It appears John Legend stands to be one of the few major artists preparing for his future. According to Cherry Lane Publishing, both parties agreed to extend their relationship with an exclusive joint venture named “HomeSchool Music”. This newly formed deal will allow Legend to sign and guide various writers.
“I’ve had such a great, successful working relationship with Cherry Lane. It felt right to expand the partnership and create a new business venture. I look forward to working with them further and finding and developing new talent.” – John Legend
After the very tragic passing of Michael Jackson on Thursday, many songs from his vast 30+ year catalog have cropped back up in the charts. The King of Pop currently holds 8 of the top 10 slots on iTunes and over 20 songs in the top 100. Jackson’s death has been a major blow to music fans across the World. I remember him saying in an interview once that he wanted to live forever, and he will undoubtdly, through his music.
To recap: recommendation systems will increasingly become a way for music fans to discover emerging and niche musicians.
Also last week, we took a look at what the Big 4 record labels are doing to take advantage of the fundamental shifts in the music business. They focused a lot on “music discovery.” So, getting listeners to discover new music is one of the keys to success in the music commerce frontier, no matter what level you are at.
It may be helpful, then, to think of the basic business model like this:
1) Discovery
2) CwF + RtB = $$$
The second step is a concept coined by Michael Masnick, though I noted that even the Big 4 are following a plan very similar in spirit. For musicians and labels to be successful, they need to Connect with Fans and give them a Reason to Buy. But before they can do that, the fans have to find out about them.
Terry explains the new Orphan Works Bill and tells everyone not to succumb to the FUD [READ].
Mos Def and LNG Clothing come up with a unique way to sell albums; on t-shirts [READ].
Music streaming service Spotify has upped the quality of its sound to CD level, in a bid to attract more users to its premium service [READ].
Nate Anderson breaks down Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s options after being handed a $1.92 million fine for copyright infringement [READ].
The UK’s Official Charts Company (OCC) has revealed that it is “bound to” include streaming music in its future listings [READ].
ASCAP want public performance royalties every time your phone rings [READ].
After cutting 33% of staff in the US last week, Myspace have given another 300 international employees the chop [READ].
Billboard analyzed sales after the introduction of variable pricing and found that unit sales had slightly decreased but overall spending at retail and net revenue to labels had increased [READ].
RIAA not happy with the $1.92 million fine handed to Jammie Thomas-Rasset for file-sharing 24 songs [READ].
TV personality Simon Cowell and British retail billionaire Sir Philip Green are joining forces to launch a new global entertainment company that will produce television content in both the US and UK [READ].
A new study from the NPD Group shows that people on Twitter are more likely to buy music [READ].
Facebook partner with Ustream to bring live video streaming to the ever growing social networking site [READ].
After closing all 807 stores nationwide at the start of the year, Woolworths has re-launched as an online store [READ].
Wired have reported that a programming team has finally won the Netflix Prize, after over three years of competition [READ].
Singer Amanda Palmer recently revealed on her website how she made $19k in 10 hours on Twitter. She accomplished this not by selling music, but by selling t-shirts.
I won’t tell you exactly what happened, it’s only a short video so watch it. Oh, and if you didn’t see my post on Mike Masnick’s NARM presentation about the “Music Commerce Frontier”, GO THERE NOW!
Earlier this evening, Wired reported that a programming team has finally won the Netflix Prize, after over three years of competition.
The goal of the competition was to increase the accuracy of the recommendations that Netflix gives its customers – that is, when a Netflix user sees “If you liked this movie, you might also like these movies,” the results would be more relevant and useful.
More details about the competition and the winning team can be found at Wired, or in this posting from ReadWriteWeb, but here we ask, “what does this mean for musicians?”
Quite simply, better recommendation systems will allow music fans to discover new artists that they enjoy quicker and easier. Musicians will be able to rely less on traditional gatekeepers – radio, record labels, the press – and reach their audience directly. Recommendation systems provide an incentive for emerging musicians to participate in the market, especially those musicians in niche genres or appealing to non-mainstream tastes.
UPDATE: Having spoke to eMusic myself I can confirm that the ability to redownload songs you have purchased will remain. There will hoever be a limit on the amount of times you can redownload a song. Apologies to eMusic for the misunderstanding. Here is what eMusic had to say to me:
“You will have the ability to redownlaod the tracks without being debited twice however you will have a limit to the times you can redownlaod the tracks before you have to purchase them again.”
“Once you have selected a track from eMusic, you are allowed to re-download it as many times as you like without losing download credits provided that the album is still available through eMusic and your account is active.”
“Once you click on a track or album to download, your account is debited at that time even if your download does not complete. However, we have a record of your activity.”
After collapsing at the end of last year, it looked like one of Britain’s shopping institutes had disappeared for good when all 800+ stores nationwide closed. However, the much-loved chain store was reborn today as an online, interactive store.
“We’re delighted to be bringing back Woolworths in its 100th year.” Shop Direct Group CEO Mark Newton-Jones said in a statement. “We’ve been talking to families across the country and have responded with a site that delivers the best of what they loved about Woolies, offered across four main categories of Kidswear, Toys, Entertainment and Party. Families wanted us to bring back Woolies as soon as possible, so that’s what we’ve done.”
One’s first thought might be “how will they possibly compete with companies like Amazon and Play?” But a quick look at their CD store and you will see that they are offering very competitive prices such as Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” for £8.97. At Amazon this title is priced at £8.98, at Play it is £8.95. So maybe there is hope for the beloved ‘Woolies’.
Jbara wasn’t just hand-wringing though. Instead, he was stating what has been obvious to many in the industry for some time. He and the other panelists sounded optimistic about the state of the music industry. They discussed issues that showed a clear grasp of how technology has changed music consumption and how the industry needs to respond, a clarity that, self-admittedly, was lacking even a few years ago.
Today, Facebook is launching a new “Live Stream Box” feature which allows for Facebook Pages to offer their own live video and chat area. And Ustream will be the first to take advantage of it with Ustream on Facebook, a new service to provide live video support to select Facebook users.
This functionality is an extension of what Ustream and Facebook did with some Jonas Brothers concerts last month — events which drew huge numbers. How huge? This huge, according to Ustream:
1.5 million unique posts were made via Facebook Live Feed
23K average posts per minute
More than 100K users joined the webcast after seeing their friend’s comment on Facebook
974K total unique viewers watched the one hour webcast
Ustream reports the Jonas Brothers webcast on Facebook surpassed the largest live video event they have hosted for any music artist
So clearly, there’s a big demand for certain live events via Facebook, and Ustream is jumping on it, as Facebook’s preferred partner.
It appears John Legend stands to be one of the few major artists preparing for his future. According to Cherry Lane Publishing, both parties agreed to extend their relationship with an exclusive joint venture named “HomeSchool Music”. This newly formed deal will allow Legend to sign and guide various writers.
On Saturday, we pointed out the 
Earlier this evening, 
After collapsing at the end of last year, it looked like one of Britain’s shopping institutes had disappeared for good when all 
Today, 
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