This week I came across a link to the Music Ally site about an independent artist who has found themselves with a substantial Twitter following of over 1.2 million followers. Very impressive. The said artist being @noushskaugen [http://noushskaugen.com/]. The article eventually leads towards a new site, something relatively new from Music Ally, where Noush herself, talks about how she uses Twitter. It’s a good read, I can’t fault what she’s talking about. Every artist should adopt her ethology towards Twitter and all other social media platforms. So this post is in no way, an attack on her, but we need a reality check. The number of followers you have is not a reliable analytic of fan engagement.

Analytics are tricky things to understand because we first have to remove the vanity barrier we all wear when viewing them. It’s safe to say, the number of followers you have on Twitter, is something that can be largely ignored. Over a long period of time at least. This is for 2 main reasons really. First being, there’s no way you can tell how many of those are actually active (unless there’s a web app out there that can do so? easily built). These dormant accounts are no more use than claiming you’re holding a lying down demonstration in a cemetery and claiming that the corpses count and it was an astounding success. The second being Twitter is crowded full of robot girls who want to show me their personal pics of them naked on another site to just me and another 900 guys. Add those the the social media twats and the other folks who thinks Steve Jobs wants you to test an iPad out before anyone else… and you’ll find that really, the number of followers can’t be relied upon.

If you’re still not convinced, let’s take a look at some numbers… what we can measure to a degree, is influence. One way of measuring influence and fan engagement on Twitter is by looking at the links/images people post on Twitter and seeing how many people click on them and view them. I’m actually going to be comparing @noushskaugen with @muse. Not a fair fight you say… you’re right, but some things will surprise you. Neither by comparing Noush with a Worldwide multi million selling artist do I think people should compare themselves to the likes of Muse. This week @noushskaugen is in SXSW playing some shows. And last night she even played for the Twitter employees in their office. An honour not bestowed upon many artists. I am merely using Muse because the contrasts are thought provoking. A quick note to say that Muse only use Twitter as a broadcasting tool “This is what we’re doing and here’s an image of it” a sharp contract from the great fan engagement from Noush. [stats correct on 16th March 2010]

FIGHT!

Round 1: – Twitter followers: @noushskaugen 1,241,126 VS. @muse 185,863

Wow, @noushskaugen the clear winner beating multi platinum selling artist Muse. Noush has on average (to 1 decimal place) 6.7 times as many followers as @muse.

Round 2: – Average Twitpic views: @noushskaugen 450 VS. @muse 24,577

Another wow, this time with Muse kicking ass. These figures are based on the mean average of the last five Twitpics posted. But we’re close to falling into a trap here. Twitpics views are also pretty much, vanity analytics. So let’s work with the figures we already have. If you take the number of followers they both have and divide them by average twitpic clicks, you begin to scratch the surface of measuring your fan engagement or at least active followers. To save you working it out the sums are as follows… 1 in every 2,758 of @noushskaugen’s will click on her Twitpic. For @muse, it’s 1 in 8. Although Twitpic views aren’t unique visitors, merely number of times that page has been visited, it still proves that when it comes to vanity analytics, only when you get creative with them, do they give a vague measurement of something.

I was going to add bit.ly data also, but you’ll find a similar number (Bit.ly data is public by default and can be  viewed when using services such as Cotweet).

It’s a simple point really, stop counting followers and start counting engagement. @noushskaugen seems to be doing very well out of it and I wish her all the best, once more, this isn’t a jab at her she has some really great advice over at her post.

It’s nearly 2010… for a lot of you, the only thing on your mind would be top 10 albums of the year (I’ve already chosen a definite 3), but there are a lot of people very excited about the stroke of midnight come the 31st of December, it’s because a lot of works will fall into the public domain.

