There have been rumours upon rumours that facebook was going to launch something for musicians soon, and that they were also readying a new advertising system. Today it turned out that not only were they doing both, but both are part of the same strategy.

Announced by Leah Perlman on the Facebook blog, facebook’s new ads system breaks down into two parts:

• “Brands” can now create Facebook Pages, which combine some of the functionality of a personal profile with that of a group. For “brand” you can also read company, artist, campaign, or nearly anything else that might want to advertise.
• “Social Ads” allow Facebook to target ads at people based on their friends’ activities. So if I were to make a certain purchase, mark myself a fan of a band, or rent a given DVD, and facebook knows about it, facebook could tell my friends about that and sell them a related product.

David Emery was quick to write up some thoughts on how this development could impact and help bands. While the immediate option to create a clear presence for something people might be “passionate about” is clearly significant, he’s absolutely right that it’s the “Social Ads” that have the potential to truly change the social advertising game as they leverage data more completely than has been done before. The intrusive possibility of them is potentially quite scary and as clear leaders in the field, we can only hope that facebook are making privacy central to this new approach.

Every band and every campaign really ought to be headed over right now to set up their Facebook Page and ensure they get their preferred name. However functional this turns out to be, it’s highly likely that it’ll be worth the effort. It’s not yet clear how the Social Ads side will work, or what it will cost, but it’s also probably a good idea to start thinking about how you might use it. What might your fans/supporters do that it would be good to tell their friends about? What might make your events or other activities compelling as a social activity? They’re not new questions, but this announcement ought to bring them into new focus.

Recommend this post:

I usually try not to post twice in a day, particularly not on the same topic (there is more techie content coming soon, honest) but this has the potential to be big news: the Danish branch of the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers “has seriously proposed allowing unrestricted downloads of music over peer-to-peer networks, in exchange for a modest monthly fee to be charged to all ISP users.”

Andy Oram notes:

This is a significant crack in the armor of the industry copyright zealots, and it’s strange that I can’t find an English-language announcement anywhere. My contacts say that the suggested monthly fee is 100 kroner, or approximately 16 Euros.

16 Euros is a little more than I pay for my emusic subscription, but this would be for a lot more music than the 65 downloads that buys me, and presumably the proposal is for all recorded music currently available through any major label, not just the selection emusic gets access to.

I remain sceptical that this will fly with ISPs, who the proposal suggest should pay the fee on behalf of their customers. 16 Euros is quite a hefty addition to the average internet connection charge.

I’d also quibble with Andy’s assertion that “the Danish IFPI represents the content producers themselves”: the IFPI represents “the recording industry worldwide” which isn’t quite the same thing as the content producers. If we use ‘production’ in the sense of ‘management of budgets, logistics, etc’ then perhaps the IFPI represents them, but there’s a significant difference between representing “the recording industry” and representing those whose creative work is being recorded (or is recording, for that matter.

Quibbles aside, this is a fascinating development.

Recommend this post:

There are many good reasons to make sure that your web presence follows the advertising maxim “if you’re not everywhere, you’re nowhere.” For one thing, it makes it very hard for people to miss you, but increasingly it also means that as web sites become more and more interconnected, your profile will rise still higher.

The latest example of interconnectedness comes as last.fm announce they’re going to be hooking in youtube videos alongside their own video service. So all those musicians who have videos over at youtube will now have them represented at last.fm too, making their profiles all the richer and more compelling.

As Jonatha Brooke has commented on her discussion boards (via Steve) there are good reasons for performers to be wary of their fans bootlegging their performances as it changes the nature of the performance when you know there will be a permanent record. But it’s something independent musicians would do well to work out a strategy for, whether that’s the traditional “just the first three songs” directive usually given to photographers, or something new. Getting your content out there is highly likely to bring returns you haven’t anticipated, and a fanbase or supporter base can make that process much easier.

