Questions, Exploration, and Findings – by Peter Huboi
(a small departure from my normal blog topic … but relevant to Social Media)
In a momentary snapshot in time on Feb 25th 2010 the following facts are observed:
Music content delivery is taking an evolutionary step using Adobe Flash. Adobe invited John Mayer out on the stage today to preview and talk about an augmented reality music video track in the works at the Tuesday Oct 6th Adobe Max Keynote event. John is working with Blitz and Adobe in what appears to be a mashup of the music video with virtual reality gaming environment construction techniques. Not being entirely sure of how the augmented reality music video is created, I would guess that John Mayer is filmed in front of a green screen and that the virtual reality environment is also delivered in Flash.
Ok , searching Blitz’s website, they do have a blog post titled “Augmented Reality Sings a New Tune” , so I’ll comment more on where I possibly see this going in the future.
Where might this technology lead us?
This could get interesting for the music and game industries and for consumers.
1. Guest music performances embedded in games?
Imagine playing your favorite virtual reality game and walking or driving by a night club in your game and hearing a song by one of your favorite artists. Maybe you’d be tempted to drop in and have a listen? This type of thing could be coming soon to a game near you. Or how about the reverse scenario. You may see a go see a live performance and have the graphics from the game showing on the big screen monitors. Buy the game at the concession stand while you are there. Mashups of music and game industry content certainly will offer up some interesting co-marketing opportunities.
2. Games that know your musical preferences?
Why would the above scenario ever need to present you with a music entertainment that is not your taste? Depending on the player and their favorite music preferences (as pulled in from your favorite Social Media site music player), the musical act in the virtual reality club you just happen by could be served up to your particular taste. Perhaps in order to play the game, you had to sign in with your Facebook, twitter, or google ID ?
3. Virtual reality music players emulating the concert venue ?
Imagine seeing your favorite band perform up close in an intimate club (even if they typically play large amphitheaters). Might you not be tempted wander over to the virtual concession stand and buy music, t-shirts, video games, concert tickets, and other items geared to a true fan.
Oh, and why not choose your club venue ? Just as virtual reality golf games allow you to play golf on many world famous courses, why wouldn’t we be able to choose to see the band in a venue of our choice?
4. Brand-sponsored Augmented Reality Music Videos ?
Augmented Reality Music Videos using this technology could be expensive to produce. Subtle brand placement could be placed in the music video you are watching. You’ve seen it in movies and on TV for years. It need not be ‘in your face’ advertising, although I’m sure there will be some of that as well (buy the track on iTunes, order the CD on Amazon). One could potentially change the branded items placed in the video to match your user demographic. Oh, did I mention that perhaps in order to play the augmented reality music video, you had to sign in with your Facebook, twitter, or google ID ?
In my previous post I speculated that Google Wave will allow new possibilities in how we share and experience music together. This also changes how artists/bands can potentially interact with their fans. Last weekend I attended GTUG Campout: Silicon Valley (Google Technology User Group) which centered around developing gadgets and robots in wave. There were many interesting and inspirational development efforts at this weekend hackathon where the focus was to complete the development of a Google Wave gadget or robot in a single weekend (starting at 9 PM Friday and finishing by 4PM on Sunday). After the demonstrations by each of the teams that finished, during dinner, all participants were invited to vote on the applications presented to pick some winners. The 1st place winner was a Wave gadget called “Videowave”, created by Sol Wu, Aaron Tong, and Nelson To.
The Videowave gadget allows real time video sharing and commenting in Wave. So how does this work and how does it translate to social media and music? You can start a wave that contains the videowave gadget and load a YouTube video. Say for example, you and your friends are big fans of Britney Spears or the Jonas Brothers and you are the 1st one to notice that a new Britney or Jonas Brothers video has been uploaded to YouTube. Being huge fans, you will of coarse want to share this with your friends. With Google Wave and the videowave gadget, you can invite your friends to watch the video together, all watching the video play at the same time and all able to chat and comment about what’s happening in the video, lyrics, dance moves, favorite parts etc. As you all chat, it’s all in real time with text everyone is typing appearing as it is typed. Since the YouTube video is new and more of your friends are joining the Wave, you’ll probably want to watch it a few more times.
At this time, Google Wave is only available to those who’ve applied for and received wave sandbox developer accounts. You can “sign up” now to hear more about Google Wave. It’s probably a good idea to get on the list now as I doubt Google will turn it on for 50 million new users simultaneously.
