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Mark Montgomery Of FLO {Thinkery} On Music Tech Investing, Nashville & More [VIDEO]

On a new episode of This Week in Music, Ian Rogers talks to serial music tech entrepreneur Mark Montgomery about startup investing, setting up shop in Nashville and his new business, FLO {Thinkery}. WATCH:

Getting It Done: The Week In D.I.Y.

 

GETTING IT DONE

• How I Secured 3 Record Deals In 3 Different Ways For 3 Different Bands [Part 1, Part 2]
• Facebook Makes Mandatory Shift To Timeline, But New Apps Can Help
• Zoe Keating Tries To Make Sense Of The Performance Royalty System
• How Do Musicians Really Earn Their Living? [CASE STUDIES] 
• ReverbNation Gets A Major Makeover.

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: 10 Sales Tips For Artists & More

Where

The Music Industry

Thinks Out Loud

• IndieAmbassador.com: Buzz: There's More to a Free Music Campaign than Free Music...
• Bobby Owsinski: 10 Sales Tips For Artists
• Jamie Leger: The Successful DIY Indie Artist Series - Project
• Ariel Hyatt: 7 Questions For A Real Live Music Supervisor Sarah Gavigan of Get Your Music Licensed

REWIND: The New Music Industry's Week In Review

REWIND

• Spotify Extends Free Listening In U.S.
• Why Commission Based Teams Are Awesome For Musicians & Why You Should Want One
• Universal Says EMI Purchase Won't Create Monoply Because There's Rampant... PIRACY!
• Mainstream Fanatic: Songza Takes Music Playlists To The Masses

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Universal Says EMI Purchase Won't Create Monopoly Because There's Rampant... PIRACY!

(UPDATED) Despite widely accepted stats that a combined EMI and Universal Music Group would control 40% of the recorded music market, Universal Music Group representatives are telling anyone that will listen that combining their record divisions will not create too powerful a player.

ReverbNation Gets A Major Makeover

   new home page (click to enlarge)

ReverbNation is currently beta testing a cleaner, more modern design along with major updates to a number of key features. Current ReverbNation users can access either design and set of features. Site changes and upgrades include:

The Week In Music Publishing 3.30.12

The Big Stories

In an interview on Grand Rapids, MI radio station WGRD, Black Keys' drummer Patrick Carney went on a rant about Napster-founder and Spotify-board member Sean Parker, calling him an 'asshole' for 'stealing $2 billion from artists'.

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Mainstream Fanatic: Songza Takes Music Playlists To The Masses

Post by Kyle Bylin (@kbylin) of Live Nation Labs and Ultimate Chart.

Every year, dozens of startups attempt the impossible: to make their product mainstream. In the music sector, this proves to be a particularly challenging task, because startups are often founded by fanatics who are unlike the casual listeners they’re targeting with their product.

The team at Songza, a music streaming service, faces this hurdle.

Creative Music Marketing With A SoundCloud Game, Flixel Photo Animator & myband.is [Updated]

Breaking through the noise can be tough for an indie musician, but the following three tools will help you add some flair to your efforts. The biggest news is that SoundCloud has launched the Wave Raid music game that you can use to feature your own gamified tracks for your fans' enjoyment.

How I Secured 3 Record Deals In 3 Different Ways For 3 Different Bands [Part 2]

In part one I shared the route my first band took to getting a record deal. Essentially playing live as much as possible and building a following by word of mouth. In this second part of the series, the record deal was secured in a very different way. It serves not only as a reminder to the importance of widening your creative abilities and embracing new technologies, but also understanding that sometimes, just because you can see the potential of a new idea, it may not be as accessible if the rest of the world hasn’t caught up.

Facebook Revises Check-In Stats

Facebook's ever evolving platform (Don't forget today's forced switch to Timeline.) is making a some new changes to Check-In. They're revising check-in numbers on Facebook Pages to offer a more accurate picture of how people are visiting your pages.

WHODAT.BIZ: OKFocus PR Web Trick Or A Kanye West Internet Head Fake?

When news hit the web that the first product resulting from Kanye West's epic DONDA Twitter rant was a WHOIS domain registration lookup tool called WHODAT.BIZ, the world stopped and gawked. But soon naysayers began to pick apart the puzzling entity and discovered that WHODAT.BIZ was a pr stunt.  However, most of the evidence of fakery was circumstantial and most of the evidence that OKFocus was the pr group behind this fakery was based on individuals saying, "yeah, we did it."

Internet Radio Is Broken If It Needs To Charge Bands To Make Money

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Pandora and other webcasters who fought for lower royalty rates a few years ago rejoiced when they achieved rates they thought would allow them to achieve profitability, back in 2009.  Yet questions still surround the ability of webcasters such as the now-public Pandora to turn a profit, given that their payments to copyright holders increase at the same rate at which they grow.

