Monday Sept. 8th,
4 Bits & Bytes You Should Start Your Week With:
#TodaysGameChanger: Twitter announced a new "buy" button, allowing fans to purchase merch, music or other wares directly from within a tweet.
#SummerLearnings: Have you checked out the study EventBrite put out on trends/insights from the summer festival circuit? Compelling to see that social media convos around music fests have spiked 34% since last year!
#ProductReleases: Excited to see the first iteration of the iWatch at the big Apple annoucement tomorrow.
STREAMING & SUBSCRIPTION
Rdio relaunches as a "Better Pandora" via Hypebot
Will expand its free services
Restructures as pandora with on demand music
Faces competition from growing streaming service playlist options
MUSIC
deadmau5 to Disney: "Lawyer Up, Mickey" via Hypebot
deadmau5 tweeted the above quote in response to Disney's copyright suit
Will fight Disney's copyright claim on signature icon
Lawyer: "mau5head is a registered trademark in 30 countries"
TECH
Vevo to launch virtual reality app for Samsung via Music Week
Billed as a new way to engage w/ music videos
Vevo: imagine using app & being in Apollo Theater for Pharrell performance
Will host 10k+ music videos and shows
Streaming services have failed to pay over $100M in royalties over last 12 years via Digital Music News
Wrong data has led to large sums of lost money
Mass problems with compulsory licenses
Issues have effected nearly every major streaming service
Study: Top '14 Music Festival Trends & Insights via Eventbrite
Interesting stats: "54% on social media chatter happens before festival"
Roughly 1/4 social media posts were from users streaming / engaging remotely
Eventbrite suggests marketing the unique aspects of the festival itself
Twitter unveils "in-Tweet" purchasing via Billboard
Will allow for music, merch sales through artists
Commerce sites Fancy, MusicToday will test service
Early artists using service to include Brad Paisley, Eminem
Blinkbox Music hits 1bn streams via Music Week
Owned by Tesco; launched last June
Claims 1 million active users
Aimed for most casual music listeners
CD Baby now allows you to sell music w/o fees via Digital Music News
Service called "CD Baby Free"
CD Baby will take 15% of sales and eliminate startup fees
Competes directly with bandcamp
Garth Brooks launches own iTunes competitor via Gizmodo
Called "Ghost Tunes"
Includes Brooks' entire discography
Will include " abilities to sell music in ways never seen before"