Google showed a preview of Wave at Google I/O last month. A few of my friends were able to attend the event, but I was only able to watch the video playback of the Google Wave rollout. The key takeaway I would describe for the technology is “Real Time”. Real time chat; it displays as you type (no waiting to type into a chat window and hot ‘enter’). Real time spelling correction is context sensitive. If you can integrate Google Voice into the Google Wave framework, you’d have a powerful Unified Communications platform, but that would be the topic of another blog on another site entirely. Google rolled out the technology partly to encourage developers to begin creating gadgets and robots. A gadget is a program application similar to a facebook application. A music player or video player would be good examples of gadgets. A robot could be an automated conversation participant (like a character in a game).
So how will Google Wave impact the way we socialize around Music? To hypothesize around the possibilities, focus on ‘real time’. I would imagine that someone will create an internet radio or internet video widget that would allow real time chat among the listening audience. Imagine a fan page for a popular artist with over a million fans pre-announcing the release of a new single exclusively on a Google Wave-powered fan page? Do you think this would instantly draw the fan base over to a waves-powered social media site? I do. This would be a very good test of the platform’s scalability. Imagine a hundred thousand fans furiously typing away “Love the new song!” and similar messages all at the same time. Will it scale? It likely will. Google’s app engine technology allows for multiple processors in a cloud computing environment.
Google Wave could also be a viable platform for social media game development. So take the previous example and take it a step further adding some robots. Imagine playing a virtual reality game that you 1st must reach the end of the game to play the newest music video release of your favorite recording artist. Follow the clues. What was the lyric from the 2nd song in the 1st album that opens that the door to the final stage of the game? Imagine the buzz created on the social media web site(s) that will have fans teaming up to solve the problem. What? The game new I was playing from the SF bay area and I just stumbled across two tickets to the next concert in my area? Fans chasing Avatars of the recording artists for a free poster? The possibilities are endless. Could Google Wave be the basis of a social media and gaming platform that could seriously undo MySpace and possibly even Facebook? The potential is there. It will be very interesting to watch the Google Wave story unfold. It could significantly change the way fans socialize around music on the internet.
I attended a Facebook Developer Garage event in SF a month ago. Andreas Weigend, former Chief Scientist of Amazon.com, articulates a PHAME methodology for optimizing results from social data:
Problem -> Hypothesis -> Action -> Metrics -> Experiments
This would be an excellent model to apply to:
So for example, for promoting an artist or a band, one might utilize the PHAME model to engage in a number of marketing activities. For example, one “P” problem might be ‘how to bring new fans to our myspace site and get more plays’. An “H” Hypothesis might be ‘Using a Myspace friend add automation tool could be an effective and not too costly way to get new fans’. “A” Action might be “Google search on ‘Myspace friend automation’ and select one of these tools to purchase and use (sparingly … so as to not overdo it with ‘friend adds per day’). “M” Metrics – track friends requests resulting in acceptance vs total requests, track number of song plays before and after. Track increase in song purchases (if applicable). “E” Experiment: What are the results like? Any new ideas surface from results so far. Can we add more fan requests per day without getting banned? Should we drop back on friend requests per day? Checking out some of the new fans playlists, is there a similarity in their musical taste to our songs? Are there features or adjustments in the automation tool we have not fully explored that might make a difference?
The point is that there is no ‘set in stone rule’ that is going to magically work for everyone. In fact, some musicians might be turned off by the idea of using an automation tool as just ‘being another spammer’. Or maybe your band gigs and tours enough that you are doing fine with building a fan base by more traditional means. You may have your own PHAME experiments to do (YouTube Video? Last.FM ? Use crowd source funding for next recording session using http://www.sellaband.com/ ?)
What should you try next? There may be many ideas. Start with one. Use the PHAME model. Measure results and tweak the experiment if needed. Have some fun doing it.
I just discovered UserVoice and their great feature suggestion/survey tool. I set up a free account to try it out to have readers suggest and vote on blog topics for Social Media Marketing in Music (this blog). You can find the link both in this post (below) and always find it from the right hand side navigation column directly under the author’s picture.
Suggest or vote on future topics
In order to tempt you into checking out the topic request survey, I’ve pre-populated it with a few topics I’ve been considering (but feel free to add your own suggestions):
Compare the new HD video services out there
YouTube now offers HD formats but YouTube is not the only game in town. What are the players? How do you embed a video in a blog, webpage , Facebook, or MySpace?
