Bits & Bytes 5/04

INFLUENCING EMERGING MUSIC TECH CULTURE

THOUGHTS FROM THE CEO

MAY 4, 2015

Billboard released the Top 40 Artist Money-Makers in their new issue. Noted was that 80.4% of the revenue generated from artists was from touring but sales only generated 13.3% on average. Publishing and streaming were both way under 5%. To put that in perspective, Katy Perry (#2 this year) earned $30.1M but made only $3.2M of that off music sales - plus $1.2M from publishing. 

Does this this signify that the show is actually more important than the music? Probably not but it definitely goes to show that touring is currently more than 6X more impactful than music sales - when it comes to generating revenue. But how can this unbalanced equation be corrected? How can the record business model (clearly broken) be reconfigured,? Should we focus more on the importance of touring companies rather than record companies? 

I think brands can and should help fuel the new music economy more than ever, and it's surprising that this component wasn't even included in the Billboard Annual Earning Ranking this year. You would think this angle can really balance out revenue and even bridge the gap between artists and new technologies. 

May The 4th be with you! (couldn’t resist, ha). 

-Jesse K (@JesseKay) 

The NewFronts aren’t over. In fact, the string of sales presentations aimed at convincing advertisers to park more spending in digital video continue through Thursday. But most of the biggest digital media players gave their pitches last week, which means it’s time to weigh in on winners and losers–Which media companies stood out? Did the overall process convince anyone to spend more money online as opposed to say, on TV?

Avicii is one of Spotify's biggest success stories, so it makes sense that the two want to work together. They are starting a SXSW-style conference in Sweden and it's invite-only, learn more!

Legendary investor Ben Horowitz talks about how an 'accidental' investment led to a startup now worth $2.8B, an internal communication app that is now the fastest growing enterprise software product. 

Have Tidal's designers improved the Spotify model to create an ultimately more usable product? Tests with current Spotify users have been run to find out who's really winning the usability war. 

Agencies and marketers jump for a piece of San Fran's high-tech gold rush. Read out more about the exploding tech scene, which is posing big opportunities (and big challenges) for region. 

Stephen Phillips discusses new models for music discovery, plus provides research about objective and subjective attributes that can be measured - and ultimately determine likability. 

While the Dept. of Justice closely looks into Apple's business practices, Apple pushes major music labels to force streaming services like Spotify to abandon their free tiers.