TODAY: Facebook Makes Mandatory Shift To Timeline, But New Apps Can Help

(UPDATED) Today at 11 AM PT/2PM ET Facebook is making the mandatory conversion to Timeline for pages whether you like it or not. Some artists have already made the switch over to the new layout, and as a result, many music apps have already seen adverse effects in fan interactivity and usage - primarily due to the fact the Timeline becomes the mandatory landing page. In response, several music apps have needed to make key adjustments in order to optimize their services for the new layout. 

NEWS BRIEF: New Sony CEO, Qtrax Slammed, Reverb Upgrades Promote It, Drip.fm, Eventbrite Int'l,

Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton will become CEO at Sony Corporation of America overseeing Sony's vast entertainment empire, which includes Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

• US Government Slams Qtrax Owners (Wayne's World)
• ReverbNation has upgraded its Promote It Facebook ad service to allow artists to compare their campaign results to peers in their genre. (ReverbNation)

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Emily White: Why Commission Based Teams Are Awesome For Musicians & Why You Should Want One

Guest post by Emily White of Whitesmith Entertainment and Readymade Records.

Managers in the Entertainment industry take a lot of flack and have various stereotypes associated with their image and motives. In fact, music industry professionals in general are often pegged as sleazy, heartless businesspeople leeching off of creative minds to (gasp!) make money.

Music Service Guvera Plans U.S. IPO, Hires Industry Vet Phil Quartararo As President

Australian based ad supported music service Guvera is on the hunt for $50 million ahead of a mid-2013 IPO in the United States. To head the effort, the company is hiring recording industry veteran Phil Quartararo to run its US operations. Quartararo has previously served as CEO of Virgin Music America and president of Warner Bros Records.

Tunecore Cuts Simify Deal Including Direct Songwriter Payments

Tunecore has added European digital music services simfy to its music distribution partners.  What's unique about the deal is that artists that are also TuneCore Songwriter Service customers will be paid without the usual collection agency middlemen, increasing payments and delivering them more quickly. 

Indie Music In Advertising Becomes The Status Quo

Recent articles in Adweek, Businessweek, Fortune and the LA Times discuss the widespread use of music by indie artists in advertising. While this is not a new phenomenon, it is now a well-established practice that offers artists an excellent revenue stream. In some cases artists also get their first big hits via music that is featured in ubiquitous commercials.  As one musician points out, music supervisors and creatives in marketing are the new A&R.

Spotify Connects With Echo Nest For Music Data

(UPDATED) The Echo Nest and Spotify have integrated APIs so that Spotify app developers can tap into The Echo Nest's music intelligence platform. The Echo Nest already powered Spotify radio, but none of its official apps. Some third-party apps like SpotON Radio and Echofi have already been utilizing the both APIs.

Spotify Extends Free Listening In U.S.

It's been nine months since Spotfy launched in the U.S. and if the music streamer mirrored its own European rules, many of it's free accounts were about to become limited to 10 hours of listening per month.  But this morning Spotify announced that it would extend free music listening for U.S. users indefinitely.

7 Questions For A Music Supervisor

The Future of Music Coalition conducted an in-depth study on ways artists earn money and has released some of their results. The coalition has identified 42 ways - two of them include composing original works for broadcast and synch licenses. On Music Think Tank, Ariel Hyatt interviews Sarah Gavigan, an award-winning music supervisor, on music licensing and placement. Check out the interview here and learn more about music licensing. 

New Take On Music Crowdfunding From Cooking Vinyl's Pete Lawrence & Book Publisher Unbound

Pete Lawrence, founder of England's Cooking Vinyl record label and The Big Chill festival, is launching another more intimate festival called Alfresco. But instead of directly crowdfunding the festival, he's releasing a book full of stories about his past and offering tickets with pledges via Unbound, a book crowdsourcing and publishing service in London. For a variety of reasons it seems likely to be a success but, so far, only 5% of their goal has been reached.

Robin Taylor Leaves ICM To Re-Launch Inland Empire

After a three year stint at ICM, Robin Taylor has left the agency to relaunch her own firm, Inland Empire Touring.  Located once more in Brookyln, New York, Inland Empire reps a roster that includes Modest Mouse, Beachwood Sparks, !!!, Big Troubles, The Fruit Bats and Wolf Parade and others.

NEWS BRIEF: Best Buy Closing More Stores, Rdio Takes On EU, $ Raised For Sony + EMI & More

• Best Buy is closing 50 full stores as part of an efforts to cut $800 million in costs. The reatiler is also opening 100 smaller mobile only locations.
• Interview: Rdio Prepares To Take On Spotify, Deezer Et Al In Europe. (paidContent UK)
• In part to help finance the Sony purchase of EMI publishing, GSO Capital Partners, the credit investment arm of Blackstone Group, has raised $4 billion for a fund focused on middle-market companies. (Bloomberg)

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