Creating a Musican/Band webpage on Ning
4000 new web sites are being created every day on Ning by ‘regular folks’ . It isn’t that hard to make a page … and it’s free.
http://bit.ly/16xW1
… and their Music Player can be embedded in both MySpace and Facebook
http://bit.ly/mnKuH
Music sites (the new ones)
http://mashable.com/2007/11/08/tools-independent-musician/
For this blog, I’d spend some time using Google trends to see which ones are registering traffic.
Digital Music startups
Check this list: http://musically.com/blog/2008/12/17/200-digital-music-startups-from-2008/
Any of these interest you ? If yes, don’t just vote for this topic… but rather create a “new idea” in this forum with this tool and suggest the one that interests you as a “New idea”… more
Mixcloud player
http://bit.ly/zg4He
I met Mixcloud founder at a Facebook Garage event. He offered some free user account codes.
Jamzee – create a playlist of YouTube videos
Jamzee is a service that allows you to create a playlist of YouTube videos that you can share on other websites like your own blog or MySpace.
How musicians/bands can use twitter … and why
By adding a twitter feed from this blog, I’m now getting views from other followers tweets. Might this work for you?
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Reminder, please don’t comment here, but rather use the survey tool to vote or add your topic preferences.
You are a musician. Why should you care about SEO? Good question.
If you don’t have a web page or a blog yet, bookmark this page and come back when you do.
What is SEO? SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. The goal is to make your web page or blog appear higher up in the list when someone does an Internet search.
Assuming you are out in the world playing your music and someone likes what they hear and happens to vaguely remember your name (or your band’s name), they may try and look you up and find you. Will you show up on the 1st page of an Internet search and show up near the top?
First of all, your band name (or in some cases your name) is your brand. It should be easy to remember and easy to spell. Search engines can probably help. If a website is getting enough hits and I miss spell the search term, Google will usually help with a “Did you mean <search term spelled correctly goes here> “
I took the DM1 (Digital Music 1) class at Mission College in 2008 to learn digital recording basics. For our final project we recorded a music video. I really liked the music of the duo we recorded and wanted to look them up to see where they might be playing locally. Their name is “The Pernikoff Brothers“. In fact, as I’m writing this I’m listening to ”New Man” being played back as a HQ YouTube video. Great song, great musicians, well recorded, a pleasure to listen to. I was there in the class when we recorded this and helped set up microphones for the session. When I went to look them up a few weeks later, I had difficulty finding them. I was trying “Pernakov Brothers” and “Pernikov Brothers” with no luck. This was a few months ago. Now when I type in my miss spelled version of their name, I immediately come up with a link to their website, so Google can help all on it’s own if your site is getting enough hits and fans choose the link that gets you to their site.
However, if your name is hard to spell or is hard to remember, you do not necessarily need to re-brand and change your name. All you really need is to have a song, YouTube video, or CD name that is unique and really easy to remember and your new fans can probably find you this way. This does not always work though. Again, Google will likely rout you to sites with the most traffic. For example, when I search on “YouTube New Man” to try and locate the Pernikoff Brothers YouTube video “New Man” , I’m finding numerous videos by people with the last name “Newman”. So in this case, Google’s spelling algorythm is misdirecting me elswhere to videos with numerous plays.
In terms of this blog, searching on “Social Media Marketing Music” did not intially display links to this blog. What really helped get me to a “page 1″ search result from a Google search was having my blog listed at blogcatalog. If you look over at the right hand side of my blog column (below the Tags), you will see several blog cataloging sites I have linked to. The effort expended to figure out how to do this is well worth it. Most of my site hits now come from blogcatalog where one reader who liked my blog gave it a “5 star” rating. My blogcatalog listing shows up in a ”page 1″ search result from a Google search now. Do I care that my actual website does not show up in the 1st page in Google search? No. People are finding me through the blogcatalog link and that’s what matters. People are finding me.
I should add that my previous post “Bigfoot’s Lookin’ for Bernie” gives my blog a top Google rank on the search word combinations “Bigfoot Bernie”, “Bigfoot Madoff” and “Leaf Trombone Bigfoot” (… at least this is true for today). Again, unique words in a song title could give you similar results in fans locating one of your songs.
