Month: October 2009

TOM PETTY SUPERHIGHWAY TOUR: 48 DIGITAL EXPERIENCES

The Superhighway Tour is a brand new online music product developed by the Tom Petty team here at WBR, and Tom Petty himself!. It’s a direct to fan digital configuration of the upcoming The Live Anthology, with the bonus content on demand from the cloud!

48 digital tracks for $24.98, mp3 AND FLAC! The digital tracks are presented within a dedicated web site and delivered with truly compelling additional material. No DRM – just real value in an on-line experience actually worth paying for. The multimedia around each song gives context, depth and understanding to what is already a career-defining live music anthology. nd them.

The site includes streaming audio commentary from Tom and the band on the songs that are included in the Anthology, historic photos and videos, show reviews, recreated vintage merch, and areas for fans to share their experiences and photos from Tom Petty shows.

http://www.youtube.com/tompetty

And you get 24 tracks before “traditional street date”! The first 24 tracks, which make up the body of the Superhighway Tour are delivered over an 8 week period that leads to street date (11/23/09). The remaining 24 tracks will be delivered collectively on street date.

You can get a free live track without even signing up!

Head there now! http://www.tompettysuperhighway.com

GOOGLE MUSIC LAUNCH – IS SERVICE THE NEW FORMAT?

Rumor hit earlier this week on the google music service:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google-music-service-the-screenshots/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/22/google.music/index.html

Google already has some experience with music in CHINA

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123841495337969485.html

Google and LALA? Readers of my blog already know I am a fan of lala (like this guy!)
http://changingway.org/2009/10/21/singing-lala-about-google-music/, and i’ve done a lot of great work with ilike and lala…so this looks interesting!

But this all got me thinking about the CD as a music format. There were benefits of this old technology, benefits of a clear standard from the player, to the audio format to the physical medium. You showed up at your friends house and it worked.

With Google entering the scene, we’re moving beyond the physical/file, to online experiences and services. It made me think – what role does compatibility and standards have with services? Is Google the mechanism for compatibility?

Is there a “service” standard where music can be monetized more effectively? You can move from different subscription vendors with ease and keep all of your preferences? If services and experiences had some way to know your preferences, and transfer them seamlessly, google could become a “front end” to an exciting music experience

I’d bet this is not something Google is going to build, but Google’s involvement (whatever it may be), starts making online music services and experiences Interesting. Looking forward, you see google becoming a frictioness traffic driver to all sorts of music products and you dont start over every time you try a new one.

Let me know your thoughts as this story unfolds throughout the week, and Ill post updates as I learn more.

MUSIC POWER SHIFT: We All Get Along at Digital Hollywood 2009

I participated in a fun panel last Wednesday entitled “Music Power Shift: Artist, Label, Technology, Management” at LOWES Santa Monica for Digital Hollywood 2009.

Digital music panels are no longer the hot and heated arguments between old and new that they used to be! Everyone seems to get along and agree on most of the issues.

I elaborated on three main points throughout the panel and I think most panelist agreed with these main concepts

CONNECTED
They key to 360 rights holders is connecting them effectively. From a fans perspective, all of an Artists projects are connected. You need the best team in each area, and if they can all be on one team, you can generate real results. Data collected from a download of the new single, is used to make touring decisions, and update merch lines. Art from a new shirt in the web store keeps the fans active, and bridges gaps between songs. When they all work together, behind an artist’s vision, the sum is much greater than each piece and it ends a great fan experience. 360 is not just about getting more rights, it’s about the ability to connect them together effectively.

PATIENCE
Make the right decisions, then give them chance to work. Allow new ecosystems need time to develop. Direct to fan campaigns that rely on commerce generate maximum results after the’ve been optimized, and correctly run for a few project cycles. Invest in the time of running things correctly to truly reach your potential. Trent Rezonr’s direct to fan approach and success didn’t happen overnight or begin with that one piece of product everyone wrote about!

CREATIVITY
My closing point was about Artists that are learning to create art 2.0 – this is when a musical artist makes great music and inherently knows how to tell their story, and vision in a multi media art/message – across you tube, iphone aps, twitter etc. When the vision is there, these 2.0 tools and networks become more than communication channels, more than new ways to sell direct. They combine and connect to form true extensions of the music experience. The Artists who truly understand this will drive the exponential evolution of music into completely new forms!

Thanks to the other great panelists!

Christopher Allen, COO, Napster
Michael Spiegelman, Head of Music, Yahoo!
Phil Sandhaus, MemBrain LLC
Jeremy Welt, SVP New Media, Warner Bros Records
Sam Wick, SVP of Monetization and Strategy, MySpace Music
Gary Brotman, Sr. Director, Marketing & Artist Services, Topspin
Kelli Richards, President, The All Access Group,

INTRODUCING LIGHTS

I’ve been posting about the rollout of the LIGHTS campaign for the last few months, and now its with great pride I can show all that’s happened to bring her vision to the world. LIGHTS is a brilliant Artist who not only has a debut album out, but an amazing multimedia presentation of her vision!
Her vision combined with a great plan with MYSPACE MUSIC has created a big US fanbase over the course of the last 9 months(read billboard article here)

Start with this introducing piece created by myspace, then sample all the different sides of LIGHTS:

Introducing LIGHTS (The Listening is out on 10/6!)

LIGHTS | MySpace Video

MUSIC VIDEO for Saviour (traditional)

http://tinyurl.com/ygey798

LIGHTS LIVE (Accoustic)

LIGHTS – COLDPLAY COVER (recorded on the road and in the tour van!)

LIGHTS TALKS GAMING

Head to www.iamlights.com
www.myspace.com.lights for more!

REGINA SPEKTOR – VIRAL CAMPAIGN FOR LIVE VERSION OF “EET”

UPDATE 10/21/2010: We saw a 120% increase in sales, the clip was #4 on HULU the day after the SNL airing, and we hadover 60,000 tweets to promote the clip. It was interesting to see the album at #40 after SNL aired across the country. But by mid-day Sunday it was #12. It seemed like a lot of the buzz was around watching the clip the next day. Nice experiment with solid results!

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Here are a few ways things I set up to enhance and capture the buzz from Regina’s SNL performance, and launch her new single “Eet”

Start with the now obligatory Culture Jam Twitter Interface : Tweet about Regina on SNL and get a live version of “EET”. Goal was to make people aware she was on SNL ahead of broadcast. These twitter buzz interface campaigns can work if you have great content – get people excited about getting something spectacular, make it worth their time, and fans will spread the word. In this case, the interface makes it easy, and an inspiring live version of “Eet” makes twittering about Regina fun!

Check it our the campaign and get the Live Version of “Eet”

Then let new fans watching SNL sample the album on NBC.com – Check out Regina’s widget with a stream the new cd “FAR” for a limited time

Sunday Morning, and you haven’t seen it yet? Check out the performance from SNL on HULU.

“Eet”
“The Calculation”

I’ve been watching the album move up itunes ever since!