Very cool to see the band use tools to talk to fans and each other! Strangely, their transparency leads to increasing the persona and mysteriousness of the band in a cool way, especially when they are having conversations with each other on their own site!
It’s also a great example of how bands work with WBR. There’s an amazing guy named Jeff who works in new media, and has been working with the band from day one. He believed in this band before many others did, and has stuck with them all the way, building trust, and keeping everyone at Warner Bros honest to the bands vision. He recently worked with the band to build them this new site, and the result is something special, artistic and fun!
New playlist heading into the Thanksgiving holiday. Its upbeat and moody, with nice ups and downs all mixed into a nice flow. Make the most of it, listen twice, and try the new widgets from Imeem and LALA.
I like LALA’s site, and their interface has some nice improvements over Imeem. The first thing you have is their web credits business model. You can stream anything once for free, then you have to use credts to add to your streaming library. The site gives you 50 credits when you sign up, so I made this playlist for free. Their library had everything I was looking for, good interface, easy search and playlisting tools. The LALA music player is at the top of the page, and keeps your music going on the top of the site so you can navigate, and not lose the music while your surfing around making your playlist. On Imeem If you don’t “pop up” the player you lose the song your listening if when leave the page, which is annoying and tends to happen a lot. As for the widget, my users will only be able to listen to this playlist once, and then you’ll get :30 clips. Thats a real drawback!
The new Imeem player has a slightly updated look and feel, and they seem to be runnnig text adds now on some playlists. guess I’d rather have that then only one listen (although I fear to make these models work, well need both plus audio adds!). The widget has somewhat better player controls (loop and shuffle).
The Imeem playlist tool, once my favorite, seems to be falling behind. No images in the playlist search, and no ability to filter our some of the junk. For example the version of Cracker’s “LOW” on this playlist is different that the album version I love but I couldnt tell that when I was putting it together. Imeem and myspace use images, and better descriptions to help you when your adding content.
But the fact that this version was in there is cool. Imeem does retain the user and community elements much more than LALA. There is much more content on Imeem, and you get some rare gems from user uploads. The Imeem playlist has an extra Copeland song I found only on Imeem. I also like the download and ringtone links on the player – make it easy for me to continue to explore the music in other channels.
How does the music sound so far? The quality seems better in LALA. Agree?
Will i continue to use LALA if I have to pay 10 cents a song to hear it over and over? My users will only be able to listen to this playlist once, and then you’ll get :30 clips. Thats a real drawback, and while I support trying to monetize this and get everyone paid, it feels too restrictive and its a surprise when it happens the first time.
I am sticking with IMEEM for now, but I am seeing the LALA widget appear on more and more blogs, so my unofficial surfing tells me that the LALA player is gaining traction.
Happy Thanksgiving. Share your thoughts on these widgets, and new playlist
I set up a Ustream video feed in an old conference room at the Warner Bros offices in Burbank. With a simple sony hd camera, through a PC, into our network, I can broadcast Aritist ‘s live when they come into the office (which is a lot!).
First was Eric Hutchinson The second was a live video chat with Wayne from Flaming Lips (ustream lost the archive on this one!)
But the best so far was Tyler Hilton. I need to edit this clip down, but for now jump to :50 seconds in and see Tyler light up when he finally sees all the fans on the site.
Free video chat by Ustream You can see he connects to them and rolls into his first song as if his online community was physically in the front row with him! He played for almost an hour, and seemed to really connect with the experience.
These live shows are a great grassroots tools that connects with the fans with artists. We had over 10,000 people watch the first three shows.
Another goal of the live studio was to capture the spontaneous moments. The community of Artists coming through the building on a regular basis was one of the reason I went live. When neil young and lil scrappy are here at the same time, or Lyndsey Buckingham and The Used. The variety of WBR artist’a is impressive, and I knew id get some some random parings.
Sure enough – during Tyler’s performance i came close! I found out Talib Kweli an Eric Benet were in the building at the same time Tylere was playing! I didn’t end up getting them all together, but as everyone gets familiar with with the studio they will come ready!
A very special project! With all the talk of 360 deals these days, here is an example of what they are supposed to be – a partnership between artist and a team to support them (call it a label or whatever!). Warner Bros has done a bunch of amazing things with the Flaming Lips, from music, to movies, to books – and we know how to stay out of the way. Check out the video the band made for their direct to fan DVD of their new movie.
Its great to hear new urban/hip-hop music that is inspiring and innovative. I gave up on looking for new Urban music because everything sounded the same for the last few years. I made this playlist from the new issue of xxl magazine, covering their “freshman 10” list of new Artists. As I was reading the article, I headed over to Imeem and made a playlist with each Artist in the article. Almost every Artist from the article was in there and xxl’s picks were right on! Traditional media can still be a better filter, even if their medium is becoming old.
With Imeem and Myspace having robust legal libraries of streaming on demand music, why would any article or review about new music not be turned into an instant playlist using these services and linked to from article? Tap into the pre-approved streaming music where in theory everyone gets paid.