Without further ado…

1. LAST.FM

Going in, I was already a big fan of last.fm, and that’s because I scrobble. No, it’s not as filthy as it sounds. To scrobble means that you let the last.fm service track the music you play on your computer or portable device, linking you to others who do the same, with comparisons of your tastes and suggested artists to check out. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

There are even (unofficial) ways to scrobble data to last.fm from other services like Slacker and Pandora, should you care to. Well-played, last.fm. Well-played.

While revealing of your true self in the same way a Facebook drunk picture can be (Do I really listen to Corey Hart that much? you’ll ask yourself), it’s the scrobbles that give last.fm its power. No other site can match last.fm’s ability to unite fans of the most obscure possible acts from all over the globe. It’s a treasure trove of the underground, the underrated, the undiscovered and the antiquated.

I’ve been a last.fm user for almost three years, in which time I’ve scrobbled about 50,000 tracks from about 2,000 different artists, many discovered through the site itself. But I never touched their subscription radio feature even once, until so recently. I suppose the prospect of making a decision based on thirty entire tracks just wasn’t worth the bother. Thirty tracks on last.fm represents a couple hours of listening, at best. Costco booths give you bigger free samples than that!

But for purposes of this article, I listened. And I was exposed to roughly thirty awesome artists I’d never heard of before. Impressive, but not surprising considering what I know of last.fm Unlike the ‘listen to related artists’ features of other sites — dictated from the top down, by genre marketeers — last.fm’s choices of related artists are generated by the scrobbles of other users. And other users aren’t DJs. They don’t care about flow. They can be eccentric and eclectic. And they can surprise you in the best way.

And… now I’m out of tracks. Luckily, last.fm’s subscription service is very cheap (as advertised, it’s only $3.00 a month). Of all the pay services listed here, last.fm’s is the one I’m most likely to embrace. Call it brand loyalty, but the price is right, the interface is a breeze, and the musical selection is so far off the scale that they’ll have to start measuring in parsecs.

A related note: Where clunky old Myspace claims to be the arbiter of undiscovered basement bands and quirky DIY auteurs, last.fm actually provides, and then some. Take note, unsigned musicians — if you’re not on Last.fm, you’re nowhere. Perhaps literally. Get your tracks up there and join the party.

• BEST FEATURE: Every band you can think of. And more. Much more.
• WORST FEATURE: If you don’t at least have an open mind about listening to dudes playing theremins in their basements, you may as well not bother.
• IDEAL FOR: People so indie that their favourite bands only play clubs in New Crobuzon.

2. GROOVESHARK

I’m new to Grooveshark and have yet to plumb its depths, but let me tell you — this thing packs a punch. Once you get past an initially off-putting interface — it’s iTunes, but yellow — you’ll find yourself in a deep delicious ocean of sound.

One thing I like about Grooveshark? Make that a few things: No signups or registrations to deal with. No limited number of track skips. No mid-song buffering. Freedom of interaction is a big positive: You can skip tracks forward and back, scan back and forth in a song if you want to hear a certain refrain again (just as you could on your own mp3 player) and treat the place like a big musical sandbox.

I’m not sure what Grooveshark’s subscription-based VIP service entails. How can you get better than Grooveshark’s free service? At this rate, I’m figuring it involves swimming in a pool of Cristal and then a trip to the mile-high club aboard a private space shuttle made of diamonds.

To save favourites, save tracklists and access the custom radio stations, you’ll have to register. This is entirely optional, and you can get to the music without it. Playlist creation is a little finicky at first — it’s easy to delete or scramble a listing by accident — but it’s also very powerful, with the ability, much like iTunes, to select multiple tracks in the conventional way, with a shift-click. I didn’t expect such a high level of interaction and navigability from a Flash interface, and I must say I’m impressed.

Grooveshark is a new discovery for me, but I anticipate going back to it very soon. Actually, I’m already there. And how sweet it is.

• BEST FEATURE: Depth, selection, interactivity, speed, etc.
• WORST FEATURE: Design cribs from iTunes, and iTunes isn’t that great to begin with.
• IDEAL FOR: People with functioning ears.

3. SLACKER RADIO

Oookay. Slacker. Slacker doesn’t let you navigate inside of a song. It gives you a limited number of song skips. It requires registration that expires after thirty days, and there are loud and obnoxious pre-recorded DJs in between songs. It requires you to disable any script-blocking software just so their interface will work and the songs will load.

