Yes, we are already receiving some test data, I will call it, from some of the providers. They are sending us European and South American data. Whereas in the U.S. and Canada, we can do a more direct approach–we can go right after SoundScan and collect the data natively from the reporters–most of the other countries have relationships. So it (our business) will have to be more partnership-based outside working, maybe, with some of the people who provide data globally. 

Where did the initial funding for BuzzAngle Music come from? 

I initially started it, and I funded it for the first year. January of 2013 was the official incorporation of the company. It was a couple months before I made my first presentations to some folks in the industry just to see if they would like it. It seemed like they are going to like this thing. So I filed it (incorporation papers) in Jan. 2013. I hired my CTO, Stavros Aloizos (a SaaS pioneer, and an expert in information technology and Web 2.0 solutions), in March and my lead architect, and the three of us went around and just started listening to people. 

For about 5 months I didn’t write a stitch of code. Just did user interviews. We traveled around the country. We were talking to people about what they would like to see in a system. “What would you like to do that you can’t do (with Nielsen SoundScan)? What are the things that you have to call up for a special request?” We did that for 5 full months. I didn’t do a stitch of coding until June when we said, “Okay we are going to start building it.” Then in June (2013) we started building. So it was two years ago that we started. After about a year of development we went into a very limited beta (stage), and we have been expanding the data ever since, throughout the last year. 

Since global music sales peaked in 1999, they have continued falling. Is enough of a business still there for BuzzAngle Music? Or do you plan to work outside music? 

Well, what we have is just not going to be limited to music. Some of my friends (earlier) asked, “What are you going to do next?” Everybody is always interested in what my next thing is going to be. I told them “music” and sometimes I got these sideway looks like, “Really? Music? Isn’t that dying?” But I felt the opposite. I felt that music is everywhere. There’s not one form of entertainment more in your face. I used to tell people that I ride the subway when I’m in Manhattan, and everybody has earphones on. Plus, if you go to the beach, everywhere you go, people are listening to music. So the music business may be going through some tough times, but I don’t think that music has ever been more popular. 

The data being utilized by BuzzAngle Music originates from where? 

We are getting it all from the original source. We are getting it from the same source that Nielsen SoundScan is getting their data. We went right to the source. So we are getting it directly from Apple. We are getting it directly from each of the indie stores. We are getting it from the venues. We are getting it directly the same way. We had to go back out, and almost re-create what they (Nielsen SoundScan) had done originally. We went with our pitch, and we went around to everybody. We collect from the same places. 

If the data being tabulated is virtually the same, what primarily differentiates BuzzAngle Music from Nielsen SoundScan? 

We have an integrated system and there’s the timeliness (of reviewing data factor), and the ability to drill down. Nielsen SoundScan has these disparate systems. The Nielsen Christian SoundScan, Nielsen SoundScan International, and Nielsen SoundScan Canada. I thought that was crazy. So we built that all in. We have one system. If you want to find out what happened in the Christian retail market, you click a button, and you find out what happened. You don’t have to go to another system. You are in the same system, and now you can see it (data) combined if you like. You want to see what happened in Canada last week? Then you exit the U.S., and you click Canada, and now you are running a Canadian report. Just like that. 

Right. As I said music is everywhere now. In this day and age, I thought that if the music business is really going through—I don’t know if turnaround is the right word because just because it’s down it doesn’t mean it needs to turnaround–but if we are going to find the business models that work in the new environment we need better analytic tools. So I thought, “This is perfect for me. This is the perfect time because they will never figure out the right business model at SoundScan because they want to (only) analyze, “Is this working? Is that working?” So when you try to figure out how to use this information to make a better business, you need a better service. You need a better tool. You need better information. So I thought that it was perfect. I also felt that, yes, that this can easily be translated to movies, to books, to TV and beyond. We certainly are planning on doing that. 

When did you first become convinced that there were gaps in Nielsen SoundScan’s business model? Was it as a consumer seeking more information on songs available from Amazon or iTunes? 

It was actually more direct that that. I met the (then) president of Nielsen Entertainment, Eric Weinberg, at a wedding, and we started chatting. We chatted about potential opportunities in which we might partner together. I had an idea. I was coming off my most recent gig (as CEO) at AdSoft Direct. I went in there, and applied my skills to get it going again. We did that. Then I was looking for something else. Something larger to sink my teeth into. I bumped into a couple of people that worked at SoundScan. We tossed around some ideas to work together. I was going to build a consumer app. I thought that consumers could take the value of the data, and the quid pro quo would be that I would shore them up on the business side. The app certainly needed a lot of help. 

So I tried to get a deal where we would help each other. I would bring some of my background, but we didn’t get it done. Then Eric left, and Howard Appelbaum came in (as president of Nielsen Entertainment), and he didn’t have the same vision to work with me that Eric did, and we parted ways. I said to myself, “I have all of these great ideas in my head of what I could have done for that product.” So I went ahead, and I did it. 

Obviously, you did considerable research on Nielsen SoundScan’s methodology. Did you discover chinks in their armor? If so what were they? 

On a technological side first and foremost, I was extremely surprised that the system was still a weekly system. Not only just a weekly system, but the week ended on a Sunday, and everybody had that data on Wednesday. You went around the industry, and everybody was like, “Don’t bother me on Wednesday.” It’s SoundScan Wednesday kind of thing. I was like, “Okay, it’s three days past and you are only now getting the data?” 

Why not have 24/7 access in this day and age? 

Yeah. Why isn’t it faster than that? How can people really make a business decision waiting potentially 8 days from the previous Monday or Tuesday when something (a recording) was launched to really see what was going on. So that to me was the first chink, if you will. Then there were other things, including the inability to really drill down into the numbers. There was not a lot of transparency there. You couldn’t roll up the numbers in a number of ways, and have them all matched throughout the system. It didn’t feel like it was a cohesive system. As well, airplay was in BDS (Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems). Streaming (data) was limited but was in BDS. And the sales (data) was in SoundScan. So I was like, “Okay you’ve got two different systems (for radio airplay and music sales).” Then, in addition, as I said, there’s SoundScan Canada, Christian SoundScan, and SoundScan International. So I really looked at it, and said, “On the surface, this is kind of a mess.” 

You developed a filtering system that provides combinations for drilling deeper with the data being provided. With Nielsen SoundScan there seems to be an inability to really drill down, especially in regional markets, to get deep market consumption data. 

You can’t drill down regionally with all of the different consumption types. I saw a lot of things that could be done relatively easily in terms of my background. I have not just a tech background in bringing markets, and bringing services to industry markets, but also in the UI (user interface) side of things. I have always been a student of user interface. So it’s just not can you build a product that can do those things, but can you do it in such a way that people can use the system. Can they use it and understand it, and would it make a lot of sense the way that you laid it out? 

Like Nielsen SoundScan, BuzzAngle Music is working with partners and integrating data wherever possible. Many of these providers have been reluctant to share data over the years. 

The data reporters if you will, the retailers, and the service providers of music, are key. If we don’t have the data, we don’t have the service. We had to make sure that our service would provide value to them because you are not going to give me data if there’s no value. I think that for the first time that these providers are seeing value, and they are offering the data. There’s the attitude, “I am going to give you the data, but I’m going to get something out of it.” Before I didn’t see any value at all for the people giving the data. I couldn’t see any value coming back to an Apple or to a Spotify. Another thing was that on the music label, distributor, artist and manager side, the people who are using SoundScan, I didn’t think were getting as much value as they could. 

Today with all the new players in the music business there are so many parties now collecting data on music consumption, but unaware of how to fully use it. 

I think that partners I don’t even know about today will come onboard wanting to share their data because they will get more value out of using the system in their own performance benchmarking, and things like that. We are clearly going to provide value there for them realizing the importance on the data side. 

Any other chinks you discovered about Nielsen SoundScan? 

There were numerous ch
inks on the technology side. Like I said, with timing, and the depth of the data. A lot of times things didn’t even add up to 100%. You would look at one part (of data), and that didn’t even add up to the number over here. So there were a number of things on the technological side. But there were things on the service side as well. They acted like a monopoly, right? The timeliness of getting back to the customers. Responses about things. The inability to price it (the service) at a point that was attractive. So there were a number of things. 

Forget about the technology for a second. I felt that they had become kind of complacent. I thought that their position (to their clients) was, “Hey, we’re SoundScan, and you will deal with it (the service), the way we give it to you.” 

An intriguing selling point of BuzzAngle Music is that users control the tracking periods, the region, the consumption type, and the genre being reviewed. You offer so much control to the user. 

I refer to it a lot of times as a tool and, sometimes if I am talking with someone that is unfamiliar with IT technology—I will say, “I’m not building the house for you. I’m giving you the hammer, and the nails, and you can build the house.” 

So the client creates the reports that they want. 

