Music Ally

Ralph Watson isn’t just Music Ally’s go-to guy for everything technical. He’s also a musician in his own right, who’s getting his hands mucky with all the DIY technologies we talk about on the blog and in the report. Having just revamped his website and launched an iPhone app, we got him to tell us in his own words about what he’s doing.

“I was doing music around 2004, and managed to amass a very small but loyal following, mainly in America. This was through forums and emailing MP3s, stuff like that. I was known as Geist then and released a couple of singles. I’m now coming back under my real name, and have been dripfeeding my new song out, ‘Londinium’. I posted it on one forum that I used to frequent all those years ago and the response has been amazing, so it’s started from there.

There’s a video for my first song done by a guy I met, Richard Peretti, who’s a short film-maker. He did it in his bedroom on a PC running Premiere and After Effects; he knows the programs inside out, so people who see it think it’s worth fifty grand. There’s a bloody big robot at the end! A process indicative of how I’ve approached everything.

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MySpace has confirmed a deal to buy social music service iLike – all those rumours earlier in the week were correct, it seems. No price has yet been announced, although the figure of $20 million has been floating about in the last few days.

iLike’s executive team will remain in place, including CEO Ali Partovi, president Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown. The official announcement suggests that “iLike users and the artist community should expect the iLike experience to be unaffected by the acquisition”. It’ll be interesting to see what Facebook makes of that, given the popularity of iLike’s Facebook app.

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta has blogged about the deal already, saying that “One of the great things about MySpace is that its openness enables discovery – we’re going to take that strategy one step forward by also allowing users to experience content on the distributed Web.”

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Is MySpace buying music service iLike? There’s been no official announcement, just seemingly well-sourced reports on TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal, along with a follow-up on All Things Digital saying the deal has been delayed by tax issues.

Assuming this is all true and the deal goes ahead, much attention will focus on whether it’s a comedown for iLike, which was once valued far higher, around the $50 million mark. It’s also already fuelling the debate on whether online music companies deliver a poor return on investment.

However, we think it’s as important to focus on the implications this deal will have for MySpace, as well as what it means for iLike as it currently stands.

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MySpace is on the verge of acquiring social music service iLike, according to reports on TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal.

The price is apparently $20 million, which would be significantly less than the $53.2 million iLike was valued at in 2006, when Ticketmaster invested in the company. If the deal goes through, it’s intriguing for several reasons.

First, iLike’s big growth came from its hugely popular app on Facebook, not MySpace. Second, it’s just launched its own music download store. And third, iLike is currently big on iPhone apps, launching its own as well as more than 250 artist-focused apps.

What any acquisition by MySpace will mean for these areas remains to be seen. More as the story develops.

Back in May, music service iLike announced plans for a new B2B service that would create and launch iPhone applications for artists. More than 250 of them have gone live on the App Store in the last few days.

Artists taking advantage of iLike’s service include Jeff Buckley, Jimmy Cliff, Marillion, Plain White Ts, Sebastian Bach, Sonic Youth, The Cribs and a host of lesser known acts. The apps range from free to around £1.19, and include videos, photos, blog posts and integration with Twitter.

You can get the full list on the App Store by clicking here. The sheer number of artists who’ve signed up with iLike is impressive, and almost certainly due to the company only charging a flat fee of $99 to make each app. That’s cheaper than rival platforms like Kyte, which has so far focused on working with major labels.

There’s an additional benefit for iLike, though. Artists keep their iPhone apps updated by posting new content to their profiles on the iLike site – so the apps are effectively ensuring artists don’t ditch iLike for their presences on other social networks like Facebook.

If so, give yourself a pat on the back. Or whatever the nu-metal alternative is.

The band has announced that it’s the first band to sign up four million fans on music service iLike – which the band describe as “the largest number of fans that have gathered together in support of one artist on a single social platform”.

We were about to poo-poo that, but it turns out even Tila Tequila only has 3.5 million friends on MySpace. Meanwhile, Linkin Park’s iLike widget has passed the 100 million views mark too. Congratulations, chaps! Now cheer up a bit for your next album…

One of the things we’re tracking at Music Ally is how artists and labels are using mobile and online to promote music. And since we’re tracking it on an ongoing basis, we thought it was worth rounding up some of the notable campaigns for last month.

Not all are straight digital marketing campaigns – some are more distribution deals – but we think they give a snapshot of what companies are up to. See what you think.

1. AC/DC Excel video (above). Sony BMG turned the new video from the Aussie rockers into an ASCII-art video, embedded into an Excel spreadsheet. The idea: fans would be able to email it round workplaces without fear of getting carpeted by bosses. Watch It

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It may be the most successful Facebook music application ever, with more than 12.7 million installs, but until now iLike has only offered 30-second samples of tracks to its users. That’s changing though: the company has signed a deal with Rhapsody to offer full song streams, with users able to listen to up to 25 of them per month, before being directed to subscribe to Rhapsody. (more…)