Startups & Funding

backBEAT for Monetizing Live Streaming Events

Likezebra backBEAT is a streaming event video service for musicians from likeZEBRA with some similarities to StageIt. backBEAT treats live webcast events as one-of-a-kind experiences that are not archived and are available for free or monetized via ticket sales and tipping.  Such events can deepen relationships with fans and also provide additional revenue streams. MORE & VIDEO:

backBEAT by likeZEBRA

backBEAT by likeZEBRA offers a live streaming web video service that's designed to connect to the hardcore fans as well as folks drawn in by a truly special event.  It's a way of generating revenue that's built on offering opportunities for fan contact and providing intimate feeling one-to-many broadcasting events.

MicControl's Jon Ostrow recently interviewed likeZEBRA cofounder Jon Taggart who said that Nikki Sixx would be using the service this summer. He also said quite a bit about monetization:

"We highly recommend artists to stop giving everything away for free! They are able to generate revenue while connecting with their fans more intimately, which in turn will increase their sales across the board and help fund their tours."

"Fans can reward the artist in real time. Viewers can send them credits with the click of a button…our version of virtual tipping…The artists will [also] be able to donate proceeds to their favorite charity instantly while raising important awareness for these causes."

I'm a big fan of this form of revenue innovation, an example of package innovation, that creates new revenue streams under the artist's control. I think performing artists across genres should be checking such services out and considering their potential for closer fan contact and monetizable special events.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project. To suggest websites and related topics for review, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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3 Comments

  1. I don’t get what’s new about this… Stageit has been doing this successfully now for almost a year. This jon guy is promising us that nikki sixx is going to use his site this summer? way to swing for the fences.
    check this out: http://bit.ly/musebenefit

  2. Totally agree Carter. I’m an artist and I just went to check out this zebra thing and it’s literally a knock-off. In fact, the only reason I was able to figure out what to do was because I’m familiar with Stageit.
    And as an artist, I’m really embarrassed for these zebra guys–they don’t know how to speak to artists. And clearly they’re not artists. On their FAQs there’s a place where they encourage fans to tell the artist to not suck. Any real artist knows that musical tastes are individual–and to encourage such communication between a fan and an artist is downright terrible. It’s tough enough to charge our fans–and the big kicker is that stageit (www.stageit.com) has real artists (ie, successful ones) involved. They get me. Zebramonkey does not.

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