I won’t go into great detail about how to do SEO. There are numerous resources available. I would recommend looking at some of the “free sample lessons” available from the Lynda.com course Search Engine Optimization with Richard Jenkins. There is enough free playback content here to give you the basic idea of what SEO is about. Playing the topic “White Hat SEO”, Richard highlights some very usefull authority sites on the subject.
I’ll close this post with a video embed of “New Man” by the Pernikoff Brothers. Enjoy.
A while back I wrote a blog entry titled “Can you get your song on someone else’s blog?”. Obviously, having a YouTube video that has viral properties that get lots of links from friends on social media networks like Facebook could help do that. That’s how I discovered the song “Here comes another Bubble” by the Richter Scales in the first place. But probably even more important than getting on someone else’s blog would be to have a video that has viral properties.
What would make a music video viral?
1. Humor – everyone likes sharing a video that makes them laugh.
2. Outrageous – although sometimes distasteful (and hopefully faked or simulated) a headline like OZZY BITES HEAD OFF BAT! will grab a lot of attention.
3. High Tech/ Novelty – iPhone App by Smule: Ocarina [Stairway] video (YouTube) has over 500,000 plays and a 4 ½ star rating.
So if you are an unknown band or recording artist looking for new fans, how can you capitalize on ideas like these to get your YouTube video seen and heard?
Humor
Pick something topical and newsworthy and keep it short. If you have a gift for comedic writing and can turn around a song in 1 or 2 days, imagine the number of plays you could get if Jon Stewart played your song on The Daily Show. That should be your goal. How you will get your song noticed and chosen, I don’t know. Surely Jon Stewart has writers and producers. Check Wikipedia. However, even if your song is not picked to be featured on the Daily Show, if it really makes people laugh, surely it has the potential to spread virally as a YouTube video. Post it to YouTube and show it to some Facebook friends. If it’s funny, your friends will share it with other friends. They will share it with their friends… and so on. Keep in mind, producing a video is not easy. If you have a great song and shoddy video production, it will fall flat. Use stills. Use PowerPoint. Think “How would Ken Burns shoot this”? Look at the Video by the Richter Scales I featured in my post “Can you get your song on someone else’s blog?”
Notice the credits at the end ? The last thing you want is to create a truly viral video that you have to pull because of copyright infringement or legal issues.
Outrageous
The now defunct Weekly World News had a very long run as a supermarket tabloid and should be your inspiration if you need to create a headline grabbing song title. Buy Bat Boy Lives!: The WEEKLY WORLD NEWS Guide to Politics, Culture, Celebrities, Alien Abductions, and the Mutant Freaks that Shape Our World (Paperback) on Amazon as your resource. Nothing more needs to be said. Consider this your “bible” for outrageous headlines or, in this case, song titles.
High Tech/ Novelty
If you can associate your song with the latest high tech buzz related to Music, you could quite easily reach new fans with a YouTube video. Certainly Smule will be coming up with other instruments that will even surpass their success with the Ocarina iPhone app. See if you can sign up be a Smule Beta tester (if you and your band mates own an iPhone or iPod touch). You can sign up for the Beta trial of “Leaf Trombone”. Read the agreement, though. You have to promise not to release your YouTube video until Smule releases the product. Would one of your songs benefit from a horn section? Maybe a “Leaf Trombone” horn section is your answer.
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Here is an idea for a song and YouTube video that combines all of the above…
Song title:”Bigfoot’s lookin’ for Bernie”
Storyboard: Bigfoot comes out of hiding to find Bernie Madoff after losing most of his savings. Bernie Madoff escapes to the woods and “Bernie Madoff sightings” become the stuff of legend and tabloid news for a few months. Bigfoot ends up managing a successful (and legitimately run) Hedge fund. Bernie eventually gets caught and goes to jail. Since Bigfoot makes a fortune as a hedge fund manager and no longer has hard feelings, Bigfoot visits Bernie in jail. The song ends with an iPhone Leaf Trombone duet played by Bigfoot and Bernie.
If you choose to write this song and create the YouTube video, please include me in your song credits. After all, I just came up with the idea. Don’t forget to show a link to your band’s website in your video. After all, that is the whole point of doing all this work … getting fame, new fans, and brand awareness for your band. If it’s good, who knows, maybe you could get it played on The Daily Show.
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May 2, 2009 Update:
A friend advised me of this useful URL if anyone was seriously considering adding Bigfoot” to thier music video. http://www.livingsasquatch.com/
