DENVER (Billboard) - Artists these days no longer wonder whether they should be using the social Web to interact with their fans. It's now a matter of how.
Using Facebook or Twitter or MySpace as a one-way megaphone is no longer enough. The power of online social networks is in establishing a two-way conversation. But when there are thousands of voices on the other end of that discussion, staying engaged can be a daunting task.
Thankfully, a host of new companies are emerging to help make sense of it all, offering services like digital content distribution, feedback aggregation and traffic reports. One of the more recent startups catching the industry's eye is Chicago-based Bln.kr.
The company launched in May 2009 as a link-shortening service for Twitter similar to Bit.ly, but for music files. Since then, the service has reoriented its focus toward helping artists, particularly amateur and emerging acts, to harness the value of fan feedback.
Participating artists who establish a Bln.kr account can connect it to such online profiles as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and YouTube, and manage them all from one place. That enables them to upload a track through Bln.kr to embed the song into all of their other social network profiles.
Bln.kr then aggregates the feedback and comments about that track into a real-time stream it calls "the loop," which displays the total streams, downloads, retweets and other data the track generates. Today, the loop feature is limited to Twitter, but by the end of October, Bln.kr will expand it to include Facebook, YouTube, RSS feeds and other sources, aggregating user ratings, "likes," sharing activity and comments.
Bln.kr also offers artists the ability to deliver dynamic prompts to fans to solicit specific feedback, such as "How do the lyrics make you feel?" or "What one thing should be changed?"
All of these services are free, but a Pro account for $5 per month adds other capabilities, such as automatically creating a YouTube video using artists' album art and other visual assets, holding remix contests and generating unique QR bar codes that artists can place on flyers for fans to scan with their mobile phones to launch a website or stream a track. Additional Pro features will be rolled out in late October, such as Foursquare badge-like "buttons" that reward artists for achievements like reaching 100 plays or having the most popular track on Twitter for a given day.
Bln.kr was one of four startups pitching attendees of Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live: The Music App Summit during the "Innovators Showcase" panel, emerging as the clear favorite. Panelist Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., said he was impressed with the service.
"I would potentially fund this," Chang told Bln.kr CEO Justin DeLay at the event. "I think you've tapped into the key notion of what I've been gunning for all along, which is that the Internet has fragmented the audience all to hell. What we're all fighting for is attention."
So far, some 12,000 artists have opened Bln.kr accounts. About half are purely amateurs or hobbyists, with the other half split between journeyman professional artists and more established acts like the Streets, Band of Skulls and DJ Teenwolf. More than 32,000 tracks have been uploaded to date, generating an average of 10 shares and six plays per minute across the site.
About 1% of participating artists have Pro accounts. But Bln.kr plans to add other revenue streams in the near future, such as adding coupons from advertisers for users who achieve "buttons" milestones.
It's also working on licensing its music to Internet radio stations and other digital outlets. Looking further ahead, Bln.kr may offer any combination of these services to music labels as a white-label solution for promotional campaigns.
The startup is now seeking additional funding. Currently, Bln.kr consists of only co-founders DeLay, COO Andrew Cronk and chief technology officer Mike Yagley -- all in their mid- to late 20s and amateur musicians themselves.
DeLay quit his job in product marketing at Kraft Foods to launch the company, and has gone back to school to study human-computer interaction. DeLay and Yagley are also songwriters and guitarists for a band called Almost Gone, whose album "Autonomy" is available on iTunes. This mix of technological know-how, business savvy and passion for music is typical of today's digital media entrepreneur, one that blends the perceived roles of "music people" and "tech people" that are too often at odds.
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Using Facebook or Twitter or MySpace as a one-way megaphone is no longer enough. The power of online social networks is in establishing a two-way conversation. But when there are thousands of voices on the other end of that discussion, staying engaged can be a daunting task.
Thankfully, a host of new companies are emerging to help make sense of it all, offering services like digital content distribution, feedback aggregation and traffic reports. One of the more recent startups catching the industry's eye is Chicago-based Bln.kr.
The company launched in May 2009 as a link-shortening service for Twitter similar to Bit.ly, but for music files. Since then, the service has reoriented its focus toward helping artists, particularly amateur and emerging acts, to harness the value of fan feedback.
Participating artists who establish a Bln.kr account can connect it to such online profiles as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and YouTube, and manage them all from one place. That enables them to upload a track through Bln.kr to embed the song into all of their other social network profiles.
Bln.kr then aggregates the feedback and comments about that track into a real-time stream it calls "the loop," which displays the total streams, downloads, retweets and other data the track generates. Today, the loop feature is limited to Twitter, but by the end of October, Bln.kr will expand it to include Facebook, YouTube, RSS feeds and other sources, aggregating user ratings, "likes," sharing activity and comments.
Bln.kr also offers artists the ability to deliver dynamic prompts to fans to solicit specific feedback, such as "How do the lyrics make you feel?" or "What one thing should be changed?"
All of these services are free, but a Pro account for $5 per month adds other capabilities, such as automatically creating a YouTube video using artists' album art and other visual assets, holding remix contests and generating unique QR bar codes that artists can place on flyers for fans to scan with their mobile phones to launch a website or stream a track. Additional Pro features will be rolled out in late October, such as Foursquare badge-like "buttons" that reward artists for achievements like reaching 100 plays or having the most popular track on Twitter for a given day.
Bln.kr was one of four startups pitching attendees of Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live: The Music App Summit during the "Innovators Showcase" panel, emerging as the clear favorite. Panelist Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., said he was impressed with the service.
"I would potentially fund this," Chang told Bln.kr CEO Justin DeLay at the event. "I think you've tapped into the key notion of what I've been gunning for all along, which is that the Internet has fragmented the audience all to hell. What we're all fighting for is attention."
So far, some 12,000 artists have opened Bln.kr accounts. About half are purely amateurs or hobbyists, with the other half split between journeyman professional artists and more established acts like the Streets, Band of Skulls and DJ Teenwolf. More than 32,000 tracks have been uploaded to date, generating an average of 10 shares and six plays per minute across the site.
About 1% of participating artists have Pro accounts. But Bln.kr plans to add other revenue streams in the near future, such as adding coupons from advertisers for users who achieve "buttons" milestones.
It's also working on licensing its music to Internet radio stations and other digital outlets. Looking further ahead, Bln.kr may offer any combination of these services to music labels as a white-label solution for promotional campaigns.
The startup is now seeking additional funding. Currently, Bln.kr consists of only co-founders DeLay, COO Andrew Cronk and chief technology officer Mike Yagley -- all in their mid- to late 20s and amateur musicians themselves.
DeLay quit his job in product marketing at Kraft Foods to launch the company, and has gone back to school to study human-computer interaction. DeLay and Yagley are also songwriters and guitarists for a band called Almost Gone, whose album "Autonomy" is available on iTunes. This mix of technological know-how, business savvy and passion for music is typical of today's digital media entrepreneur, one that blends the perceived roles of "music people" and "tech people" that are too often at odds.
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