Universal Music are to drop the price of CDs and other major labels will more than likely follow their lead. The hope is that this price drop will bolster CD sales, which have dropped year on year for the past five years.
The news of the price drops came within 24 hours after a report commissioned by GetJar – the second largest app store to Apple – was published. The report looks at the expanding app market and the key finding is that the app market will be worth a potential $17.5 billion by 2012. This would mean that the value of apps sold would be greater than the value of CDs sold in 2012, at a predicted $13.83bn.
We at Poker PR are always waxing lyrical about the potential of the ‘album app’ and can see that when the big record companies take this on board, they will finally realise that, as a format, the CD is dead. The possibilities of the album app are endless, allowing interaction with your fans on lots of different levels, connection to social media, offering exclusive (paid) content, and allowing user generated content (remix competitions etc.) to name only a few. A CD simply does not allow these capabilities.
If you are looking to produce an app and get on board with this rapidly expanding market we at Poker PR are here to help, contact us here.
YouTube have used SXSW to announce that they’re expanding their partner program to include independent musicians. Everyone is invited to submit videos although not all of them will be featured.
Independent musicians who are accepted by YouTube’s “Musicians Wanted” section will be able to make some money from the partner program if their music videos and live musical performances draw enough views. The artists will receive ‘a majority’ of the advertising revenue from the overlay, pre-roll, and text advertising.
The group of you YouTube employees who will select the artists that get accepted will be on the lookout for indie bands. Once the artists are accepted, they will be able to add links to buy their music, list their tour dates, and they will also have more control over the look of their YouTube channel. Artists will also make money when the videos are embedded into their own sites, blogs or social media pages.
Poker PR likes the idea of YouTube gathering all these artists into a browsable and searchable area that will feature only independent artists, meaning ultimately more money will be making its way to the artists.
There is one restriction in the new program – albeit a positive one – you must submit a video. What this means is you are not able to submit a MP3 over a selection of static images. This will be great news for all the up and coming videographers and animators out there, and we at Poker PR are look forward to seeing the results of this excellent program.
Ibiza Rocks will return to the island this year and will be celebrating its 5th year with some massive line ups. The brand will also be launching the Mallorca Rocks hotel; all the Mallorca Rocks events will be held at the hotel meaning you can book rooms with a stage view.
To celebrate its 5th birthday year, Ibiza Rocks have lined up some sensational acts including Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal, Florence And The Machine and The Kooks to name only a few. July 20th see’s The Prodigy headline at what will be the mother of all 5th birthday parties.
Events this year start on the 22nd June and run until September, the afterparties in Ibiza will be held at Es Paradis and will be free for Ibiza Rocks ticket holders (before 1.30am).
Full details on all the events, and to make your bookings for both the hotels visit ibizarocks.com.
You can also be kept up to date on via social media on both Twitter and Facebook.
The SXSW (South by South West) festival in Austin, Texas starts tomorrow, running for nine days and encompassing many forms of media making it the festival that leads the way in interaction over many platforms.
SXSW really show others what is possible when it comes to using social media, utilising Facebook and Twitter amongst many other platforms, to bring up-to-date information to delegates and those attending. You can also use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to connect with other services such as the (unofficial) guide to the event on sched.org.
The festival, of course, has an iPhone app and it looks great. With schedule and maps as the more basic functions, it also includes some special features for the badge holders including a card feature that allows you to send your contact details to other delegates and a messaging feature that allows the badge holders to communicate away from the festival’s own social network my.SXSW.
It would be great to see some of the UK festivals embrace these types of technology; fans love to interact and connect in every way possible and we at Poker PR can offer all the services to make this happen.
The International Music Summit 2010 (IMS), which takes over the five-star Ibiza Gran Hotel on the 26-28 May, yesterday announced a new line up of speakers that include Sasha, Heidi (Radio 1), Cassius and Jesse Rose.
They’ll be joining an already star studied line-up including Mark Ronson who’ll be giving a keynote interview, Annie Mac, Erick Morillo, DJ Skream, Pedro Winter/ Busy P, Arthur Baker, Robin Millar, and internationally acclaimed producer David Guetta.
Sasha will host a Pioneer technical demo, explaining his decision to return to using their equipment after years of flying the flag for Ableton. It is said that he made the return to the equipment while his infamous ‘Maven’ controller was being upgraded. Poker PR saw Sasha using the new CDJ2000s at Matter and can confirm he is making the most of this new technology.
Google, T-Mobile, Sprite, Coca-Cola Group, Ministry of Sound, BBC Radio 1, KCRW, MP7, Beatport, and ResidentAdvisor are among some of the companies who will have representatives in attendance, some of whom will be sitting on the event panels. Panels this year include, Big Dog DJs: F*** You We’re Famous, USA Today: Boom Boom Now! and Meet the Future. There will also be a repeat of last year’s Ibiza United panel, featuring the big players in Ibiza clubbing, Amnesia, Eden, Es Paradis, Pacha, Privilege and Space.