A very quick introduction for some of you, when works (literature, music etc) fall into the public domain, it means it’s term of copyright has ended for that territory, meaning no-one specifically owns that copyright and you, as a member of the public, may do what you wish with it, including monetise from it. Not many people know, that right now, you can sell Elvis as much as you like… with limitations of course. What are the limitations? Well, first of all, the works have to be in the public domain for the territory you are exploiting in, so even though you can sell some Elvis works in the UK, you can’t in the US, because our term of copyright is different to theirs. In the UK, the term of copyright for the sound recording is 50 years after the year of it’s original release, in the US, it’s 95. The copyright in the sound recording is only one hurdle, the copyright in the composition is a whole new term of copyright (95 after the death of the composer in the UK), so what does that mean? Well, you are free to sell works in the Public domain, it just means that the PRSforMusic will want a cut for the publishers.

Naturally, in these turbulent times, a lot of companies have begun to release works now in the public domain, because we’re entering the age where sales from the music in the late 50′s happen to be songs that are still selling well. Naturally, the original labels are trying to get copyright term extended throughout Europe in order to keep monetising for many more years.

So what’s the problem?

Perhaps you see it as a good thing that the major record labels have less control over these works. Perhaps you are excited at the fact you can legitimately promote/release orphaned works (something Google is working on with books). I’ve felt the urge even myself. Listening to an old John Peel show, having loved a track he played by Al Ferrier, although it seems trying to stream anymore of his material is tough, because it just isn’t really out there. What a shame to have such good music not available to anyone at any time. If I come across one of his cds anywhere (mostly only available on import), I may in fact put it out there. But there is a downside…

Don’t forget, whatever you’re feelings are towards the majors / public domain, the most important thing is the consumer. There are knock on effects for them as they use sites such as iTunes, We7 & Spotify…

Type in Frank Sinatra into any of these sites and you’ll instantly turn dizzy. All yielding results into the hundreds. Remember not all his most famous hits are in the public domain yet, so there is a lot of repetition from people releasing the same tracks with different and usually substandard artwork. This isn’t good for the consumer, I’m a consumer, I want to listen to Frank but I don’t want to have to sift through 60 albums before I find my favourite of his. There is of course the search option, but the ability to browse is important to a consumer. Choice is good, but too much is damaging.

Below are screenshots which will open in a new window so you can benefit from the full size.

• iTunes search for “Elvis Presley”
• Spotifys “What’s new?” section
• A search for “Frank Sinatra” on We7

So what’s the answer? Well iTunes, potentially breaking the law, have removed any Elvis albums from it’s catalogue from companies other than Sony / BMG, although I think 1 or 2 have slipped the net. Yes, it’s like there was no public domain at all. Staggeringly Sony / BMG have around 200 different Elvis titles with re-releases, compilations etc. With iTunes, when it comes to the big artists, the majors have the weight to get the competition removed. Is this fair? Most likely no, but it’s hard to come up with an alternative where there isn’t too many titles for a consumer to browse through.  We7, although label data is omitted when you look at a release (can we fix that please?) also suffers from this problem as encountered with a search for “Frank Sinatra”. Whenever you look at Spotify in the “What’s New” section, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be looking at some works in the Public Domain.

In a market so saturated, the return for companies can be minimal, although there are companies making 100,000′s from doing do, but doing it well. These works aren’t orphaned, it’s not vital we get the same collection of old Elvis tracks with mediocre artwork again. What’s certain is, come the 1st of January 2010, it’ll only get worse. This post is not condoning copyright extension, neither is it condoning letting the majors carry on exploiting these works… It’s a message to iTunes, We7 & Spotify to think about how they’re going to handle works from the public domain moving forward in a playing field where the public have just as much right to release these works as the majors do and where the consumer experience in searching and browsing is priority.

Would love to hear any ideas in the comment section below.

Spotify certainly rule the headlines as far as streaming start-ups go. 2008-9 has seen a massive increase in presence, users and hype. Today brings the announcement that their iPhone app has now been approved. There was a lot of ‘will they, won’t they’ hype about this because Apple have recently taken a lot of heat for denying applications for all sorts of silly reasons. But it’s finally here, so well done Spotify, now user, time to plug in your iPhone/3G/3GS/iPod Touch and synch away by finding it on the Apple store here.

