright. There are also newer musical scores in the public domain too, but a case by case analysis needs to be done on scores published in 1923 or later to determine if they are in the public domain and free for sampling. A significant, but easily overlooked detail, is that almost all sound recordings are ‘new enough’ to still be under copyright protection (this includes bit and pieces of the sound recording as well as arrangement elements) and hence are not necessarily free for sampling.
By Vanessa Kaster
Can Copyright Protect Your IDEA?
Copyright protects the original expression of ideas but copyright does NOT protect ideas.
A hot debate emerged recently over protecting the IDEA of a‘Tiny Hat’ comedy skit with copyright. After Saturday Night Live produced a ‘Tiny Hat’ comedy skit, another comedy group (who had already produced a successful comedy skit about wearing ‘tiny hats’)… claimed that Saturday Night Live stole the ‘tiny hat comedy skit’ idea from them and thereby violated their copyright.
Unfortunately for the comedy duo, copyright law doesn’t grant them the exclusive right to the ‘universe of all comedy skits about tiny hats’… just because they were the first produce a popular skit on the topic. Copyright law does, however, protect the dialogue, the video made of the comedy duo’s skit and other original ways that their idea was expressed in their skit. And if the dialogue, video or other ‘original expression’ components of the skit were being copied, imitated, plagiarized, distributed or sampled without permission then copyright law can come to the rescue and battle the alleged infringer.
The IDEA to write a skit about Tiny Hats isn’t protected by copyright law. (For example there are a lot of plays written about Star Crossed Lovers: Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story… etc)
(…both skits are pretty darn funny. Google ‘Battle of the Tiny Hat’ to take a look!!)
By Vanessa Kaster
How Do Musicians Get Paid When The Music Is Played On Pandora or Sirius Radio
Musicians MUST REGISTER with SoundExchange in order to get paid royalties from digital performances. Digital performances include having songs played on Pandora or Sirius Radio. I know that you might think that being registered with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC covers this, but it doesn’t. Separate registration with SoundExchange is required to collect royalties when your music is played on digital and satellite music providers.
SoundExchange pays royalties to performers and copyright owners. If you own your own track and play on it, then you get paid twice.
The only catch is that Musicians, performers and copyright owners must be proactive in registering with SoundExchange to collect their money.
–>Register with SoundExchange –> http://www.soundexchange.com/
p.s. if you haven’t already submitted your music to Pandora or Sirius Radio here is the contact info for that too. http://www.pandora.com/corporate/contact.shtml & http://www.sirius.com/contactus
-Vanessa Kaster
Profile of a Scout Network: Major Label Scout
Companies are increasingly using the internet to facilitate online scout networks, empowering communities of young people interested in a certain field to submit their findings for consideration through online portals. Some of these companies use their scout networks to collect and provide intelligence on fashion, sports, and emerging brands. Others are specific to music.
On the music-specific front, Major Label Scout has separated itself from the pack.
The NYC-based A&R consultancy firm, founded by former Arista Records exec Ken Krongard (credited with signing Avril Lavigne), utilizes a network of 200 scouts dispersed across the US, the UK, and Canada to provide recommendations to its major label and publisher partners, as well to find potential management clients. Artists discovered and signed through the company include Jason Reeves (Warner Bros.), Inward Eye (RCA), and Joe Brooks (Lava/Universal Republic).
MLS was the first music company I got involved with. The scout program can almost be viewed as an online internship, and it’s focus on education certainly redefined the way I look at artist evaluation, making me much more selective in judging mainstream viability. In the hopes that some of our readers may be able to get as much from the program as I have, I direct your attention to the following:
MLS is now accepting applicants for the final time this year (click HERE to apply).
Below, I’ve complied a list of the program’s highlights based on my own experiences. You can also visit the MLS site or read Ken’s interview with Berkleemusic for more information.
Program Highlights
Submit, review, and receive feedback on artists. Scouts are each responsible for submitting an artist on a cyclical basis, as well as reviewing artists submitted by fellow scouts. So, in addition to having your submissions considered by MLS for presentation to its clients, you gain critical listening skills. Furthermore, the MLS team provides feedback on your finds, helping you get inside the heads of major labels/publishers and tailor future submissions accordingly. Anyone considering a career in which artist evaluation important (A&R, manager, music supervisor, music journalist, etc.) can benefit from the process.
Receive access to educational materials. First, MLS provides it’s own learning materials on A&R. Second, it has a partnership with Berkleemusic to offer access to content from the school’s music business courses, as well as to videos and articles on career strategies in the music industry. Finally, it gives scouts access to a collection of relevant articles and interviews with industry people from across the web.
Take part in conference calls. Each cycle, a group of scouts gets to take part in a conference call with the experienced MLS team, giving them a chance to ask questions and discuss the industry with people who are in the trenches everyday.