Poker PR will make one part of the numerous music industry bodies in attendance for our second year running, and we have to say that the line-up of artists and speakers has us a little excited already.
For further info on the event please visit the IMS website
We at Poker PR have previously blogged about the ‘Album App’ and now US firm Metatron gives us a new digital film format: the ‘appMovie’. It describes a package containing HD video, audio and images.
Available to download from the iTunes app store for £2.99, the first appMovie is a documentary called Bob Marley: Spiritual Journey. It includes 14 rare tracks, and a 30 minute interview, hundreds of images and the one hour documentary, with all video content in HD. Metatron intend to make the app available on Blackberry, Android and HD TV.
The appMovie is based around the movie but at Poker we can see no reason why this could not be switched to music creating an appAlbum, featuring a full album of music, sleeve notes, choices of artwork and videos of the top tracks. This could be a great way to reignite the fans desire to buy artist albums and not just download the odd track.
Yesterday’s Music 4.5 event in London featured many panels covering a wide collection of subjects relevant to the music industry. The aim of the event is to bring together the tech geeks and the music geeks, both innovators and creators, with the aim of inspiring a new creative discussion focusing on innovation, revenue and business model opportunities, disruptive technology and social content.
Panels included the TechCrunch pitches featuring 10 tech start-ups explaining what they do, who they are and why they are the future for music. These included two that Poker PR found very interesting:
Psonar a cloud-based music service that lets artists upload their music to its servers and the music is then accessible from anywhere you can connect to the internet. Other users can listen to 30 second clips of your music and can be sent to Amazon to buy it or can share recommendations over social media.
CloseCall Music ever wanted the track you have just heard live at a gig? Then this excellent bit of tech is for you. CloseCall Music allows fans to purchase music from an event on their mobile phone and collect it on a USB or CD as they leave the event. If some rights issues are addressed it could allow the music to be downloaded direct to your phone.
Both of these solutions have the ability to create revenue for the artists and where applicable, the labels, which we at Poker are sure will be greatly received by both.
Apple has been bouncing around the idea of offering “shelves” to iTunes customers where they can store their purchases on the company’s servers.
This would mean that you could access your entire iTunes library from any internet connection. You’d be able to pick up purchased TV episodes or tunes from your library from any computer in the world, and ultimately never have to worry about limited storage.
Apple spoke to major record companies a month ago about their cloud computing plans and have recently spoken to some of the big film studios about the idea, which in effect would be a highly personal streaming service of paid for content.
If introduced, this will be great timing for Apple as currently its customers are downloading more and more iPhone apps, which are taking up the space that music once had the full reign of. This shelf solution will resolve this problem!
This could all be a moot point in the UK if the government passes the anti-piracy bill. One of the suggested restrictions this bill entails is the closure of all free Wi-Fi points including schools, colleges, and cafes (this will mean the only reason to go to Starbucks is for the coffee!!)
Poker PR currently uses a cloud solution for its document sharing and will be watching this subject as it develops very closely.
Over the past week, BBC’s 6 Music facing the axe has caused quite a ruckus in the music industry. Record company bosses have stated it is a “vital platform”; David Bowie was reported to have said that “6Music keeps the spirit of broadcasters like John Peel alive,” (according to his management, Outside Organisation), “and for new artists to lose this station would be a great shame.” And let’s not forget the U-turn by the Conservative’s shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey – who last week welcomed the BBC’s package of cuts – has now changed his tune calling for the digital radio station 6 Music to be saved.
Well Mr Vaizey it would seem you may have been a bit late. During a briefing to BBC staff, Director General of the corporation, Mark Thompson said the earliest 6 Music and Asian Network will close is by the end of 2011. The BBC strategy review said that 6 Music brought in “relatively few unique listeners to BBC radio”.
Mr Thompson does not have the final say on these cuts and it is important to remember that these are just proposals that have to be approved by the BBC Trust.
These cuts come just a couple of weeks after the BBC announced it intends to release separate iPhone apps for both news and sport in April and intends to make these apps available to Android and Blackberry in the near future.
We at Poker PR have 6 Music playing in the office and can say it will be sadly missed if these proposals are passed.
A full copy of the 79 page report is available via The Guardian
Today, Poker PR welcomes Anthony Gibson to the team as part of the Wired Sussex Internship.
Having achieved a 2:1 in International Business at the University of Brighton, Anthony has gone on to further his studies with a course in Creative Music Production at Access to Music, also in Brighton.
Being a big lover of music in general, Anthony is going to fit in well. He’ll be working with us for a total of four weeks across various music and marketing campaigns.
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