Yeah.

Okay, for the two of you still reading this section… I hope you like Top 40. Because that’s what you’re gonna get.

Seriously. Unlike the other services mentioned in this article, Slacker is heavily biased towards the mainstream. If you let Slacker do the work for you in constructing a playlist, it’ll load you up with all kinds of major-label crap that you’ve heard hundreds of times before on the radio, and probably didn’t enjoy much then, either. Their ‘related artists’ system is a bit of a joke in this regard. In Slacker’s nightmarish, dystopian world, all roads lead to Godsmack. Even roads that started at ambient electronic. Internet research tells me that Slacker is owned and programmed by former satellite radio operators. In terms of musical selection, this may be its chief problem. They should rename themselves ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Clear Channel’.

There is an upside. Potentially a fantastic upside. If you have the time and patience to program your own playlists (a bit of a daunting affair, full of micromanagement) you may end up building a real work of art — a playlist crafted by both human and algorithmic hands to feed you new and awesome music every track. Your range of options in this regard is actually quite powerful and easy to administrate, with the ability to choose or ban songs, artists or genres at will.

But Slacker — paradoxically, considering its name — assumes you have the patience and willpower to do this. Not everyone will. Slacker advertises having over 2 million songs at their disposal, but if they’re just going to heap steaming piles of Nickelback upon you anyway, what’s the point?

Slacker’s subscription service apparently features ABC News bites and unlimited song skip ability. Well, sound the vuvuzelas, it’s party time. Or not. In the end, Slacker is for less discerning, more mainstream listeners, and it serves them very well. But I’m not one of them. And those pre-recorded DJs can suck a donkey.

• BEST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• WORST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• IDEAL FOR: People whose radios have just broken and it’s too late at night to hit up Wal-Mart in their H2s while chugging Smirnoff Ice.

4. PANDORA

Most Internet music goons will tell you that Pandora is the greatest overall choice for a personalized ‘Net radio stream with depth and breadth. I hear raves from friends, from blogs, from a lot of corners. Yet I’m unable to decide for myself, because of the blurb that glares at me with cold legal contempt every time I visit the site:

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. “

• BEST FEATURE: They are deeply, deeply sorry. And sad.
• WORST FEATURE: Due to licensing constraints, they can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
• IDEAL FOR: Presumably, people inside of the U.S. But I can’t be sure.

Well, that’s a fine to-hell-with-you. But, ‘no alternatives’? I don’t think so. For instance, I think I hear Grooveshark singing to me in soft, ethereal tones. Time to go listen closer.

Hits and visits and views? Oh my…Start talking about web traffic and people’s eye glaze over.  Everyone knows traffic is important, but why exactly? And who wants to do the nerdy work of understanding it?

“It’s all a numbers game,” says Lisa Mac, Social Media Strategist for BandMark. “The more visitors you have, the more fans you will get, the more concert and merch revenue per visitor.  It really is that simple.”

So…(drumroll, please) BandMark is proud to share our handy guide to web traffic – the words and the whys.

Analytics

Web analytics is studying all numbers related to your site –  where people are coming from, which pages they are viewing, how long they are staying.  Google Analytics provides a full set of online tools, simply by paste their code into your web pages and watch the traffic go by.

Bounce Rate

This is what percent of people just… leave.  They look at one page but don’t explore any more.   Maybe the page takes too long to load, or the site is confusing (or ugly). If your bounce rate is greater than 60%, you should take a good look at optimizing your site.

Hits

When someone visits your web page, each different element (audio, video, graphic) gets requested from your web site.  Each of these downloads is considered a hit.  Since one page can have many pieces, your number of hits can be much higher than actual views or visitors.

Page views

One of the most important measurements is page views.  Each time a page loads, it generates many hits but just one page view.  Sites such as Alexa rank hot pages based on pages views. Check your page views to see which parts of your site are popular, and which are getting overlooked.

Referrals

How do people find your site? Check your referrals to see where your visitors are coming from. Are your facebook friends showing you love, or is it a music blogger sending people your way? Pay attention to where people *aren’t* coming from – for example, a low number of referrals from Twitter could be an incentive to tweet more!

Unique visitors

This is not quite as “unique” as it sounds.  Users surfing the web from the same home network, library or school may be grouped together as a single unique visitor.  Still, this number gives you a sense of how many different people are visiting your site  - and which countries they are surfing from.  You can also see popular times, important for contests and promotions!