We have easily accessible reports. Here’s the top albums last week. We do that for users, but I really try to let people know that we store the data in such a way that they can build it anyway they want. So if they want to know what were the top thousand vinyl deluxe version (albums) released in the last three months for a sub-set of the rock genre on Wednesday in Philadelphia, they can do that in 60 seconds. They can click, click and there’s their report. 

And It’s just not one static general report. 

It’s just not one report. It’s not, “Okay, we will give you the top 200 reports from last week.” Well, it’s stale by the time you get it. We don’t want to sell these static reports. We want to sell people access to the system so they can create the reports, and get the fresh data that they really want in order for them to make their decisions. 

What led you to decide to provide deeper data across the board? 

I had heard a lot of people talk about that if it wasn’t in (standard) SoundScan, and they had to make a customer request, they would have to pay $1,000 or $1,500, wait a week, and they’d get their request. That’s crazy. It just didn’t ring true to me. A large customer shouldn't have to wait a week and spend over $1,000 dollars to get a “custom” report that should have been in the primary platform. 

Who can most make use of BuzzAngle Music? 

The traditional buyers of this kind of service. Distributors, including the small distributors, and all sizes of labels. It will appeal to smaller labels more because we have more of an attractive price point. Some people who can’t afford to use SoundScan will find our service more attractively-priced, and they will get all of the benefits of a more timely service. But then there’s people on the touring side. The whole spectrum of tour promoters, venue operators, and bookers. People on the radio side. Anyone who is a radio programmer at a radio station or who is in radio promotions within one of the music companies will get a lot more value out of it because now they can get down to that market level, and see what’s happening in streams, sales and airplay all in one place. Now they can see how the levers are working for particular songs. For the first time they can see things like that. For the radio industry, those in the touring industry, and heads of sales and marketing, it is really appealing to those segments. We are already seeing a lot of traction in those segments. 

What are the price points for the service? 

We are using a typical SaaS, the software as a service model (a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted). So we are going on per seat (per user) per month basis, and depending on the size of the organization, we will determine how many seats that they will need 

What is the price range? 

It ranges from $150 to $200 a month per seat. We can get it down as low as $2,000 a year. We are probably in the $1,800 to $2,400 range. We want to get it to be a cell phone-sized bill per month, where somebody would say, “It’s almost like having another cell phone. I need this.” We want to become the Bloomberg Business terminal, if you will, of the music industry where everybody will need access to BuzzAngle Music. So we need to price it attractively. Then it will be just the number of seats. If you are a small label and you just need one or two IDs, a minimum size label with 4 or 5. Then when you are the larger distributors you will be 100 of seats. 

BuzzAngle Music would open an information door for secondary players in the music industry. Right now, if they want to attain SoundScan stats, they have to beg friends with access. 

That’s right. We want to avoid that because it’s hard on both sides. I’m not looking at it as someone stealing my service, I am looking that not only does the person who wants it (the data) want it more timely than they are going to get it, and the other person who is giving it, that their time is not—I wouldn’t say wasted—but they have to take some time to get the information for somebody else, and that’s kind of a waste of productivity in the industry. So we’ve seen that, and we decided that we’d make it attractive enough so they will get much deeper data. 

Launched in in 2008, Record Store Day has gone on to become a major event in music retail. Certainly, it has had an impact on the industry’s awareness of BuzzAngle Music. You used Record Store Day in 2014, and this year to highlight BuzzAngle Music’s differences with Nielsen SoundScan. 

Yes. It was an opportunity because it was a day. You want to find out what happened on that Saturday on Record Store Day? The SoundScan system is a weekly system, and they would report the week of Record Store Day. That Monday to Sunday week with that Saturday fell in with 80% showing more than the previous week. That’s not as precise as saying that Record Store Day did 2,000%
more than the previous Record Store Day. 

That goes to any individual event. 

Record Day (2014) was the first time we were able to say, “You really should be looking at things on a daily basis because that’s how events happen.” We showed what happened with a Super Bowl performance around Super Bowl Sunday. What was the impact for Kate Perry and Bruno Mars (appearing on the Super Bowl Halftime Show) on Super Bowl Day itself? With their performance what happened when AC/DC played Coachella? Here’s what happened that day and the day before and the days after. Anybody who does a tour, and plays a city, that’s one day. That’s not a week. That’s a day. If someone appears on any one of the late night shows, it’s a day. You want to find out what happened on the day. If you run a Twitter/Facebook campaign, you run it on a day, and you want to see what happened. So yes, I am glad that you picked that up. It was the first time that we could say, “Hey, there’s value in the daily data.” A lot of value. 

In the film and TV industries, overnight data is available. It’s mind-boggling in the music industry that it hasn’t been available.