This is a real add I saw on a you tube clip from the movie Garden Party. This is a bad sign for the ad market, or a great sign of alignment between you tube and the untapped add market for people making crystal meth!
Author: jblogg
@jblogg - Vr, Music, Robots
IMEEM vs LALA UPDATE
I was discouraged to see the Imeem widget default to :30 clips. I guess the business model can not support free streaming, legally liscnesed into a widget (trying to use only liscemsed tools and players here).
So I hopped over to LALA. Remmber the big difference between Imeem and LALA embedable Widgets:
I am paying .10 a song for web streaming rights, so people who come to my blog can hear full length.
You can only stream for free in full one time – then it will default to :30
If your looking to stream free music on your site, the LALA model seems fair in absence of true ad suppported model that works (R.I.P. Imeem widget). LALA also added a nice facebook connect implementation I’ll write more about later!
Try the LALA playlist here, original imeem playlist below:
SMASHING PUMPKINS TO SILVERSUN PICKUPS PLAYLIST
Hearing the silversun pickups made me realize what the pumpkins lost over time – the feeling of a band, and most of their melody. The new silversun pickups is as good as the pumpkins at their best!
Hear for yourself:
ASHLEY TISDALE AND TWITTER
Multiple press outlets picked up a piece about the campaign for Ashley Tisdale’s new album “Guilty Pleasure”. I’ve been working on the music side of Ashley’s campaign since her first album in 2006. She is hard working, and cares about her fans! One of the highlights of this campaign has been her use of Twitter. Ashley took to it right away and she understands how important it is to communicate direct.
The key is it’s all her. And that’s why her Twittering is generating lots of buzz and traffic to her site and store! Even a star as big as Ashley needs to understand the first key principle for successful twittering – authenticity.
This article from Reuters poked a little fun at her Tweets, and it somewhat diluted my point about the importance of Ashley’s’ communication with her fans:
“Tisdale is an especially avid Twitterer, with more than 750,000 followers.
“She’s very protective of it in terms of it sounding authentic,” according to Warner Bros. senior VP of new media Jeremy Welt. “There have been a couple of times where we’ve said to her, ‘Hey, why don’t you mention so-and-so?’ and she’s told us, ‘I wouldn’t say that.'” (What would she say? One recent Tweet read, “Happy fathers day!!! Goin to dinner with my family and the most amazing dad ever! I love you daddy!”)”
You may not see the connection in Ashley Tisdale twittering “happy fathers day”, but her 940,000 followers do. The series of seemingly simple tweets provide basic insights into her life (She’s subtly letting her fans know family is important to her), and it all adds up to a lot for her fans. They peak into the everyday activity. You don’t see overloaded shameless promo, or re-purposed press releases. It is exactly this type of communication that makes it Authentic, and why Twitter itself has grown so fast.
4 REASONS I’M GIVING UP THE NOKIA 5800 FOR MY IPHONE
The Nokia 5800 is more powerful than the Iphone, but it’s trapped by it’s software:
1.) NOKIA’S SYMBIAN TOUCH SCREEN OS DOESNT COME CLOSE TO THE IPHONE
It’s way to complicated and looks and feels as is if it wasn’t designed for a touch screen phone.
2.) TOUCH SCREEN RESPONSE IS “JERKY” NOT “SMOOTH”
You’ll miss the elegance and responsiveness of the Iphone. I quickly learned the “feel” of a touch screen counts as much as the hardware itself.
3.) MUSIC PLAYER ACTS LIKE A PHONE NOT A MUSIC DEVICE
The Iphone can legitimately be your music device. Nokia has some work to do with the music part of the 5800 before you can ditch your ipod and make this your main portable music device.
4.) NOKIA WEB BROWSER IS TO HARD TO USE
With the 5800, you’ll feel like the web and the phone weren’t meant to work together. I am still mystified at parts of the browser interface. Several steps are required to do basic browsing.
Main take away – It’s the software that matters! When you see the potential of powerful hardware and an open ecosystem, you wonder how Apple gets away with providing a closed ecosystem – a great mobile OS. Working outside the iphone/itunes ecosystem was a promise that excited me, but didn’t deliver. After two months of use, the basic software problems overshadow the 5800‘s potential.
Software trumps hardware, closed can trump open if the experience is amazing! The Nokia 5800 is much a more powerful phone, with open standards, yet not as desirable as the iphone because it is locked in by its os.
7 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE “REACHING FANS” PANEL AT SF MUSIC TECH
I had a great time at the SF Music Tech summit today. My panel was entitled “Reaching Fans” with Sean, Dave, Pano, Aaron, and Dave.
Thanks to Brian for a great day! Here is a recap of some of the key points I wanted to discuss:
We are past the tool phase – and into the “Romance the Fan” era
There are than enough tools to reach fans, no matter how advanced or basic. Know how to use them to communicate your passion, listen back, and your fan base will grow!
Your Music is the most important asset and the best way to “Reach Fans”.
Not all Artist’s are meant to connect to Fans all the time.
Fans are going to seek what they want, when they want it – if your going to connect to them, be preapred for this!
You dont only have to give it away – selling great products from your site IS a way to connect with your Fans.
Many artists think they’re connecting to their Fans but are just pushing info out. There is a difference.
Avoid communication and data black holes – make sure your aware of what everyone else on your team is doing with your Fans. You need someone to QB your direct to Fan strategy across all areas.
The other panelists made some great points, couldnt write them all down. Search twitter #sfmusictech and youll get the best recap of the day!
JOE SATRIANI VS COLDPLAY LAWSUIT
Good time to admit I am a huge Joe Satriani Fan! Did Coldplay rip off a Joe Satriani song. It would be a moral victory for me!
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jI-M_yr36FvwE1Mv7SDJiLqaJ0GA
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE NEW SITE
They blog, they twitter, and its not lame.
www.mychemicalromance.com
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!
Take a read, and tell me your thoughts.
Follow the band here:
www.twitter.com/gerardway
www.twitter.com/raytoro
www.twitter.com/bobbryar
www.twitter.com/michaeljamesway
NEW MUSIC PLAYLIST, upbeat and moody, Imeem vs LALA!
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
LIVE MUSIC FROM WARNER BROS RECORDS in burbank.
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!
Stay tuned!
Flaming Lips – Christmas On Mars Deluxe Edition
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.
Wayne from Flaming Lips Live from Warner Bros!
The Vote Was Rocked
Woo Hoo! New Era! Props to all who helped get the vote out at Warner Bros Records! Prop 8 passes in CA, that was a suprise. Click here to check out list of donors who supported prop 8 over at kill rock stars blog!
Warner Bros Rocks the vote!
We set up a phone bank in our offices, and are streaming our efforts to turn out the vote live on ustream!
NEW URBAN MUSIC PLAYLIST – ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2009
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.
On my Imeem page, I have weekly playlists I pull from sources like billboard, big champagne, and more.