And it doesn’t just apply for musicians. All organisations—but particularly those such as publishers, event organisers, or non-profits rooted in strong social contracts—would do well to work out how they can free up their content so their supporter base can take it and spread it. There’s a loss of control and you never know quite where it’ll end up, but you can either be proactive about it and retain some modicum of involvement with the process thanks to your fans’ respect for you, or just let it happen without you and lose control entirely.

Recommend this post:

The rumours of MySpace launching a platform or API have been floating for quite some time, but now as reported on the O’Reilly Radar they have been confirmed.

Over the next two months they are going to increase third-party access to their site. First, they are going to highlight the thousands of widgets that have been on their site for years now. This should be released in the next couple of weeks. I am assuming that it will go beyond the FIM’s Spring Widget Gallery. Second, they are going to offer an API for applications to all developers. However, these applications are going to be sandboxed initially and 1-2 million users will have access to them. If the users deem the applications safe and useful they’ll be available to all users. Developers will be able to advertise in their applications.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the MySpace platform and API are truly a step towards openness or whether it’ll be another walled garden a la facebook. Facebook’s platform is phenomenally successful, but doesn’t really open up their core data (status, events, etc.) for developers to interact with. Given their track record it’s unlikely that MySpace are really going to launch something more open that that.

For developers, and for the musicians whose presence is MySpace’s key calling card, this is a tiny step but not one that makes easier the services that we really need. Musicians still need to update their information across dozens of walled gardens rather than having easy tools to use. Developers still need to scrape and hack if they want to provide a way to access core parts of users’ profile, and unless MySpace address the many, many technical problems on their site (unreliability, apparently random use of captchas, awful HTML) that’s going to remain a huge hassle.

Of course, the key question will be whether this announcement will help MySpace retain their pre-eminent position. The crown has slipped over the last few months, with facebook’s popularity rocketing and people deleting MySpace contacts and accounts in order to focus on just one social network. I suspect MySpace will never get their crown back. If they do, it’ll have to be because they’ve radically changed the social networking game.

Recommend this post:

Guy Holmes seems to have a weird take on selling records. In a piece at the Guardian about his label Gut’s experiment with releasing a single on a hybrid vinyl/CD disc he comments:

The music business desperately, desperately needs to invent new formats; the CD is an antique, it’s 20 years old.

With little context available it’s hard to tell why, exactly, he thinks the industry needs a new format, but my guess is he’s been looking at the figures for the bubble the music industry experienced while consumers switched from cassette and LP to CD and wants to experience them again.

There are several problems with that approach. One is that now most of us have the means to rip our CDs into digital form it’s going to be much harder to re-sell us the same content. I might have replaced an LP with a CD because I didn’t have a record player any more, but not only do I still have several CD players, it’s easy for me to prepare for the future by ripping those CDs to use on a wide range of devices.

But that also leads us to the fact that the industry already has several new formats and only one of them is working. There’s DVD audio, there are HD CDs, there are SACDs and there are dozens of digital-only formats. And most consumers are only interested in the digital formats. For the vast majority of us (ie. everyone but serious audiophiles) CDs are good enough, and of the new options only the digital ones offer us a better experience.

Rather than casting around for gimmicks, labels would do well to look at why vinyl sales are rising in some quarters and why the new CD-like formats are failing. With their large canvas for artwork, LPs still offer a tactile experience that CDs can’t duplicate, as well as connecting us with a nostalgic experience and a wealth of cheap back catalogue items. DRM-free digital formats give us a way to play our music on a wide range of devices, to store, back-up and even repurpose the music, but lack a tactile experience.

Radiohead’s digital+discbox approach recognises that those options can be complimentary and provides something extra for their fans (their track record of high quality artwork doesn’t hurt). Beck’s “make your own sleeve” approach with The Information also tapped into a little of that. Understanding what’s going on may yield a sustainable model, self-acknowledged gimmicks won’t.

Recommend this post: