hypebot

iTunes Payments Account For 60% Of Total Digital Music Revenue [ANALYSIS]

click on image to enlarge

A new analysis by Horace Dediu at Asymco concludes that iTunes accounted for 60% of total music industry digital revenues in 2012. "Apple regularly reports iTunes as a separate revenue item and occasionally it also reports payments data for developers and app download rates," wrote Dediu. "By interpolating the data published and combining it with some assumptions it’s possible to estimate the mix of revenues (and costs) associated with iTunes." Here's how Dediu arrived at 60%:

3 Ways To Maximize SXSW Music Media Attention Even If You've Waited Until Now

If you're just now thinking about how to get the most media exposure out of your trip to SXSW Music, then you're way behind the curve. But there's still time to make some meaningful moves that can improve your trip beyond the immediate experience.

SXSW used to be a place where, if you got booked, you could just show up and make things happen. But the growing noise of more bands, more fans, bigger acts and hyperactive brands means that just showing up is likely to result in a very weak ROI.

Don’t Touch That Dial: The Rise And Fall Of The DJ

Guest post by Alex May (@AlexmDrums) for sidewinder.fm, a music and tech think tank.

In my early teens, broadcast radio shaped the way I listened to and discovered music.

Tuning into the local alternative rock station, 97X, became a daily ritual. It would be on in the car both to and from school, and move to my stereo when I got home. Over the years, I got to know the on-air DJs, recognize their voices, and trust their taste. In effect, they acted as a middleman between myself and my favorite bands — a then distant collection of entities.

Stop Those Annoying Facebook 'Pings' While Listening To Music

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Facebook has an annoying habit of disrupting what you’re listening to by playing little ‘ping’ sounds when messages show up, someone you follow posts something, your post gets Liked, and in other scenarios. This appears to be a relatively new issue.

These pings can be helpful if you’re trying to ruin your ability to do anything. Isn’t Facebook addictive enough, without it trying to grab even more of our attention by ruining our music with little ping sounds?

Insomniac's EDMbiz Music Conference To Return During Electric Daisy Carnival

Following a successful 2012 debut, Insomniac has announced that round two of the EDMbiz music conference will be held during Electric Daisy Carnival Week in Las Vegas, June 18-20 at The Cosmopolitan.  Attendance will be capped to keep the gathering more intimate.

The Magic 8: Essential Menu Options for Your Band Website

At Bandzoogle, one of the most important decisions we try and help our members make is what main menu options to have on their websites. Whether you’re building the new website for your band, or just doing a bit of cleaning up, the navigation has a significant impact on the experience your fans will have on your site.

 

Google's Chrome Browser Improving Music Listening On The Web

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Armed with little more than a web browser, you can listen to just about any song in the world, for free, one way or the other. A problem exists with using a browser as your music interface — and it’s a big one.

Vinyl News: Ambassador Jack White, Beat Delete Crowdfunds OP Vinyl, We Buy White Albums

No doubt some are still saying the resurgence of vinyl is a fad but it's deep in subculture territory at this point. Jack White is the 2013 Ambassador for Record Store Day and that is as it should be. Ninja Tune recently led the launch of Beat Delete to crowdfund out-of-press vinyl and Rutherford Chang is exhibiting and expanding his massive collection of copies of The Beatles' White Album. Plus, bonus linkage!

Landing Musician-For-Hire Gigs With Your Presskit

Are you a musician looking for gigs? You may be competing with many others for the same gig so you’ll need to make sure that you get picked. On Music Think Tank, Mike Harmon has tips on how you can set yourself apart from the competition and get more gigs. What tips do you have to add?

SoundTracking Adds Full-Length Tracks From Rdio, Spotify And YouTube

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

SoundTracking, Apple’s favorite music app of 2011, celebrates the moments of your life with music on iOS, and last fall, became a Spotify app.

Its vision expands again with Tuesday’s integration of full-length tracks that play within the app, from Rdio, Spotify, or YouTube. You can add these features in the latest update.

Pandora Caps Mobile Listening, Cites Rising Royalties

Pandora has added a 40 hour per month limit to free mobile listening. In a post on the company blog, Pandora founder Tim Westergren blamed high royalty rates for the cap, and said it would impact less than 4% of their total monthly active listeners. The average listener spends approximately 20 hours on Pandora across all devices each month, according to the company.

AM NEWS BRIEF: Spotify Rolls Out Social, BuzzMedia Lays Off 20%, UK Court Blocks Torrents & More

THURSDAY 2.28.2013

Music Business News & Views From Around The Web

Click Here

Updated Continuously Under Hypebot's More News Tab

Case Study: Putting More Of Yourself Into Your Music Marketing

Ryan Spearman is an accomplished folk musician based in St. Louis, MO. He's also a big advocate of sustainability and the green movement. He recently contacted me to share a success story.