Visits

A visit is generally considered up 30 minutes spent exploring your site.  One unique visitor can have many visits – and that is a great compliment: your site was so cool and so interesting that they came back for more! “Repeat visitors are known as ’sticky’ traffic,” says Lisa Mac. “These are your real fans.  They are the people interested in seeing what’s new.”

*****

Feeling smarter? Paying attention to your traffic is a great way to learn where people come from, what they look at,  and how often they return.  Understand your traffic to tweak your site design, so people want to connect and return.  Pay attention to your referrals to learn how to promote your site.  Make the most of your web investment by understanding traffic!

10 BandMark  Music Industry predictions for 2010:

``I see... me and David Bowie having sushi! but more importantly...``

1. Venture capitalists and big named brands will further finance musicians

As record labels merge and swallow up partners, (Warner+EMI? Like when Polygram merged with Universal in the 80`s) marketing budgets will be slashed once again so the once 100k budget which got cut int0 50k last year, will likely be cut again to 25k. This wont be as tragic as it seems because big named brands and the film industry will gladly spot these artists with some nice budgets for appearances and brand vanity and  smaller artists will opt for their own investors. This will force bands to be doing a lot of hands on marketing to stand out in what has become a huge sea of new music and very tough competition.

2. Fan clubs and street teams will come together as direct-to-fan platforms evolve

As a music fan, you can sign up to newsletters, fan-clubs, VIP offers, the record label store, Street teams, mobile alerts and the list goes on. Well with more and more artists selling directly to their fans, it is inevitable that a solution emerges that handles everything. Fan logs into the ultimate Direct-to-Fan club and specifies purchasing habits, street team activities, news alert delivery options etc… and everything after than is one cleverly marketed click away where fans interacts with band offerings, demand new versions and get rewarded with prime goodies like shout outs on stage for sharing content. I see the monthly and yearly subscription fee model popularize itself in these clubs as well as in on-line music stores.

3. Artists will make more music on demand

With more and more bonds being built via web 2.0 technologies, the artist and fan relationship will continue to grow and I predict that fans will start to create their own mini EPs by directing the artist to get re-mixed by producers they like, release acoustic and live versions and even integrate raw studio cuts and include tracks from talented fans  as well. A sort of Choose-Your-Own-Audio venture with all the emerging remix and interactive technologies at the forefront.  I`d like to see these mini EPs come in a digital bundle, return of the 45 vinyl and have basically 3 songs: fan made re-mix, fan demanded acoustic version and raw studio cut.

4. Music will be seen less on a CD rack and more in the clouds…

CD sales will continue their steady decline and the music population will turn into digital and vinyl heads for the most part.  Watch as vinyl reach out to the hardcore fans who want the immediacy of digital AND the physical fix. Subscription based streaming music stores like Grooveshark and Spotify will become a serious business model for labels to consider. Grooveshark`s traffic has a really healthy up-and-to-the-right metric line and really if you think about it – it`s the perfect compromise for the majority of the digital music community.  Faster than utorrent, cheaper than Itunes and trendier than Twilight, these subscription based stream stores are clearly making their mark in the music market place.

5. An artist`s database will turn into a fairly measurable currency with social metrics

The more time we spend on-line, the more valuable a musician`s database will become (users are expected to be spending EVEN more time in 2010).  All artists will experience an increase of virtual fans simply by putting themselves out there but also the clever musician, management and label will be harvesting and analyzing fan data with the new social metrics coming out.  The simple: enter email, tweet, share this for a track models will only amplify this virtual currency.

6. Interactive touch screens will start showing up at concerts

I don’t mean the kind you see at music festivals with SMS streams and the next band info with sponsors and ads. I mean a truly interactive experience where one can sign up to fan clubs,  shop,  join a contest request shout outs (I know I’m obsessed with shout outs and honestly think it’s the best way to reward and keep a fan loyal). In my perfect vision of the future, one that my inner geek truly adores, the interactive touch screens are so paper thin and huge and now after having seen AVATAR they are probably 3D as well!

