Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Beers & burgers oil the online music conversation

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Working with We7 and new start-up PureSolo gives us here at Shiny Red a number of opportunities to engage with the digital music scene.
Since even before Napster (in its then shady incarnation) rocked the boat in 1999, labels, management and ““ less so ““ artists have been scratching their heads and discussing how to make the marriage of music and the internet a happy one.

While content owners are still often accused of being protectionist and unwilling to take risks with emerging media, one place where the conversation focuses on exciting things people are doing with the “music” part of the “music business” is OpenMusicMedia. Last week, around 25 people from well known and less famous start-ups and music media professionals met upstairs in a pub not far from Old St tube station.

Previous OMM events have had speakers and agendas, on this occasion, the organisers, Dave and Jonas used the meetup as an opportunity for networking on an informal basis, where conversation flowed as well as the continental lagers.

At this time of year, there are social and new media events to be at every night of the week, and since it’s impossible to be at all of them, we’d give OMM a big thumbs up and certainly recommend making it one to watch in 2009.

Posted in Events and Conferences, Music | No Comments »

Pure Solo – That’s me you’re hearing!

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

We’re really excited to be spreading the news about a new venture called PureSolo. PureSolo is a site and software which allows you to choose from over 10,000 well known, professionally produced backing tracks from a range of different genres and record your own version. Whether you sing, play guitar, flute or even bassoon ““ there are tracks for every musician.

As well as being an amazing practice tool for musicians and a fun piece of software for karaoke lovers, it’s a great stepping-stone for musicians, who can easily use the software to make high quality demo CDs without hiring an expensive recording studio.

There’s no escaping the dismal news of the economic downturn, but new ventures such as Pure Solo provide quirky entertainment as well as cheap alternatives for costly services. We’re were glad to see Netimperative and Distorted Loop pick up on the news, amongst others and are excited to be working with them!

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Posted in Client News, Music | No Comments »

Eno and Byrne’s new web venture

Monday, August 11th, 2008

I’m very excited to hear that two colossal talents of modern music, David Byrne and Brian Eno, are working together again, using the web to collaborate and distribute their latest project.

The pair last co-wrote the groundbreaking My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, released in 1981 and often regarded as “inventing” sampling.

Their new project, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, started with a chance meeting in New York after which Eno and Byrne shared ideas online. The result is released on August 18 only at the eponymous website, either for free streaming or paid download.

I’ve always loved watching how these two creative gurus reinvent musical genres, or get the best from the musicians they work with. So it’s no surprise that they’re taking control of their means of distribution too in yet another example of how the music industry continues to fragment in the digital era.

Tags: Brian_Eno, David_Byrne
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »

Knocking on MTV’s door….

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

MTV has rolled out a new social networking site, MTV House. In the house, you can create avatars, explore interactive rooms and chat with friends. According to MTV, This is in a move to respond to consumers needs - Brand Republic quotes Philip O’Farrall, MTV’s vice president of digital media, “By carrying out continuous research to find out what our audiences really want and by introducing an enhanced user experience where the audience can interact with each other and the brand – whether that be advise on sensitive issues or sharing great MTV content – we are in turn responding to their needs.”

I thought I would check it out for myself as it sounds like a cross between Second Life and MySpace. But unfortunately after registering, I tried several attempts to get in the house, but could not make it past the loading page. It will be a shame if others are having this problem as it looks that it would be quite fun and if people experience these problems on the first visit, they’re unlikely to give it a second chance.

Posted in General, Music, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Open Music Meet – 14th May

Friday, May 16th, 2008

I had an interesting time at the first Open Music Meet on Wednesday after spotting Andrew Dubber’s, tweet earlier in the week.
The event was a roundtable discussion and social organised by Jonas Woost of Last fm, and Dave Haynes. The get-together got a fab fab kickstart being led by US visitor Anthony Volodkin creator of MP3 blog hub Hype Machine.

It’s been great over the last year getting to know, listening to and engaging with the online music community with Shiny Red client, ad-supported music service, We7. It’s fair to say it’s been an exciting year to be watching and the strong opinions I see online everyday were certainly reflected in the room. Although I have to confess to only catching the last half hour, so I’m keen to get there on time for the next one – check out Grumblemouse’s post for a better account of the evening!

Aside from those already mentioned, there was a great mix of people representing a spread of interested parties, from artists like Antigone, live music start-ups like Ian from Songkick and Jakomi of The Music Void.

A few more details here if you fancy coming to the next one.

