Yesterday’s eleventh SF MusicTech Summit in San Francisco
continued in its tradition of gathering some of the brightest minds at the
convergence of music and technology for a full day’s worth of panels and
discussion. The event drew in people from all over the world and was by far the
largest one yet. Hypebot’s Hisham Dahud was in attendance to moderate the
“Artist Tools” panel (video link below) and reported back with some key quotes
overheard during the event.
Overheard at SF MusicTech Summit XI
Artist Tools (watch this panel in its entirety here):
“Data is the new hustle; [the music business] is getting much fairer than it used to be.” -Matt Mason, BitTorrent"I don't spend a lot of time talking ‘data’ with my artists – they don't care." -Steve Rennie, REN Management
"I got news for you guys: There's nothing rational about the fucking music business!" -Steve Rennie
"YouTube has been a billion times more powerful than Facebook or Twitter." - Nataly Dawn, Pomplamoose
Pandora:
"There are 100,000 artists on Pandora & 70% are indies; artists making $100K - $2 million." - Tim Westergren, Pandora founder
"An NPD study says that Pandora users bought 29% more music when engaged on the platform." - Westergren
Impact on Pandora's business from Spotify: "No impact from any business launched in the past 5 years." -Westergren
Music’s cultural significance:
"Music has been with us longer than writing, agriculture and civilization." - Bryan Kim, Tracks.by
"Music experience coming back full circle to a community experience; seen heavily in EDM among other genres." - Kim
The state of the music industry:
"The music industry created its own demise by putting digital music into the hands of millions w/CDs (ripping)." - Jeff Price, Tunecore founder
“Artists aren't making money anymore? WTF are you talking about?! Most artists NEVER made money!" - Price
"Once commercial radio is removed from the car, the old model of the music business will be completely out." - Price
Overheard: "60% of Android users (as well as iTunes customers) have an average music budget of $50 per year."
Digital Marketing:
“The half life of a tweet is 9.9 minutes; half of your engagements will come within 10 minutes of a tweet." – Colin Brumelle, Twitter
"If your target market is under 25, you cannot ignore YouTube." - Rachel Masters, Red Magnet Media
"YouTube is the new MTV - it will one day be the #1 revenue source for copyright holders." – Jeff Price
"The best tool for artists is not Facebook, but the bit of paper fans write their email addresses on at a gig." - Benji Rogers, PledgeMusic
"Letting fans record and share our shows has exponentially increased our concert attendance." - Michael Franti, leader of the band Michael Franti and Spearhead
"The more you show who you are, the more the fans will relate." - Franti
EDM:
"EDM artists tend to be the first who 'get' new and disruptive technologies." – Alexis Giles, DJZ
"The fan is the headliner; the DJ is the soundtrack." - John Boyle, CFO Insomniac
Music vs. Sports?
Overheard: "People spend 3.5 hours a week watching sports, but 14 hours listening to music; yet sports is $500 billion industry and music is only $70 billion.”
Overheard: "Don't monetize content, monetize fans. NFL knows how to do it but music industry doesn't.
Software:
"Concentrate on the voice of the product and the features that are the most important." –Sean Porter, Ticketfly
Crowdsourcing:
“PledgeMusic keeps money back for refunds, so people chase us and not the artists." – Benji Rogers, PledgeMusic
Music Festivals:
“Festivals that are innovative, creative, and treat customers right will be the successful ones." - Rick Farman, Superfly
Mobile:
Overheard: "20% of the product is getting 80% of the use, so we go back and do some unfortunate fat trimming."
"App developers: respect the knowledge that you won't always have bandwidth [for primary functionality]." - Ethan Kaplan, Live Nation Labs
"Music streaming apps must become simpler and get right to the actual music (look at Songza)." -Steve Jang, Soundtracking
Cache Is King: "Apps should download music to my device for quick offline play." –Jang
"Warner Bros Records' business from mobile devices has doubled in the last year." - Ayal Kleinman, WB
More: Interview With SF MusicTech Coordinator Brian Zisk
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Hisham Dahud is a Senior Analyst for Hypebot.com. Additionally, he is the head of Business Development for Fame House and an independent musician. Follow him on Twitter: @HishamDahud
