hypebot

Songkick Unveils “Tourbox”, Simplifies Tour Date Aggregation

Live performances have never been more important for a musician than they are today, making up an increasingly significant portion of an artist’s revenue stream. It is absolutely critical then to ensure that shows are posted accurately and in the best places in order to maximize visibility and audience reach. The only problem is, it’s usually a pain to do so. Easily one of the most frustrating aspects of marketing and managing a music career online is posting new tour dates, but Songkick is looking to make things a bit easier for artists with the introduction of “Tourbox.”

How I Earned My Place in the Music Business: 6 Insights For Breaking In

After a four-year journey that recently culminated with my college graduation, I write to you now as a full-time music industry professional – Senior Music & Technology Analyst for Hypebot.com, head of Business Development for Fame House LLC, and I remain an independent musician myself building a creative venture of my own. My journey has been anything but straightforward, and there were plenty of lessons I learned along the way that I feel obliged to share with both aspiring and established industry professionals.

How Well Does Social Media Marketing Work? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Facebook.  Twitter. Pineterest. YouTube. Google+.  Every day we share stats, tools and tricks on how to make social media work for you. Does it make a difference? Is the ROI of all your efforts amplification of your message or actual monetary gain? Amanda Palmer is proving with her $1M Kickstarter campaign that, at least for her, it can be both. But your not Palmer. You're running your own small business. Pagemodo asked business people: Does social media marketing work?  

Two Big Announcements For Hypebot

(UPDATED) It's a big day at Hypebot, with two big announcements to share. First, Hisham Dahud, who has been a regular contributor here, is joining us as a Senior Music and Technology Analyst. Hisham has just graduated from college, and will now have a daily presence on Hypebot, and split his time between writing, a bit of consulting for our sister company Skyline Music and his work in business development at Fame House.

The Crowdfunding Bible On Campaigns That Succeeded & Those That Failed [Free Ebook]

Scott Steinberg's new book, The Crowdfunding Bible: How To Raise Money For Any Startup, Video Game, or Project, is now available as a free download or a hard copy purchase.

If you're thinking about crowdfunding anything, it's worth a look for its detailed discussion of what to consider from start to finish. It includes a number of interviews with folks who ran successful campaigns but it's also quite useful for its discussion of campaigns that failed.

Internet Underground Music Archive Back Online With 680,000 Tracks

A unique chunk of digital music history is back online. Jason Scott has taken archived data from the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) and uploaded as much as he could at the Internet Archive. There are over 45,000 bands represented with over 680,000 tracks available for free streaming or download. IUMA was launched in 1992 and faded in the next decade but established a wide range of historical precedents for the emergence of digital music on the web.

The Four P’s Of Playing Live Shows: Post-Show

In The Four P’s of Playing Live Shows, Dave Cool talked about preparation, promotion, and the performance. In this recent post on Music Think Tank, Dave covers what to do post-show. It’s great to perform an awesome show, but you need to remember to thank the fans and others that were part of the show and people that helped put it all together.

Spotify Upgrades, Fixes Apple iOS Apps

This morning Spotify launched a number of updates, improvements and fixes for its Apple iOS 5 apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Long overdue is an interactive guide that guides users through Spotify's features and another offers insights into who is listening to your playlist.  Details:

Another Spotify-Like Music Service, This Time For The Middle East

Last week we reported on Dhingana, a legal Indian music streaming service that recently surpassed 10.5 million monthly active visitors, becoming the largest legal Indian music streaming service. Now, recognizing the need for an on-demand music streaming services in the Middle East, a pair of Lebanese entrepreneurs have started Anghami, a unique music service to the Arab world that offers unlimited and offline music streaming to its users.

UPDATED: Amanda Palmer Blows Past $1 Million On Kickstarter

UPDATED: "WE. FUCKING. DID IT. $1,000,000 OF PURE FUTURE ARTMUSIC ASSKICKING," tweeted Amanda Palmer on Tuesday afternoon along with a half naked photo with "One Fuckng Million" scrawled across her chest.  She'd asked asked fans for $100,000 on Kickstarterm and now she's raised 10X that. In fact, overnight the singer/songwriter added just shy of $50,000 more; bringing the Wednesday morning tally to $1,049,084 from 21,802 backers, with 40 hours left to collect more.

The Music Business Is No Longer 'One Size Fits All'

NEWS BRIEF: Facebook Fallout, WMG Exec Shifts?, Twitter + Pepsi = Music, Megaupload & More

Facebook stock fell to the $28 range on Tuesday, and fallout from the less than stellar IPO appears to be rippling through music tech, as well. VEVO is apparently dialing back it's IPO ambitions; and Spotify has yet to close on its latest major funding round. Pandora stock also retreated into the $10 range, erasing recent gains.

