How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans

Today’s musicians, both mainstream and indie, are using social media to connect with fans, build anticipation, and generate revenue in new and unique ways. The products range from singles to mix tapes to digital six-packs, even oddly shaped USB sticks, vinyl, and the occasional traditional album.

But how are these artists reaching their new fan bases online through social channels? Much like the business world, social media promotion for musicians is still a very new game, with no exact recipe for platinum success.

There are however, some innovations being put forth, and a new connection is being formed between artists and fans — a connection that empowers both to give each other what they are looking for.

Fan-Funded Projects

We have all heard about the success of micro lending organizations like Kiva, which use multiple small payments to contribute to a larger goal. The same process is being applied to creating an album or a music-based project.

One such project is the Washington D.C.-based indie hip-hop group Panacea. The producer/MC duo listed their project on Kickstater, a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers, and others.

The project was posted on the morning of February 26th. According to Jeremy Calvery, the group’s Director of Digital Media and Promotion, “We were at $1,000 before the end of the first day. We had to increase the number of $200 packages from three to five over the weekend because people were e-mailing and literally begging for the chance to ‘buy’ the whole back catalog. Less than five full days from the first e-mail to the list, we had reached the funding goal of $3,800, which was set to be just a bit more than what the minimum press of 250 vinyl copies was going to cost.”

Another hip-hop outfit, the Get Busy Committee, also launched a project on Kickstarter. In their drive to raise $3,218, they included one premium pledge level at $1,000 — an investment that netted the donor a song about him or herself to be included on the record, as well as a platinum plaque. They sold this spot within 24 hours.

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Trent Reznor: classic gaming, indie marketing and more

The blog site Joystiq has a really great interview with Trent Reznor – probably better known as the life behind Nine Inch Nails. Trent has been a forward thinker in the music and new media space for a long time now and certainly hasn’t been afraid to ruffle some feathers along the way. The interview is gaming-heavy (as can be expected) but a lot of the vibe can apply to other areas of media and marketing as well.

See the article at Joystiq.

DRM Is Dead But Here Comes Variable Pricing

Digital Rights Management (DRM), at least as it relates to music, is finally taking a dirt nap. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is now 100 percent DRM-free. This morning, when I upgraded to the latest version of the iTunes software to buy the new album by Midival Punditz and Ursula 100, it seems all music is now DRM-free. Apple first announced in January 2009 and said it would introduce DRM-free iTunes in April 2009, starting with 8 million tracks and eventually making the entire library overtime.

All songs I buy from iTunes will play on most of my devices. Such as my Sonos Digital Music System. I think it’s a brilliant and much needed move, though I’m not sure I’m going to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to DRM-free version of my tunes. I mean I paid for them once; why pay again? Why not just make existing files DRM-free without making us pay up. It shouldn’t be that difficult to do.

The DRM-free iTunes however has its downsides, because with it has come with variable pricing, which includes paying $1.29 for some songs. These songs don’t have anything special about them, like special artwork or a higher bit rate. They just cost more because music industry executives say so.

See the full article at GigaOM.

Yahoo’s New Artist Pages Aggregate Online Music From Across the Web

The Web has transformed and spread around music content – people can find music at Last.fm, iTunes, and YouTube, among dozens of other services. MySpace has become the epicenter of the music scene and the preferred platform for artist web pages, but it doesn’t bring together all of the platforms for music distribution available on the Web.

Yahoo’s relaunched Artist Pages, however, do just that. From one webpage, users have access to a dashboard filled with content related to their favorite artists. YouTube videos, the iTunes music store, Pandora, Last.fm, concert information, and Flickr photos are all available in one simple and clean interface.

It may not be as flashy or image-heavy as a MySpace Music page, but it certainly gives MySpace a run for its money in terms of functionality and customization, and Yahoo’s plans to open it up to third-parties makes it an even more appealing option to music artists.

The Yahoo Artist Page Interface

The interface bares no resemblance to the old Yahoo Music artist page or even the MySpace Music page. Instead, Yahoo seems to have opted for a cleaner, simpler interface that boxes up the key content.

The top links users to videos, discography, tracks, photos, or concert information, although all of that content is available from the start page. Concert information is viewable via a Yahoo Upcoming widget and vdeos are available in the center column, both from Yahoo and from YouTube, just for starters.

See the full article at Mashable.

Nine Inch Nails Shows Every Other Band How to Make an Awesome iPhone App

Other bands might have been first, but Trent Reznor is about to blow them all way with NIN‘s coming iPhone app, which completely enshrines his place as the Highlander of musicians on the internet.

The apps looks like everything that Web 2.0 was promised to be for musicians, wrapped up in an incredibly slick package. The app seamlessly combines streaming music with custom playlists; a Twitter-like social network within Nine Inch Nail’s own network (that’s location-aware, so you can look up where messages came from in Google Earth on your desktop); fan-submitted images and media from every NIN concert ever (also location tagged); and of course, an iPhone-friendly version of the website within the app.

It sounds a lot like the future of music in a box, if you ask me. The reason he was able to build this, and you don’t see something like it coming from the mainstream industry, he says, is that "anyone who’s an executive at a record label does not understand what the internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact – no idea."

The app will be free should go live in the next couple of days after it gets final approval from Apple. They’re already working on Version 2.0 for iPhone 3.0, which will include Google Maps integration and Push notification.

Also, if you didn’t know already, he’s on Twitter, and actually writes his own tweets, unlike some celebrities.

See the full article at Gizmodo.