"In an effort to blend more of my 'non-musical' self into my music career and at the same time create a 'story' for the media to latch onto (both ideas inspired by your podcast and books), I came up with the idea to make an album that was as local and as 'green' as possible," Ryan said.

Shazam Drives $300 Million A Year In iTunes, AmazonMP3 Sales

Dozens of startups are searching for the holy grail of music discovery leading to purchase and many thousands of artists and labels are hoping they'll find it. Other than perhaps YouTube, no one is currently doing it better than Shazam.

Top 10 Social Music Brands From Venture Harbour's Music Industry Social 100

Though Facebook fans and Twitter followers are not the final word in social media presence, comparing follower counts can sometimes lead to surprising findings. That's certainly the case with Venture Harbour's Music Industry Social 100, taken from an initial list of 500 brands, which contains some surprises including the top 2 record labels and the strong showing of music instrument and gear companies.

How To License A Cover Song For A Music Video

By Musician and Marketing Consultant Solveig Whittle (@shadesofsolveig).

Last year I recorded a cover of an old favorite song of mine called Menta e Rosmarino (I Won’t Be Lonely) by the Italian artist, Zucchero (AKA Sugar Fornaciari). He’s a famous singer, songwriter, and guitarist in Spain and Italy. He’s less well-known here in the United States, despite his many collaborations with American artists like Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, and Randy Jackson, among others.

Spotify Releases Major iOS App Upgrade, Amazon Brings Cloud Player To iPad

Spotify and Amazon both released major updates for their Apple product apps today.  Amazon added an Amazon Cloud Player app for iPad, now available in the Apple App Store. Users can play or download music stored in the Amazon Cloud Player, and manage or create playlists. Spotify's major app updated for iOS 5 devices includes:

SXSW Music Meets Tech Meetup Announced: March 12, 3:30 - 4:30 pm

As SXSW Interactive winds down and SXSW Music begins, there's a moment when the tech freaks and music geeks overlap. It's the Official SXSW Music Meets Tech Meetup including free drinks, a free-for-all meet-them-all, and, for the first time, a scavenger hunt to help you to meet everyone.

YouTube's Top Channels Mostly Feature Music

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Last week, I ran into Billboard senior branding correspondent Andrew Hampp at the Digital Media Wire Music awards dinner (I was on a panel there), who dropped some interesting news: Billboard was announcing that night that it had begun integrating YouTube into its charts, which instantly put the “Harlem Shake” song atop the charts.

Here's Why Global Music Revenue Rose For First Time Since 1999

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

According to the latest numbers from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), global music revenue rose 0.3 percent to $16.5 billion in 2013, reversing 12 straight years of declines (.pdf). Apparently, where music is concerned, 13 is a lucky number.

EDM News: SFX Buys Beatport, Avicii Releases Crowdsourced "X You", DJ Marketing Bible

The week's off to an interesting start in the Magical Kingdom of EDM. Empire builder SFX Entertainment is buying leading EDM marketing and download site Beatport while Avicii released his crowdsourced track "X You." In addition, new EDM biz blog EDM Hero recently featured the free DJ Marketing Bible from DJ Lounge.

SFX Entertainment Buys Beatport

Revenue Up, But Losses Widen At Live Nation

Despite a strong increase in Q4 revenue, Live Nation's losses for 2012 widened, impacted by a $68.2 million charge in the wake of former chairman Irving Azoff's departure in December. For the year, Live Nation posted a loss of $163.2 million, or 87 cents a share for 2012, vs. a loss of $83 million in 2011.

NEWS BRIEF: Senzari Rebrands As Wahwah, UMG Endorses Google Music, Sountracking, Variety & More

WEDNESDAY 2.27.2013

Music Business News & Views From Around The Web

Click Here

Updated Continuously Under Hypebot's More News Tab

Caught In Time: The Music Industry’s Struggle To Adapt

Guest post by Justin Stansbury (@twentyeyes138) for sidewinder.fm, a music and tech think tank.

Not too long ago, I was discussing with a friend of mine what we felt our purpose in life is. For some, their purpose may be to become a writer, a doctor, or a lawyer. But for me it’s music. Regardless of how tough and unstable that may be at times, it’ll never change. In the middle of our conversation, in the midst of voicing my frustrations and concerns regarding the future, my friend calmly repeated a phrase his father said to him during trying times, “We just have to adapt.”

Music Marketing Takeaways From Comscore's 2013 Mobile Future in Focus Report

Leading web and mobile analytics provider Comscore recently released a group of free reports as the "2013 Digital Future in Focus Series." Their mobile report includes some useful takeaways for musicians and music marketers. Yet it's important to remember that one should focus on the mobile activities of one's own audience or intended audience rather than assuming the aggregate applies to all.