• WMG is actively seeking a replacement for caretaker CEO Stephen Cooper according the NY Post. The fate of senior exec Lyor Cohen is unclear. He's reportedly working without an new contract.
• Twitter Signs Up Pepsi for Big Music Promotion (Media Memo)

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Grooveshark Launches Beluga - Free Tool For Collecting Fan & Musician Insights

Despite ongoing lawsuits with major record labels and music publishers, Grooveshark is looking to diversify its product offering with the launch of a free music information tool called Beluga. Beluga combines Grooveshark’s in-house market research with the streaming service’s own data, providing music insights and allowing anyone to conduct in-depth research about a particular artist and their fans – completely free and with no registration required.

Musicians: Learn The Power Of The Pivot

As a musician, it is vital that you listen to your audience as much as you'd like them to listen to you. Sometimes that could mean going through a change. The Beastie Boys did it, Katy Perry did it, and the Black Eyed Peas did it among many others. At one point, these artists shifted their focus towards a newly refined target audience after realizing that their existing audience responded well to subtle facets of what they had to offer, and in some cases, embraced a completely new direction all together. Eric Ries, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, refers to this maneuver as a “pivot.”

Content Is King: Marketing Plan Tactics For Indie Musicians

This week we continue with Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians. Check out part 1 and part 2 if you missed them. In part 3, Chris Hacker reminds us that content is king. Check out the marketing tactics on Music Think Tank.

101 Distribution Launches Arena Mobile Music Streaming With 100% Ad Payout To Artists

101 Distribution recently announced the launch of 101 Arena, a music streaming mobile web app that is free to listeners and pays out 100 per cent of advertising revenue to artists. It's a smart addition to 101 Distribution's services to indie musicians and filmmakers that leverages concern over streaming service payouts to artists.

New Facebook Camera App Sees Both Artists & Fans

Guest post by Knar Bedian of Evolver.fm.

Buzz enveloped Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram even before its big IPO. Now, part of Facebook’s plan for its recent acquisition is unfolding.

Facebook released an Instagram-like camera app on Thursday. Photographers and musicians like me as well as plenty of other Facebook regulars could end up using. It carries different ramifications for music, given how much fans’ impression of their favorite recording artists now stems from social media. What does it mean when musicians’ photography skills becomes a factor, and why should we care?

Business & Music: EDMbiz Invades Vegas, NMS Adds NY Music Festival, Sweden's Trigger Creative

Music industry conferences and live music festivals seem like a successful combination so news that new ventures are being launched to add business to music and vice versa should come as no surprise. EDMbiz is a new conference focused on the electronic dance music industry taking place prior to Las Vegas' Electric Daisy Carnival. The New Music Seminar is launching the New York Music Festival adding lots of live music to their business gathering. And, though the Trigger Creative Conference isn't brand new, it adds the business element to Sweden's Peace & Love music festival.

The Week's Top Music Apps: Beethoven, Soundboards, Seaquence & More

Guest post by Wren Leader and Knar Bedian of Evolver.fm.

Between Google’s Moog-inspired playable doodle (Moogle?) and our editor’s nomination for MTV’s NILF award, it’s safe to say it’s been an exciting week for the music nerds at Evolver.fm.  In other, less-nerdy music news, American Idol just finished up its eleventh season. I don’t know about you, but I had almost forgotten about that show; apparently it has yet to run its course.

NEWS BRIEF: Samsung Music Hub, 'Soul Man' Loses Lawsuit, Viki + WMG, ToneMedia, IUMA Returns & More

Samsung has launched Music Hub, designed simplify and consolidate it's mobile music offerings. 7digital has been named the music download and streaming partner, which debuted on the Galaxy S3 smartphone today.

• How the Weinsteins Beat 'Soul Man' Singer Sam Moore in an important lawsuit. (THR) Publicity rights, trademarks, libel, unfair competition ... a suit over the 2008 film "Soul Men" had it all. Ultimately, the film studio beat the musician in a nasty fight with big implications for Hollywood.
• Crowdsourced lyrics translation site Viki has signed a deal with Warner Music.

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UPDATED: Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter Campaign Nears $1 Million With 63 Hours To Go

(UPDATE 2) Amanda Palmer's impressive Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $981,881.  With 63 hours to go as of 8:30 AM ET Tuesday morning, 20,482+ backers have put the D.I.Y. musician within easy striking distance of $1 million, well in excess of her original $100K goal. That shatters the previous record for music on the crowd-funding platform of $207,980 by Five Iron Frenzy. How did Palmer do it?