Posted inNews

Music analytics in 2018: ‘Data will tell you what’s hot, but not what is good’

Tied to the publication of the new report from British industry bodies ERA and BPI (Magic Numbers: How Can Data & Analytics Really Help The Music Industry?) and written by Music Ally, an afternoon of presentations and panel discussion on the current state of music analytics / data and their future was held at the BPI’s office in London yesterday (9 July).

Lucy Blair, from the artist and label marketing team at Spotify UK, opened with a presentation on what the streaming service is doing in terms of data access to artists, labels and managers as well as where it is evolving next.

“There were more than 100 updates in a few months last year,” she revealed of the data tools Spotify opens to registered partners. Blair worked through the range of data sets open up to the music industry, giving tips on how best to read them and indicating what are the most accurate metrics of success and engagement.

Posted inNews

Blockpool / OpSec blockchain deal could power merch and ticket sales

British blockchain startup Blockpool is best known to Music Ally readers for its recent partnership with Björk and One Little Indian, to reward fans who pre-ordered her new album by giving them cryptocurrency.

Now it has announced a partnership with a company called OpSec, which could also have implications for music. It needs a bit of unpicking.

“The relationship seeks to establish an integrated offer combining ‘chain-of-custody’ with advanced digital product authentication solutions for global brand protection,” is how OpSec put it in a press release. Blockpool’s Minesh Patel broke that down for Music Ally.

Posted inNews

Salute Music Makers contest gives cryptocurrency to entrants

Salute Music Makers is the latest attempt to adapt the idea of a musical talent contest to the digital world. Announced in March, it has attracted more than 2,000 entrants so far, with six chosen as finalists this past weekend.

Now Salute is announcing a very-topical additional element to its contest: plans to distribute free cryptocurrency to everyone who entered the competition.

Posted inNews

Q&A: Blockpool’s Kevin Bacon talks Björk, blockchain and cryptocurrency

Earlier today, Björk announced more details about her upcoming album ‘Utopia’, including plans to reward fans who pre-order the album with free AudioCoins cryptocurrency, through a partnership with British blockchain startup Blockpool.

The company’s CEO Kevin Bacon has been talking about the project in an interview published this morning. We used selected quotes from it in our story this morning, but the full Q&A is below.

Posted inNews

Björk hits the blockchain with cryptocurrency fan rewards

Fans will be able to buy Björk’s new album ‘Utopia’ using cryptocurrencies, and pre-ordering it directly from the star or her label will earn them crypto rewards too.

The musician has teamed up with British blockchain startup Blockpool, which is working with label One Little Indian on the online store to process ‘Utopia’ pre-orders using credit/debit cards and PayPal, but also the Bitcoin, Audiocoin, Litecoin and Dashcoin cryptocurrencies.

However they choose to pay, each fan will receive 100 Audiocoins – worth just under $0.20 at the time of writing – as a reward for pre-ordering the album, deposited into an e-wallet created for them by Blockpool.

Posted inNews

Blockchain music service Aurovine has new features

British blockchain startup BlockPool is the company behind music-discovery service Aurovine, which has ben going since 2012.

It was one of the first digital music services to tap into blockchain technology, and now it’s launching a new way to reward fans for their actions on the platform, working with rock band Superfecta.

The new feature is called ‘Listen, Rate, Share’, and involves rewarding fans with the cryptocurrency AudioCoins when they rate and share an artist’s work – with the same cryptocurrency used to pay artists when their music is listened to on Aurovine.