7. MySpace will offer musicians a lot more options and will not go away

I was honestly laughing when respectable journalists were writing about “The Death of MySpace”  ”Facebook will take over MySpace”. Look, no matter how much you have a hate on for Tom and no matter how fk* irritating that damn CSS is to code around – MySpace is still the #1 place online that music fans go to check out an artist’s music. If you don’t care about all that and you are just looking at the numbers, well their actual traffic has been pretty stable for the past 3 months (Oct-o9 to Dec-09). So although things look promising, we`ll have to check the numbers again in the next 3 months…

“Indie musicians now have a new way to make money online by adding their songs directly to MySpace Music in exchange for sharing in the ad revenue with the service.” Original post by Elliot Van Buskirk @ Wired.com click MORE for further information.

8. Facebook will release a highly customizable new version

I have to say that I am not impressed with the rate in which Face book releases new versions or fixes bugs… the only reason why I use Facebook (and I likely speak for most)  is that everyone is on it and I really have little choice.  At least MySpace has an excuse for it’s bugginess - it was built in the dinosaur era with some lame programming language.  I am hoping that with a huge fan page community, Facebook steps up to the plate and actually pimps up the code a bit so that one can customize way more and turn their fan page into highly interactive music fan playgrounds of stuff to do, purchase and without error messages with apps not working. Recently, either the ilike app had a bug in it or the steps to add it to your fan page were totally convoluted cause almost every music client of mine was calling me about it!  So Crackbook, I’m unliking you a bit until you impress me with a new version…

9. More street stars like G-Funk RED will be discovered

I think after over a decade of really wimpy commercial rap, hip hop and urban beats it’s time to get back to the simple stories and sounds of the untrained street songs BEFORE the musician has someone else writing their rhymes and picking their outfits. Who says teenagers need cheesy synthesized effects and big studio sound to make them happy? O.K well they sort of do BUT unlike our grandparents, kids are growing up on decades of classical, blues, rock, electronic and are totally into experiencing new stuff – although there will always be at the perfect age for pop. I was lucky, I had an older brother making sure between Madonna and Wham I had Led Belly, Chet Baker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop…  well tell u what, these kids have a realllly big brother called the internet allowing them to discover more music than ever before subjecting people like G-funk RED and others to get international exposure from sites like YouTube.

10. America will have a full year of discovering more oddities like Susan Boyle

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after Susan Boyle, America’s Got Talent is going to experience both an increase in unusual auditions from older and oddball performers but will also be prioritizing them especially after seeing Susan`s popularity skyrocket and set new standards for discovery.

Your comment is your entry.

Please NO direct  emails, *but include your email in your comment so we may contact you*

Good luck, we will announce the winner next week!!

Music Pirating - Friend or Foe?

Do people who illegally download songs end up buying more music than those who don’t? That’s what a recent study done by the Norwegian School of Management is hinting at. Their findings show that folk who download music illicitly also purchase around ten times more music than those who don’t. Would that imply that digital song pirates also count as some of the music industry’s best customers? Let’s check out the arguments below.

On one side you have the downloaders claiming the study shows once more how music sharing grows sales. Since the dawn of Napster, digi-pirates have claimed that while being illegal, song sharing is actually beneficial to the music industry, because it gives people the chance to test out new musicians and albums, and buy the ones they really dig.

On the other side, people opposed to file sharing say that sure, pirates buy a lot of music, but maybe that’s just because they are people who just like music period. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are buying more music because of their pirating; they just love music and will get it anyway they can.

These pirates can be seen as just really avid music fans; in the days before illegal downloading, they would be the ones who tried to get unauthorized bootlegs, copied albums from their pals, and taped music from the radio.

That’s one of the reasons Napster had industry folk shaking in their boots- it introduced regular music buyers to the arts of illegal downloading, something that this type of listener would never have thought of doing before it became so easy.

The interesting thing about the Norwegian study is that it actually shows how the music industry has mutated in the past 15 years. In the old days record labels used the radio to introduce new music to the public. Now people discover music online, in a variety of different ways, both illegal and not.

Another thing this Norwegian study is saying is that if people who pirate a lot of tunes also buy a lot of tunes, then it means that those who buy a lot also pirate a lot. That seems to show that the whole piracy=stealing campaign does not really disturb music fans.

However, the bottom line is that it’s actually impossible to tell if music sales have declined due to piracy, because for every pirate who steals a song, they also share it with people who may buy it or they may steal a song to sample, then go buy the album, go to the concert, buy their merchandise, etc, etc.

In the old days, copying blank tapes didn’t hurt sales, so why would digital sharing? And remember, it’s also illegal to prevent people from sharing for personal use if there is no intent to distribute. Besides, no one gets sued for sharing the latest Oprah book, right?