Posted in Events and Conferences, Music, Web 2.0 | 3 Comments »

We7 announce their deal with Sony BMG

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

We7 announce their deal with Sony BMG

Shiny Red have had a busy week helping We7 announce their deal with Sony BMG, see below, with some great pick up in The Guardian, Shiny Shiny, NME and NMA to name a few!

Big news for the digital music industry this week, as Sony BMG becomes the first major UK label to agree a licensing deal with Peter Gabriel-backed ad funded “˜on demand’ streaming service, www.we7.com. Over 250,000 tracks from Sony BMG’s catalogue of artists including Westlife, Kasabian, Leona Lewis and many more will be available to stream free, legally and safely on the ad-funded website, with a short advertisement prior to each track. The service, launched in the UK at the end of April, will be initially available to existing We7 members and gradually extended to new subscribers.

As the digital music space heats up, the winners are those companies willing to explore and embrace new digital models, and Sony BMG’s deal with We7 marks such a significant leap forward for the industry because it offers music fans great music and choice whilst giving something back to artists who get paid royalties, and advertisers who benefit too. It’s a win-win situation all round.

For the digital world to deliver against its potential it’s critical that new digital models, like We7’s are embraced fully to allow them to scale and Sony BMG’s leadership and openness is a great start.

Congratulations Sony BMG and We7!

Posted in Client News, Music, PR and Marcomms | No Comments »

Time to invest in ad-supported content?

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

We’ve had a fun couple of days getting the fantastic news about We7’s $6m series A funding out. The story has spread far and wide, as an exciting investment and one which is indicative of the rapidly changing views of both the advertising and music industries to ad-supported content.

It was a timely investment following the analysis of recent shenanigans at EMI. Amongst all the coverage of which, the image that caught me was this – following a recent focus group at its London HQ the assembled teens were told to help themselves to a pile of free CDs…there were no takers:

“That was the moment we realised the game was completely up”

That the record companies still thought they were in the game might be questioned by some (and the appeal of Robbie et al. by others) but it’s still a great scene to sum up the last ‘nightmare’ year in the music biz.

With other areas of the industry, and even Hollywood beginning to embrace ad-supported content, We7’s founder and CEO, Steve Purdham was right to comment

“2008 will be important year for We7 and we start we great confidence.”

Posted in Client News, Music, PR and Marcomms | No Comments »

Digital, Life, Design – a smÃ¶rgÃ¥sbord of soundbites

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Featuring a diverse line-up – including Naomi Campbell, Richard Dawkins and Jimmy Wales - this week’s big event is DLD (Design, Life, Digital), taking place in Munich. I’ve been following the event via its liveblog, and through Tweet Scan to catch a few of the conference highlights and soundbites.
Here are just a few:

Martin Sorrell on online marketing: Clients are spending 10% of their ad spend on digital campaigns, while users are online 20% of their time. More money should be invested in online marketing, particularly in Asia, where half of the world’s population is living now - “In the future there will be a big powershift from countries that are called “the west” to the eastern countries, like China, India, Russia.”

Joanna Shields, President of Bebo asserts that social networking is not a game, and that it (or at least Bebo) “does not control the communication; it is only providing the tools to share content and “design your own unique life experience”. She says that users will belong to more than one network: professional, media, and culture or lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, Joanna is also member of Facebook.

Jason Calcanis squares off against Jimmy Wales in a discussion around human vs. algorithmic search. Jeff Jarvis’ post picks out a juicy Calcanis quote:

“I believe in paying people for work,”? he says; his zing on Jimmy. “I’m a writer by trade and I take offense when people try to devalue writing.”?

All this takes place a few feet from Google’s Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, Marissa Mayer, who suggests that looking at search as “all algorithmic” or “all human” is a false-dichotomy.

Vanity Fair journalist JÃ¶rg Rohleder peppers the “What’s music worth” session with industry cynicism “This panel is about the music industry ““ and there is not even a chair here anymore”?. Following up with the argument that people no longer buy music, and kids think its free. Rohleder admits: “My first illegal download was 10 years ago. I am not sorry”?.

David de Rothschild interviews Tom Varsavsky, a 14 year old boy, about his life online:
- “IM is cool!”
- “I definitely have more Facebook-friends than friends in real life”
- “Ads are so annoying! Especially if they’re right in the middle of a page or during a video. Plus, they are always so irrelevant!”
- “Every single person I know is on Facebook.”

Posted in Events and Conferences, General, Music, Social Networking, User Generated Content, Video, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »