Weekly Digest on the Music Industry and Social Media - May 2, 2009

Weekly Digest on the Music Industry – May 2, 2009

Posted on 03. May, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci in Music Industry Trends, Trends

BREAKING NEWS

A week dense of social networks ‘ announcements

April 28th is a date to remember. Facebook launched the Open Stream API: it’s the start of the Facebook experience extending beyond the Facebook walls. Now any developer can create new applications incorporating the real-time stream.

One of the first apps to take advantage of this new API is Seesmic Desktop.

Another example is a demo of Silverlight+ Facebook Stream, that has wowed the lucky Techcrunch viewers: Microsoft Shows Off The Power Of Facebook’s New APIs

For a technical review of the Open Stream API, check Nick O’Neill’s post at AllFacebook.com

More on the business implications thanks to NYT Brad Stone Tinker Away. Facebook Says

For a less enthusiastic review, Marshall KirckPatrick Despite New Openness, Facebook Remains Fundamentally Closed

MYSPACE AND PLAYLIST

MySpace has a new CEO, former Facebook executive and Playlist CEO, Owen Van Natta. WSJ.com: Taking Helm at MySpace

Playlist names former MTV veteran as new CEO: MTV Vet Sykes New Project Playlist CEO

TRENDS

MUSIC SPONSORSHIP SPENDING

Music Sponsorship Spending at an all time High in 2009

AD SPENDING IS OFFICIALLY NOT RECESSION-PROOF

TechCrunch: The Online Ad Recession Is Officially Here: First Quarterly Decline In Revenues

MORE TWITTERS, MORE QUITTERS?

Nielsen shocked the Twittersphere this week by reporting that Twitter shows that some come but never come back, yet the small community is indeed very influential.

See also Pete Cashmore at Mashable: 60% of Twitter users quit within the first month.

GOING UP, DOWN AND UNDER

UP- HULU AND VEVO: The Gold Race to monetize music videos is on. Wired’s editor,Eliot Van Buskirk, reports on the Next Music Battle: Hulu vs Vevo

UP-HULU AND DISNEY: Hulu is becoming the preferred distribution channel for the big media companies. It just got major buy-in from Disney that is now an investor, joining News Corp and NB.

Who should worry more? YouTube or Apple?

UP AND THUMBS UP-COLDPLAY,JOSH FREESE &DE LA SOUL

More artists experimenting with innovative models

-Coldplay will give away a free nine-track live album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft, at every gig this year. MusicAlly

-Legendary Hip-Hop Trio De La Soul works with Nike for a new Music Release. AdAge

-Josh Freese is getting ready to release self-release a solo album and has been attracting some attention because of the unorthodox pricing model he is employing.

UP AND THUMBS UP-SLACKER,SPOTIFY,PEOPLE MUSIC STORE&THINKINDIE:

More success stories for a few new music start-ups

-Slacker Radio hits the 1million downloads on the BlackBerry. Billboard.biz Q&A: Slacker CEO Dennis Mudd

-Spotify continues to recruit music fans at a rate 40,000 users/day. MusicAlly: Spotify has more than 1mln users in the UK

-People Music Store has signed a deal with UMG. Good job! Hypebot

-ThinkIndie.com launched today as the music download destination for Coalition Of Independent Music Stores’ (CIMS) indie music retail outlets. Hypebot

DOWN

-France Reintroduces 3 Strikes Bill. UK Says No. Hypebot.

-Artist advocacy group The Future Of Music Coalition has released a new report “Same Old Song” confirming that indie music is not getting its fair share of airplay on broadcast radio. Hypebot

DOWN AND THEN UP – SEEQPOD

Seeqpod CEO announces imminent acquisition. Wired

SOCIAL MEDIA

-TopSpin Ian Rogers has an amazing post on how musicians are experimenting with Twitter as a music platform and direct marketing channel

-Top 10 Twitter Tools For Musicians. Hypebot

-7 SEO Tips for Musicians. Hypebot

-Provocative advices from Eric Herbert. Forget MySpace: How To Build The Ultimate Website To Interact with Your Fans

OPINIONS AND MUST READS

Is A&R Still Necessary in Today’s Music Industry? Jim Markunas at MusicThinkTank

Resnikoff’s Parting Shot: The DIY Utopia… From the editor of DigitalMusicNews

Is MySpace becoming Windows of Online Music? Matt Rosoff

Music Is Not Like Water Fingertip