Engage in marketing activities. Every so often, the company launches scout-inclusive marketing initiatives for its artists, great experience for anyone who wants to learn about music marketing. In fact, the company’s creative Facebook marketing campaign for Jason Reeves inspired this Artists House post.
The 6 Phases of Music Marketing by Dexter Bryant, Jr.
1. Distribution
2. Awareness
3. Discovery
4. Credibility
5. Engagement
6. Sustained Attention
Distribution
Configure outlets where your music can be downloaded and/or purchased online. iTunes is the most popular choice for retail digital distribution, followed by Amazon. Once your music is plugged into these distribution outlets, customers are able to acquire your content/product. If you foolishly skip this phase your marketing will inevitably fail because no one will have any way getting your music.
Awareness
Awareness goes hand in hand with discovery. Discovery involves making it easy for interested parties to find your content during the discovery process. Awareness requires giving people a reason to seek you out in the first place.
Awareness is tantamount to market penetration. An effective brand strategy, strong brand positioning, and PR are how you make people aware of you and your music. Awareness is created through word of mouth, PR, digital PR, online buzz, touring, radio promo, sales promotions, activism and cause-based marketing, street marketing, and features & credits on outside projects.
Discovery
Discovery involves any destination where your music can be found, shared, and recommended, and thus gain an audience. To amplify the spread of your music you have to make it easy for people to find your music during the discovery process. Music-based social networks are vital to gaining exposure because that’s where huge databases of music are shared online. At every point of discovery, make sure you provide direct links to your distribution outlets in order to increase sales of your music.
Credibility
Third parties co-sign the awesomeness of you and your music through reviews, features, endorsements, cross-promotions, and the like. The more that sources like these support your music, the more credible you become in the eyes of your market and the more backlink s you’ll get— leading to increased web traffic and exposure. High-profile partnerships, endorsements, co-branding, and sponsorships are terrific ways to establish credibility with your audience. Famous people, experts, DJs, promoters, managers, booking agents, label executives, social media buzz, and award nominations (not to mention wins) can all help you establish credibility.
Engagement
Direct-to-fan (DTF) engagement and the cultivation of relationships are central to this phase. Collect fan emails and pull their info from social networks. Research, document, and learn your fans’ tastes, preferences, desires, spending habits, demographics, psychographics, etc. Communicate with fans and solicit feedback. Encourage community contributions from fans—remixes, fan art, fan made music videos, etc. Use crowd-sourcing to determine your best-loved songs and apply that knowledge to your marketing. Use buzz monitoring, social monitoring, and web analytics to gauge brand sentiment and respond in real-time to conversations around your brand.
Sustained Attention
New content must be released at intervals that create sustained audience attention. Balance is key. Provide just enough content so that fans are always begging for more. Daily or weekly song releases? Weekly/monthly/bi-monthly mix tape releases? These choices are yours to make.
Release too much content for a sane person to keep up with. In other words: feed each niche market you serve with so much content that diehard fans are forced to stay active and engaged to keep from missing something or falling behind.
In marketing, every play is a chess move. Move the game towards an explosive climax so that your audience is always on the edge of their seats anticipating your next move. Feed audience frenzy and exceed expectations with every climax. Follow-up by rebuilding tension. Roller coaster tension build-and-release is the cycle that keeps fans engaged.
Ongoing email marketing campaigns and digital PR campaigns will sustain audience attention IF communication is regular enough that your audience doesn’t have room to forget about you. However, keep in mind that contact with fans also has to remain scarce enough that your audience still seeks you out online for more content and information.
It’s all about managing supply and demand. When crafting your fan communication schedule, make sure to factor in the differing attention spans of your market segments, especially if your customers span across multiple generations. Sustained Attention is achieved through email marketing, digital PR, press releases, advertising, a steady stream of content, the element of surprise, and word of mouth.
This article is an excerpt from Dexter’s latest eBook The Record Label’s Guide to Digital Branding & Music Marketing 2.0. Download Dexter’s free eBook @ http://hitmusicacademy.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/free-ebook-guide-digital-branding-music-marketing/
Author Bio
Micro media punk Dexter Bryant Jr. obsessively blogs & tweets his fascination with music, music marketing, and digital branding. More than just a sharp and opinionated writer, Dexter is a Digi^Branding Consultant, a Multimedia Composer, and a Marketing Communications Stunt Man. Dexter is a sporadic contributor to several established music biz websites yet brags on the miracle turn-around creative work he’s done for IKEA advertising, Nestle Pure Life, and other clients. Dexter publishes music and business e-zine The Hit Music Academy on Twitter @hitmusicacademy. Follow Dexter on Twitter @dBRYJmusic.
Peace+Love+Music
Dexter Bryant Jr. | dbryjmusic@hotmail.com | 813.770.9991
Digital Branding Consultant & Multimedia Composer
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