Since launching in 2006, Twitter has exploded desptie - or perhaps because - it limits users to 140 charracters. This infographic from Mashable details Twitter’s most influential content creators, impressive adoption rates, and efforts to turn a profit. PS: You can follow us at @hypebot for breaking news and exclusive content. A Graphic History Of Twitter:
This guest post comes from Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
What’s cooler than three million monthly active users? Five million monthly active users.
Spotify, which launched in America after a few modifications on July 14, saw monthly usage increase over 50 percent following the September 22 Facebook F8 conference, where Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek took the stage to talk about Spotify’s new integration with Facebook.
Hypebot recently shared beta invites for Serendip.me, a music startup that uses Twitter as a music discovery engine. It's gotten great early reviews but I haven't been quite as enthused as others, though that is partly because the people I follow on Twitter don't share much music.
The share of Americans watching video online on sites like YouTube and Vimeo has doubled over the last 5 years to 71%. Those impressive numbers even outrank social networking. To look at who these viewers are, how they consume video and the ways habits are continuing to shift, video hosts Wisita created this infographic:
Newly reunited punk-pop rock band Blink-182 recently released their new album, Neighborhoods. In addition to some clever marketing initiatives set forth by the band’s marketing team, Blink-182 has integrated with SoundCloud, SimpleGeo, Envolve, and more to allow their fans to listen to the new album with other people within their own geographic region.
On Music Think Tank, Ariel Hyatt interviews entrepreneur and founder of HeadCount, Andy Bernstein. HeadCount is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization that registers voters at concerts and works with musicians to promote participation in democracy.
A report on the economic impact of live music in Australia was recently released that revealed the significant contribution of one aspect of the music industry on a nation's economic health. Its focus on live music venues such as clubs and hotels, rather than arenas, also offers a nice argument for supporting such businesses on a local level. Interestingly, the majority of sales were of food and beverages.
Direct-to-fan marketing platform FanBridge recently launched a new feature called Social Digest, which curates the most popular social content from the web in a sleek email digest distributed to fans on a weekly basis, and already it appears to be a hit.
Bridging the gap between email marketing and social media:
New MySpace owner Specific Media has trimmed 8% of its 750 person staff. (TechCrunch) When Specific bought MySpace for $35 million a couple of months ago, it cut MySpace's 400 person team by 50%. and promised revamp plans by late summer. So far, nothing.
Glenn Peoples offers statiscial proof that 2011 is digital music's tipping point: "American consumers have purchased an additional 12 million digital albums and 90.5 million tracks on top of what they had purchased at the same point in 2010." (Billboard)
Google is rolling out free real time analytics and traffic data. Watch out Chartbeat, et al.
Responding quickly to user blowback over Spotify's new closer ties with Facebook that included auto-sharing of the users music habits, Spotify has updated its desktop app to include include a "Private Listening" option.
"Great, now I can listen to Pet Shop Boys In Private!", Spotify CEO Daniel EK tweeted this morning.
Apple's iTunes Store is now live in 12 more European markets adding to the 17 countries across Europe already served. According information shared today by digital distributor The Orchard with its clients, each store is part of iTunes' Pan-European store and will be the same in each territory. "All prices and store functionality such as pre-orders, links to Facebook and Twitter, etc., are available, although the stores are not currently selling video." The new markets include:
In addition to the growing debate over payments to artists from Spotify, a new survey points to two very different pictures of the streaming music service's future. On the one hand the Mediavision survery of Swedish users - Spotify's home country and where it has operated the longest - showed what others have: Spotify reduces piracy - 9% last year alone. But...
There is often a disconnect between artists with hundreds of thousands of fans and thier ability to sustain fan engagement. On Music Think Tank, oneof the blog's founders Bruce Warila delves into the complexity of music preferences and the key to successfully bridge disconnected fan groups.
Veokami was the winner of this year's HackLolla challenge for a project that takes multiple live videos of concert events from YouTube, syncs them up and offers each video as an alternate camera angle. It's not a perfect viewing experience but it's pretty darn cool and worth following as an example of what one can do with YouTube beyond embeds and viewing rooms.
Yesterday Amazon launched the Kindle Fire tablet which includes a free cloud locker and music player. Beyond that, what does all this mean for music? As Mark Mulligan pointed out, yesterday showcased the huge difference between Amazon and Apple's content strategies, and therein lies the answer.
Artist services and daily deals platform Hello Music, is stepping up its game with a major senior team expansion that includes the hiring of music industry and consumer product veterans Rick Camino as President; Will Urban as VP Programming/Business Development; and Bob Glaser, VP of Business Operations. Co-founder Zack Zalon remains chairman of Hello Music and the managing partner of lead investor Elevator Labs. Bios of the new executive team:
Lady Gaga's newest pop star honor is a pair of Harvard Business School case studies by Harvard faculty member Anita Elberse with Michael Christensen. The first study considers the possible choices Team Gaga faced after the cancellation of Kanye West's "Fame Kills" tour. The second addresses the release of "Born This Way" and Gaga's numerous brand partnerships.
For the 18th week in a row year-to-date album volume is greater than the prior year. Year-to-date album and track sales are up 3% and 11%, respectively, compared with last year, according to Nielson Soundscan figures shared by NARM.
SoshiGames' Music Festivals Facebook game, originally expected this summer, is now due for full launch in December. In great news for musicians, the game is intended to feature music discovery and Soshi Games is looking for both established and unsigned artists to be featured in the game.
Artists know that it’s daunting to get people to like your music. It’s even harder to convince fans to like your music if your music isn’t what they like. On Music Think Tank, Minh Chau recommends changing your mindframe from trying to make fans to finding fans.
A few weeks ago I went back to a venue that I was the program director at for 3 years. The band playing that night was a jazz trio called “Apartment 5”. I realized that the bass player Paul is the perfect example of polite persistence, because it took almost a year for me to first book his band, but they have been playing regular gigs at the venue ever since.
This morning Amazon introduced it's much anticipated Kindle Fire tablet. (click on image to enlarge.), Priced at just $199 and shipping on November 15th, Jeff Bezo's announcement also included some features that should provide a boost for Amazon's fledgling cloud based music locker service.
Troy Carter's increasingly visible profile, leveraging his early work in hip hop and his role as Lady Gaga's manager, has earned him prestige in music management and marketing circles. But recently his profile has begun to include involvement in both funding and founding tech startups in music and social media with related appearances and mentions at high profile events.