Ticketmaster subpoenaed over reselling

Ticketmaster has been subpoenaed or received other requests for information from the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, the company said in an email obtained by an industry blog.

The law enforcement agencies were interested in Ticketmaster’s relationship with its reseller TicketsNow, in particular controversial sales of tickets to Bruce Springsteen shows in New Jersey on May 21 and 23, said the email displayed on TicketNews.com.

"We have received a number of subpoenas and demands for sworn information about TicketsNow and its broker clients," Ticketmaster said in the email.

"These include formal requests for information and/or subpoenas from, among others, the United States Department of Justice, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, the Federal Trade Commission and the Canadian Competition Bureau," the email said.

Ticketmaster confirmed the email was authentic but had no other comment.

Ticketmaster, which is seeking to merge with the world’s largest concert promoting company Live Nation, was besieged by complaints earlier this year when fans of Bruce Springsteen who signed on to Ticketmaster to buy concert tickets were told that they had sold out within minutes. They were instead directed to the reseller TicketsNow which had considerably more expensive tickets.

Read the full article at Yahoo News.

Last.fm Silences Third-Party Mobile Apps

Hot off an announcement that they’d be charging for radio access outside the US, UK and Germany, Last.fm has said that all non-official mobile clients will be banned. This isn’t going over well.

The change comes with a new developer API that will actually make things much easier for other developers, who’ve had to rely on a few undocumented calls up until now. Current licensing agreements with labels—who Last.fm is in no position to alienate—prohibit mobile streaming, though the company’s official mobile radio apps—right now just on the iPhone and Android—will still work fine.

As you could imagine, this kind of blows for a lot of people. Windows Mobile users will no longer be able to use Pocket Scrobbler, Symbian folks will have their beautiful baby, Mobbler, ripped from their hands, and BlackBerry owners will soon find FlipSide, a pay app, rendered silent. And as much as I’d like to, I don’t really believe that we’ll see official clients for any of the platforms, at least not soon.

Article source: Gizmodo.

Is Trent Reznor a digital-music visionary? Ask Lars Ulrich

Sure, rocker Trent Reznor’s example has encouraged plenty of music acts to reject the label system and search for a new industry paradigm using the Web.

Lars Ulrich suggests that Metallica may want to dump its label, and he wants Trent Reznor’s help to do it.

But did anyone expect that among Reznor’s disciples would be Lars Ulrich?

Ulrich, a member of the rock band Metallica and once one of the leading critics of peer-to-peer sites, said during an interview last week with The Los Angeles Times that Metallica no longer needs the backing of a big record company and suggested that the group may be ready to go independent.

"The primary–not the only, but the primary–function of a record label is to act as a bank," Ulrich told the Times. "When you’re fortunate enough to be successful and so on, you don’t need to rely on record companies as the banks…We’re doing a bunch of shows with Trent this summer in Europe. I look forward to sitting down and talking to him about what’s on his radar."

Because of Reznor and efforts by Radiohead, which also dropped its label and has since used the Internet to market itself directly to fans, Ulrich told the Times "there’s nothing but possibilities."

What’s the significance here? To many music fans Ulrich became the hated symbol of anti-innovation, anti-technology, and heavy-handed copyright owners when he was among those who tried to sue Napster–and indeed file sharing–out of existence.

Now, a decade later, even he wants to sit at the feet of Reznor.

Reznor, leader of the band Nine Inch Nails, has won accolades from digital-music fans for attempting to make music more affordable for the public while helping artists earn a living. He’s done this by rejecting the major-label system and distributing music via the Web directly to the public.

Ulrich’s nod to Reznor is, at the very least, an acknowledgment that digital distribution is here to stay and that the best way to survive as a music act is to understand it.

Original article: CNET News.

Bands often scalp tickets, says Nine Inch Nails’ Reznor

Performers often scalp tickets to their own performances, using TicketsNow.com and StubHub.com as outlets, says Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor in a blog posting.

With the face value of tickets for the best seats so much less than what high rollers and avid fans are willing to pay, performers have to choose between letting scalpers reap the profits of their work or cashing in themselves, said industrial rocker Reznor in a blog posting on Sunday.

"The venue, the promoter, the ticketing agency and often the artist camp (artist, management and agent) take tickets from the pool of available seats and feed them directly to the re-seller," wrote Reznor, who has a long history of battling the music industry.

"I am not saying every one of the above entities all do this, nor am I saying they do it for all shows but this is a very common practice," wrote Reznor. "StubHub.com is an example of a re-seller/scalper. So is TicketsNow.com."

Reselling may disappear and the face value of tickets go up if U.S. Justice Department antitrust officials allow the planned merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation Inc, Reznor predicted.

See the full article at Yahoo News.

Loudcrowd Marries Gaming And Music In A Virtual World

Startup Conduit Labs has launched Loudcrowd, a online community that integrates a virtual world with social gaming and music. Loudcrowd users can create their own virtual world with avatars and access music playlists while playing a series of music-themed games with friends. Loudcrowd is launching with 50 artists and over 250 songs featured on the platform, including music from the Indie rock bands Justice, Phoenix, Santigold, and Friendly Fires.

Loudcrowd wants to create the feel of an online concert or dance club for users. The site will feature social games that will be played simultaneously with music tracks as well as daily playlists from guest DJs. Loudcrowd’s feature Dance game is similar to the popular game Dance, Dance Revolution and is pretty innovative. Loudcrowd says that the dance game has been played more than one million times since they entered private beta, with over 25 percent of users visiting the site more than 100 times a month. The games are all built on Flash and the animation is disarmingly good.

See the full article at TechCrunch.