However user, has the smile already left your face upon realisation that it’s only available to Premium users? Well that’s old news really, but why aren’t you already signed up? Personally, I’m not using Spotify as much as I used to, because I moved into a new place in Birmingham City Centre, took out the best broadband package Virgin could offer… but we still can’t use Spotify unless everyone is asleep and more bandwidth is available to us. So it would have taken something special for me to take become a Premium user, with my work, I get a lot of music and new music anyway, but the idea of an iPhone app had me sold, yes, I was going to go Premium. Never again shall Jonathon from Spotify ruin my playlist.

Time then user, time to sign up. Well who wouldn’t with the great deals they have on offer. You can get a month at a reasonable £9.99 or… 12 months at a whopping… oh erm… £119.88… Yes user, no longer will have to endure those tedious moments of deciding what to do with all that interest the money has accumulated in your account over the year, Spotify will take those troubles off your mind (I think it was Jonathons idea) by making sure you don’t have any and offering you a yearly saving interest of £0.00.

Okay user, you’ve thought about it for a nanosecond and decided to go with the monthly option, excellent choice. Time to enter those payment details… What do you mean you don’t have a credit card? This is the credit crunch isn’t it, I thought everyone had one? It blows my mind when a company, who has customers who want to give them money won’t give them various and convenient ways to do so, Apples Mobile Me is the same. So there are many people in the UK including everyone under the age of 18 who can’t subscribe even if they wanted to.

This coming at a time when the adverts have increased to a large extent, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by it’s users…

So hey Spotify, how about this…

• Why not give your customers incentives to become premium members for longer?
• Why not let them pay in a way that’s convenient for them?
• Why not let all users trial your mobile app for a week for free? That’s it, hook them in, if they can’t try it out, they won’t know what they’re missing out on, you know this will increase subscriptions (and I do know it would also cost a fair bit for the streaming etc. but in business, this is called a loss leader).

Regular readers will know I’m a fan of the Spotify camp, so I hope this feedback will help them improve their service in some way. However, the announcement of the app approval is only ever a good thing.

2 videos for you to watch, pretty much both about Nine Inch Nails, but really, it’s about the future of music. The first of which comes from Techdirt [RSS], a presentation from CEO Mike Masnick. Using various case studies, he points out that these experimental models seem to be working, very well. It’ll take 30 minutes out of your life, but it’s 30 minutes well spent.

Leadership Music Digital Summit 2009 – Mike Masnick keynote address, 3/25/09 from Leadership Music Digital Summit on Vimeo.

The second video is all NIN, a video they made about their new website/iPhone app, the video is a great representation of the increasing opportunities technology is making available, with the immanent release of iPhone 3.0 operating system, the next 12 months are going to see some jaw dropping ingenious methods of connecting with fans and inevitably, being able to monetize from those relationships. This vid is close to 8 minutes long, but again, very much worthwhile.

NIN: Access iPhone app walkthrough with Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan, and special guest Kevin Rose from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

If you haven’t seen this film yet, then where have you been? “RIP: a remix manifesto” a documentary about copyright and how it’s restricting the art it was built to protect. The docu film from Brett Gaylor is apparently 6 years in the making discussing the culture that has been created through the ability of access through the Internet and the shift from people not just being consumers, but creators.

Their manifesto is as follows:

1. Culture always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the future
3. Our future is becoming less free
4. To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past

It loosely follows the journey of serial re-mixer and performer Girl Talk. The film also includes Lawrence Lessig, who talks about changing the laws in order to make them more relevant to today’s society, rather than making people criminals. Metallica are in it, Industry lobbyist scaremongers (Rick Cairns),  It also has heartbreaking interviews with people who have been sued by the RIAA, for hundreds of thousands of dollars which has ruined their lives working towards paying a debt they will probably never finish (Jamie Thomas – $9,250 per song – 24 songs – $222,000). Seeing as these type of law suits (also known as hubcap), are no longer pursued by the IFPI and it’s member companies, shouldn’t these debts be dropped? Shouldn’t these people be able to pick up their lives and move on? Are these suit figures realistic of actual damage caused by downloading said tracks? Answers on a postcard.

