Music Technology Posts from May, 2007

Derek Sivers (of CD Baby) sent me an article today which documents the phenomenal success of certain CD Baby artists – achieved purely on the back of viral exposure on sites such as MySpace. On one level, this might seem to corroborate the findings of Duncan Watts’ study, covered in a previous post on this blog. However, I think it primarily illustrates the importance of having a promotional angle – something that can be described succinctly, sets you apart and which hooks people in to what you are doing.

In the case of Jonathan Coulton, he set himself a challenge of writing and recording a new song every week, which he then posted on his blog. Halfway through last year, his fanbase had grown to include more than 3,000 visitors a day and he was making a decent living off his own music sales. He interacts directly with his fans, to such and extent that he spends several hours every day responding to emails, and instead of going on tour, he picks out towns where he knows he has enough fans to fill a local venue, and goes to them to play.

As another example, a low-quality video of the band OK Go dancing on treadmills generated 15 million views on YouTube – a phenomenal reach for any marketing campaign. It seems that the potential of online social marketing knows no bounds, and is only increasing in power – but are we any closer to knowing how to predict the hits?

There are many websites out there that allow new bands to post bios and mp3s – so many, in fact, that it may be hard to find the good ones. Although Podcomplex is itself such a site, it never hurts to put your music out on as many platforms as possible – for a new band, maximising your exposure should be a priority.

This is a time of change for the music economy, and unless someone hears you, there will be no fan base, no moral support and certainly no monetisation. With this in mind, here are a few places you can put your tunes (including a few where you can directly sell them), and hopefully someone will like what they hear. All these sites are free to use (just like podcomplex)…

1. Soundclick – Upload songs and sell as digital downloads.
2. Acid Planet – Focus on Acid and SoundForge users.
3. Artistopia – Useful artist development resource.
4. Canopy Channel – New multimedia library.
5. Artist Server – Create a bio and upload songs.
6. Funender – Upload songs, electronic slant.
7. Mp3lizard – Neat Finnish site.
8. Download.com – Now a Cnet property.
9. #1band – Band online community.
10. Primetones – Take the ringtone angle.
11. Radioindy – Partners with Rhapsody, internet radio.
12. Amie Street – Sell CDs and gain exposure.
13. Unsignedbandweb – Features web radio by genre.
14. Beta Records – Flashy music database.
15. Channel Byron – New Zealand OMS site.
16. Soundlift – German OMS site.
17. Last.fm – Huge social music site.

This is by no means an exhaustive list – there are thousands more sites offering similar services on the Internet. For a table of OMD sites, you can refer to this page at Armydiller. It hasn’t been updated in a while, but many of the resources are still valid. If you don’t have time to search for sites that accept submissions, you can use a promotional service such as Music Submit, but you’ll probably just have to register these results yourself anyway.