I wrote yesterday about IODA and the growing need for digital distributors to prove their worth with value-added services. (Read why here.) Now The Orchard, once known for charging some of the industry's highest distribution fees, is jumping on the bandwagon with new B2B tools dubbed the Artist/Label Workstation (ALW) that include catalog and new release management, digital marketing analysis, accounting and royalty administration.
ALW also enables clients to manage their participation in other Orchard services like synch licensing and feeds for integrated marketing campaigns It's all part of an ongoing effort to create proprietary label relations, music discovery, and delivery technologies like their V.E.C.T.O.R music, mastertone and video management and delivery platform.
I have not spent any time under the hood of The Orchard's new offering, but they seem a fairly aggressive attempt to counter both RoyaltyShare's recen
t addition of reduced fee distribution to their own tracking and administrative t
ools and IODA PromoNet online markting services. It remains to be seen, however if artists and labels respond to any of these offerings or prefer to find the cheapest means of delivery and handle marketing and administration on their own.