Whatever you feel towards copyright, you’re going to enjoy watching this… so here are a few ways to do it…

• If you’re in the US, you can download the movie on a pay what you like basis (but only the US dammit)
• Anywhere else, you can stream it here
• You can remix/stream the film on this website (check it out, some cool features, very inspiring)

Today also introduces the release of Lawrence Lessigs book “Remix” on a creative commons license, so download the free PDF here!

Came across the Sky Larkin website about a month ago and I’ve been meaning to blog about it since. It has to be one of the best band websites out there. It ticks a lot of boxes and they’re utilizing the web in ways every band should.

UPDATE: site was created by http://wearebrilliantlydifferent.com/ et al.

First of all, the site is simple, WordPress based, clean and easy on the eye. The right sidebar is very impressive and is the best use of a website Friendfeed I’ve seen. On Friendfeed, you can make a profile which feeds into all your other profiles on sites out there such as Twitter etc. Sky Larkin have done just that, they’ve integrated their Twitter, YouTube, Blog, Vimeo etc. but they’ve gone one step further, they’ve also fed into their Friendfeed an RSS feed of search results from Twitter of “Sky Larkin”, easily done via Twitter. So anyone who talks about “Sky Larkin” in Twitter will automatically feed into their website, see below:

Their header image changes at random, making the site more interesting and seem fresh.

There are many ways to make updating various sites real easy. By having a Flickr plugin, and updating FlickR you can update your website automatically. Same goes with gig’s, other blogs etc.

So check them out, they’re a source of inspiration for and band or label. Their Vimeo channel is quite cool, Matador has a great drum beat.

Quite a few of these type posts banded about. But I feel I get a lot out of twitter so I’m always happen to hype it up to anyone who’s willing to listen. Jon Bounds has a good introduction for anyone who’s new to it.

Twitter is what you make of it. For me it’s great. I use an application called Twhirl for the iMac, Tweetie for the iPhone and Twitterberry for the Blackberry. At the moment, I follow 239 people.

The majority of people I follow are to do with music, some artists, graphic designers and relevant and interesting local peeps. When choosing to decide whether to follow someone, I’ll check out their bio (always import to have one & also make sure your status updates aren’t protected), I will usually click on their link so it’s a good tool for driving traffic and raising awareness and I will check out their recent tweets, so if all they talk about is what they’re having for lunch or how many thousand emails they have to get through, I probably won’t follow.

Twitter make it simple to follow/unfollow people, so why not trial them? Happens all the time, nothing personal.

It’s a great tool to connect and find people with similar interests, as a result of Twitter I’ve made some friends and met up with people who perhaps I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet with otherwise.

Can be a great tool for brands – managing exposure, finding out what people are saying, helping those who need it, finding opportunities etc. Like this tweet a few mins ago from @SonicBidsTess

If your an artist and want to gain exposure through Twitter, remember it’s not a one way conversation, don’t just talk about where your touring, mix your personality into it, talk to other tweeters about anything.

I think every single one of my followers are worth connecting with on Twitter, but this a short list of music folk everyone should follow.

• Me! (of course….)
• Mark Mulligan – “Vice President and Research Director with Forrester Research” This guy knows his stuff!
• Mr Trick – forget RSS feeds, he’ll tweet all you need to know about what’s going on in music
• Jonathon Deamer – Lots of things music he be
  
• Fascinated – you know that amazing site The Hype Machine yea? This guy made it
  
• Jonas Woost – Head of music at Last.fm & all round nice guy
• Dave Haynes – One of the Soundcloud crew amongst other things
  
• Andrew Dubber – New Music Strategies
• James Pennycate – One of the guys from Brilliantly Different
• Jon-Paul Waddington – One of the guys from In The City
  
• Andy “CMU” – Music Journalist
  
• Luke Netvalar - lots of interesting tweets with links
• Music Week
  
• Bearded Magazine
  
• Make it in Music
  
• Sonicbids – Tess
• Sonicbids – Benjy
• Spotify
• We7

I think everyone I follow is worth following so check them out! Also, “Gabriel N” has created a google doc list of music folk on Twitter, worth looking up.

