BandPage Everywhere Allows Artists to Update Web Presences From One Place
One ongoing trend in digital music startups has been to help artists, managers and labels save time, work more efficiently and basically do more with less. It’s seen in companies that offer everything from email marketing solutions to analytics services. Tuesday’s announcement by BandPage shows the trend is not about to die out.
BandPage has launched a major brand extension that aims to save artists time spent on data entry. Called BandPage Everywhere, the new service allows a person to update all of an artist’s web pages from a single place. In other words, BandPage Everywhere is one-stop shopping, so to speak, for updating music, concert dates, photo galleries, videos and bio information. Just make one change at BandPage and the change is pushed out to Facebook and artist website and blog.
BandPage Hits 500,000 Artists, Rolls Out New Facebook Features
If this idea sounds a bit familiar it’s because ArtistData has basically been doing the same thing since 2006. Founder Brendan Mulligan sold ArtistData to SonicBids in 2010. He then flipped the ArtistData concept on its head and last year launched Onesheet, a service that creates single web pages that pull in data from a variety of online sources.
BandPage Everywhere isn’t just like ArtistData, however. BandPage Everywhere works within a controlled ecosystem whereas ArtistData pushes out updates to a wide range of services — Facebook, MySpace, Songkick, PureVolume, Twitter, FanBridge and others. BandPage Everywhere pushes out updates to pages with that have added BandPage Extensions, customizable widgets that are placed on an artist’s website or blog.
BandPage also took a page from OneSheet. Called Website Extension, BandPage’s other new product allows artists to create a website — free of charge — that’s populated with music, video, concert dates and photos from their BandPage accounts. Like OneSheet, the only new item Website Extension needs to set up a page is a background image.
There has been a lot of speculation about BandPage’s future. The launch of Facebook Timeline sent consumer views of BandPage spiraling downward. BandPage’s monthly average views has dropped to 3.3 million — and holding steady for the last month — from 28.5 million in October, according to AppData (it may not be the gold standard of app measurements, but it’s pretty widely cited). Curtains for BandPage, right?
Not exactly. BandPage has the time, resources and leadership to adapt and evolve. Back when it was still called RootMusic, BandPage raised $18.3 million from Mohr Davidow Ventures, GGV Capital, Northgate Capital and others. Larry Marcus, an early investor in Pandora Media with Walden Venture Capital, and Bob Kavner, long-time technology executive, are both investors and directors. Not every artist services startup has all that under one roof.
Copyright Law Cut New Zealand’s Piracy In Half, But At What Cost?
It seems the cost of piracy cuts both ways. Reports says the New Zealand’s “three strikes” law has helped cut illegal downloading by half but the high price content owners must pay to issue infringement notices has prevented the law from helping even more.
The Federation Against Copyright Theft, a U.K.-based trade organization that represents the film and broadcasting businesses, said the number of times New Zealanders illegally viewed the top 200 movies fell from 110,000 in August to about 50,000 in September. The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Rianz) claims P2P usage has dropped 18% since the law was implemented.
But fighting piracy ain’t cheap. According to reports, progress has stalled because the cost of issuing infringement notices is $25 apiece. Rianz sent 2,766 infringement notices from October to late April. The group would like to send 5,000 notices per month but is said to want the cost of each notice to drop to $2. ( Stuff, TVNZ)
Online Retail May Release Music-Purchasing Inhibitions
Everybody knows online ordering is good for improving sales of long tail music titles, right? But did you know online ordering can help the long tail of pizza?
A study titled “The Internet Lowers Inhibitions: Implications for the Long Tail” explains how the anonymity of the Internet changes consumer behavior. The researcher analyzed four years of a sales data from a franchise pizza delivery restaurant spanning 160,168 orders by 56,283 unique customers. The data show online orders were 15% more complex (they had more toppings) and contained 6.1% more calories than pizzas ordered in the restaurant.
These pizza orders showed the same “long tail” effect seen in music: sales of the bottom 80% of items increased in online orders. In addition, online orders were 23.3% more obscure.
What if a similar “inhibition” effect occurs with online music sales — but in reverse? Aided by the anonymity provided by the Internet, people are free to buy guilty pleasures — pop songs they would never admit to buying — without being seen by friends or having to explain themselves to snooty cashiers. It seems entirely plausible. ( The Atlantic Cities)