Music Ally’s latest offshoot is Sandbox.fm, which focuses on digital music marketing – with a fortnightly report and blog. Every day, we’ll be rounding up the latest stories from the latter of those.
Today, Sandbox reports on a new iPhone app called Tweeb, which provides people with analytics and follower management for their Twitter account, on the go. There’s also news of livestreaming firm Ustream’s new Ustream Producer app, which helps artists produce better interactive webcasts.
Meanwhile, trance DJ/producer Markus Schulz has released a new iPhone app that, rather than simply promote himself, actually offers 15 of his favourite tracks to listen to. Universal Music Group is also going mobile, but with mobile websites rather than apps, via a deal signed with mobile technology firm Netbiscuits.
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.
Snoop Dogg and Alicia Keys are the latest artists to use livestreaming services to promote their new albums. Cameras will be following Snoop today for the release of his Malice N Wonderland album, and streaming the footage of his events and interviews live on Ustream.
Meanwhile, Alicia Keys is streaming her new album The Element of Freedom on her Facebook fan page in advance of its release on 15 December. She’s not using Ustream, but instead a new Facebook app called Involver, which aims to help brands connect with fans through social media.
As we’ve written before, the key difference with webcasts of the past are the social features that tie into these promotions. Fans can chat about what they’re watching in real-time, often feeding their views back to Twitter and Facebook, for a viral effect.
Gig webcasts have a chequered history, to say the least. Squinting at a grainy postage-stamp sized video window trying to make out Madonna, in between swearing at buffering delays wasn’t many fans’ ideas of fun.
However, with technology having improved rapidly, there’s a new buzz around webcasts at the moment, thanks to the efforts of livestreaming companies like Ustream. Even YouTube is getting into the game with some high-profile gigcasts.
Ustream has been particularly busy, integrating its platform with Facebook to allow artists to both broadcast live and interact with their fans. Shakira debuted the video for her new music video Give It Up To Me using Ustream, and attracted 95,000 unique viewers during its initial ten-minute broadcast, and half a million more in the 24 hours after.
50 Cent is the latest artist to sign up with online webcasting firm Ustream, albeit for a premiere of his new movie Before I Self Destruct, rather than a live gig.
However, Fiddy also answered questions live from fans as part of the webcast, which took place late last week. The numbers are in – more than 255,000 fans tuned in for the event, which is some way behind U2’s 10 million gig viewers, but ahead of the 150,000 people who watched Foo Fighters’ recent gigcast.
As Mashable points out, “a combination of bandwidth proliferation and integration with social sites seems to be pushing live video to a tipping point”. It’s the social features that are so powerful for the new breed of webcasts – fans aren’t just squinting at grainy video on their screen alone any more – they can chat to friends and other fans about (hopefully) how un-grainy it is.
Disney trio The Jonas Brothers are the first on board for a new partnership between live video firm Ustream and Facebook.
The deal involves letting bands and brands add streaming video to their Facebook profiles, with labels able to customise various banners and buttons to advertise whatever they want. However, you have to apply to Ustream if you want to use the new service, and the company will choose who it wants to work with.
Ustream has been doing more with music artists recently: it’s interesting to see the company competing with Kyte, which previously had this kind of live video band-fan interaction all to itself. Hopefully the competition will spur more innovation – Kyte launched its iPhone Mobile Producer app this week.
Live streaming startup Ustream powered a webcast last week for Disney pop trio The Jonas Brothers. Now the company has revealed that 974,000 people watched the webcast at some point.
What’s more, it integrated with viewers’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to help promote the event – they made 1.5 million Facebook posts and 40,000 tweets during the webcast.
The Jonas Brothers (or rather the people who run their digital affairs) have been pretty forward thinking when it comes to online video. Last June, they worked with online video firm Kyte, posting regular footage of their on-tour exploits to their Bebo profile.
At the time of writing (8.41pm GMT), the Super Furry Animals are launching their new album Dark Days / Light Years via a live webcast on Ustream TV (we’ve embedded it above – not sure what happens when it’s finished).
Although grainy, it’s been working well for us – apparently more than 2,100 people are watching it at the same time, and it’s also watchable via the Ustream iPhone app. We’ve only been able to connect from a PC so far though.
Meanwhile, the album itself goes on sale tonight as digital downloads only from the band’s website for £8, although fans can pay £12 for a CD+MP3 bundle, so they’ll get the CD version when it comes out next month. The online ordering process was powered by Sandbag.
Music Ally’s latest offshoot is Sandbox.fm, which focuses on digital music marketing – with a fortnightly report and blog. Every day, we’ll be rounding up the latest stories from the latter of those.