Drop me a comment if I’m missing some key people or even for some shameless self promotion

Here’s a fun game… start off with the phrase “Music like…………..” then make up a word to follow and see if there’s an analogy that could be drawn from said word in relation to music.

According to Twitter, 23 days ago, I posted this tweet: “Imagine, if you could buy demo’s (work in progress) on iTunes, then upgrade like an application? + able to listen to previous versions????”.

So what if music worked like software? I’m a big fan of demo recordings, live recordings etc, really into that sort of stuff. Usually, you have to buy the singles to get your hands on these. The digital market has made it easier but it’s still not great. The idea struck me while my mac was going through an update… e.g. If you could subscribe to a community for an album for an artist, how would it work? Let’s say, you paid £15 what would that get you? Well first comes the recording. Bands will usually record a series of rough demo’s of tracks, perhaps about 25 of them, they’ll sit down with the label and even pluggers to decide which one’s to record, although companies now exist who are paid to decipher which tracks are going to be the most popular and those are duly recorded, this is the world in which we live. So what if your subscription entitled you to listen to all of these, you could comment, rate etc interact and communicate, which would create invaluable feedback/hype? Tracks for the album are then recorded which can be done a few times for some major record labels so more demo’s for the fans, more feedback for the artist & label, everyone’s happy.

As these tracks are improved upon, like software, you can update. But perhaps saturation is a problem here. The final versions are then released.

How can this be value added? Well after the final recording, give the community the stems (the individual parts that make up the track) to play with and remix. Music videos? give them away too. Sell tickets exclusively to the subscribers a week before they go on sale to the public.

Imogen Heap has been using Twitter and YouTube to broadcast updates about her new album, playing snippets of tracks, welcoming feedback. Consumers are getting used to more interaction, I’m not suggesting turn it into a democratic procedure, but there’s potential in getting your fan base involved from an early point.

I can see a LOT of pros and cons for the idea and rather than listing them at this stage, I’d like to hear what you love/hate about it?

This post is a long time coming. If you’re an artist, you’re going to get a lot out of this one…

There are more artists and bands out there than ever, which is great. But it also means our email traffic increases. One thing I’ve noticed, is that bands are getting lazy, all too often music companies will receive a one liner email saying “Hi, we’re XXXXX band from XXXX, check out our MySpace here and let us know what you think, thanks.” What part of that sentence motivates me to go and check out you’re work? Would you approach a prospective employer with a one liner email saying, “Hi, my name is XXX from XXXX, here is my Linkedin profile, let me know what you think, thanks”

Approaching a music company, be it a label, publisher, agent, whatever is like applying for a job, so treat it like one. Below I’ve listed some points, which if you abide by them, should yield greater results.

• Your CV in this case is your band bio, keep this INTERESTING, no matter how short it may be, it isn’t a deal breaker to know that you used to be in a metal band but thought you were too good for them and decided to start a new band, include press clippings, upcoming gig listings.
• Why not use something like Sonicbids for your Bio/Mp3 needs – (EPK).
• Also, check out Soundcloud, new site but has amazing potential.
• Send tracks you think are the best and most polished, quality over quantity.
• Some companies can get arsey about mp3 attachment emails as it slows down their inbox, offer alternative links, your MySpace, Sonicbids, Soundcloud or even straight off your server.
• DO NOT ADD THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS TO YOUR MAILING LIST WITHOUT PERMISSION – these get blacklisted straight away and sometimes your band name tagged as spam, so any emails you send at a later date won’t get through.
• Ensure you add a covering letter equivalent, doesn’t have to be long, an introduction and to who you are and why you are emailing. Don’t be shy, in the industry emails usually contain what they’re looking for, so an email from one label to another may be trying to sub licence one of their act’s, so they state it: “Looking for sub licencing in the UK, JAP, GER etc.”
• Try to add the personal touch, make sure it doesn’t look like a mass email out, something like “like the new website” or “XXXX’s last single was amazing” (Flattery can get you places but not everyhwere).
• Be original, it’s hard to calculate how many black and white photos of bands standing under a railway bridge looking moody I get a day, but I reckon it’s a lot.
• Try to use different methods of communication, if they’re on Twitter, converse with them, if they run a live night, attend and maybe give them your cd in person & comment on their news stories/blog posts etc.
• Go to their website, do they have a preferred method of submissions? follow it, don’t email asking what the procedure is if they have already specified it on the website.
• If you’re sending something through the post, can you add something for them to remember you by, if your calling up chasing up feeedback “We’re the band that sent you mini eggs with our demo” they’ll remember you, like you for it and be MOTIVATED to give you feedback and check your stuff out, mini egg’s did go down nicely, thanks.
• Are you selling yourself right? “We released this ourselves under our own label” doesn’t sit well, pretty much says, we’re shit because we’ve failed in our own self release and have already sold as much as we can to all our family and friends and now we want you to do something with it…
• Avoid the phrase “Hope we can work together”

To sum up, be original, try to motivate, make it easy for people to check your stuff out.

I may update this post when more come to mind, in the meantime, if you think I’ve missed anything out, please comment them below.

Also check out Andy Derricks post on promotional packs.

It’s not often my blogs are aimed at artists, usually I have have a handful of artists I give advice to / send stuff to from time to time, but thought I would open it up a little. So if your an artist/act, believe it or not, your already leaving it a bit late to apply for certain festivals. The Biggie, for me certainly, is Glastonbury Festival. If I had to choose my favorite on earth, it would be Glastonbury. It’s just so much more than a music festival. Neither is the list compiled of the big festivals, smaller festivals such as Moseley Folk Festival are small, but simply brilliant, you usually have to start small don’t forget.

Okay so I’m not going to go through a list of ALL of them and neither am I detail how to apply, the list & links should basically inspire to check them out, do some research and apply if your music would be suitable for the said festival. Some won’t have formal ways of applying so you’ll have to ask nicely for the promoters contact details and send them some music along with an early Easter egg or something, they’ll remember & thank you for it. Despite it being only January, your already running late to apply to some, others haven’t opened for submission yet either. Okay so here goes and good luck, If I’ve missed any out, spread the love a bit and comment them so everyone can check them out. One last thing, if you know of anyone who’s in a band or anyone who would find this list useful, please link them up to it!

• Glastonbury Festival – details of how to apply here
• Trucker Festival – website
• o2 Festival – website
• Reading Festival – website
• Isle of Wight Festival – website
• All Tomorrow’s Parties – website
• Acoustic Festival – website
• Download Festival – website
• Beach Break Live – website
• Guilfest – website
• T in the park – website
• LAtitude Festival – website
• Glade Festival – website
• Lovebox – website
• Womad – website
• V Festival – website
• Shambala Festival – website
• Greenbelt – website
• Big Session Festival – website
• Camp Bestival – website
• Bestival – website
• Relentless Wakestock – website
• Cambridge Folk Festival – website
• Blissfields – website
• Brighton Festival – website
• Dot to Dot festival – website
• End of the Road Festival – website
• Evolution Festival – website
• Field Day Festivals – website
• Futuresonic – website
• Green Man Festival – website
• Hydro Connect Festival – website
• Indie Tracks Indiepop Festival – website
• Jersey Live – website
• Secret Garden Party – website
• Summer Sundae – website
• The Big Chill – website
• The Great Escape – website (hurry!!!)
• Two thousand Trees Festival – website
• Underage Festival – website
• Wickerman Festival – website
• Wood Festival – website