Blog: Hypebot

Where The Music Industry Thinks Out Loud Bobby Owsinski : The Science Of Email Timing Mark Doyon : Hear-Like-Buy: Why Spotify Is Marketing, Not Commerce Frank Woodworth : Unbundling [...]

It's Grammy Weekend in LA, but the new music industry action is already shifting northward as SF Music Hack Day begins its marathon followed by SF Music Tech next week. Hypebot's Hisham Dahud will be there. Be sure to say hello and share what you're working on. Remember iLike? The Social Music Network Officially Died This Week Spotify's Ek On Royalties , Social [...]

This interview by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek originally appeared on GRAMMY.com . Ek is keynoting the GRAMMY Foundation's Entertainment Law Initiative Luncheon & Scholarship Presentation today. For more information on the GRAMMY Foundation, visit vwww.grammyfoundation.org . The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards airs live on Sunday, Feb. 12 on CBS. Evolver.fm: Can you give us a preview of what you intend to discuss today at the luncheon? [...]

The Civil Wars have previously discussed marketing with free music and the importance of fans sharing the duo's music with their friends. However, I had not heard their take on piracy as a form of marketing prior to E.D. Kain's interview with The Civil Wars for Forbes. It's yet another example of the growing body of evidence that artists are finding ways to benefit from piracy when they approach it as another form of music sharing and discovery. E.D. Kain says he first found [...]

Guest post by Andy Cush of Evolver.fm. Vincent Morisse t bills himself as a "web-friendly" director , which is a fitting distinction. Where most films progress in a linear fashion, Morisset takes things a step further, or maybe sideways. Through simple interactions like scrolling a mouse across a computer screen, or complicated ones like dancing in front of a webcam, Morisset's films ask the audience to participate in an unfolding narrative. His approach is tailor-made for web 2.0. Just as Facebook [...]

Members of Sister Sledge along with a songwriter and Oscar-nominated actress have filed a class action suit against Warner Music Group alleging that Warner has cheated the group, and others, out of millions of dollars in royalties due to a an improper calculation of revenue of digital track sales. This has been an ongoing war between artist and labels started by Eminem who's publisher claimed a similar allegation (and won in court), that the artist was due royalties for digital 'licenses' rather than digital 'sales', the [...]

Guest post by Michael Brandvold of Michael Brandvold Marketing . I came across this on Bravewords.com this morning: Starting at roughly 8:00am EST on Thursday, February 2nd, VAN HALEN's new album A Different Kind Of Truth will reportedly be available via the Australian iTunes store (12:00 midnight on February 3rd Sydney time). Go to www.apple.com/au/itunes for more information. A Different Kind Of Truth, will be released in North America by Interscope Records on February 7th. Audio samples from the entire [...]

VEVO , the music video powerhouse owned primarily by Universal and Sony and including content from EMI, would seem to be the last company to knowingly stream pirated video at a major event. But that's exactly what they did at their recent Sundance party and the NFL 's Patriots vs Ravens playoff game. The feed "had apparently been accessed via a site called Frontrow.tv," according to TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid , who was at the event. "...So I went to the [...]

This week I spoke with Tom Brophy , Founder and CEO of Raditaz, a mobile and web-based radio service with a particularly interesting location-based aspect. Raditaz offers the option of creating your own station and listening to stations created by others along with some preprogrammed options. Given that streaming music and the radio metaphor have been explored quite a bit, I found the location elements of special interest. Though, in all honesty, I have not been particularly drawn to location-based check-in systems and the like. [...]

Veteran music and entertainment industry executive Brandon "Randy" Phillips has signed a new five year contract to remain the President & CEO of AEG Live , the world's second largest concert promotion company after Live Nation . Phillips has held this post with since joining the company in February, 2002. Under Mr. Phillips leadership, AEG Live has grown to be the second largest live entertainment, concert and promotional organization globally while expanding to include fifteen regional and international offices as well as stand-alone divisions devoted to touring, festivals, exhibitions, broadcast, merchandise and [...]

Google will begin manufacturing its own home music system, according to the New York Times . It's part of a broader move to create move beyond the desktop and create a closed eco-system much like Apple (iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac) and more recently Amazon (Kindle). MegaUpload takedown didn't slow pirate downloads, just moved them offshore. ( IT World ) Downloads to U.S. users coming across longer distances, more expensive link. Slacker has added Steve Wadsworth, a former senior executive at Walt Disney, to it's Board of Directors. [...]

On Thursday morning President Barack Obama shared his Spotify playlist on Twitter. It covers all the music and political bases from Ray LaMontagne to No Doubt and Electric Light Orchestra to Zach Brown. Listen to President Barack Obama's Spotify playlist here: http://open.spotify.com/user/b arackobama/playlist/6J9kgSvipj imfDLYTsCOAv

This guest post is by Bob Baker and Kendra Wright of www.TheBuzzFactor.com Every artist should be using online video as part of their promotional toolkit. That means you must set up a YouTube account (also known as a "channel") if you haven't done so already. And once in place, your channel must feature new videos on a regular basis. Why? Because video allows you to connect with fans and potential fans in ways that other forms of media can't [...]

Warner Music Group this morning reported that losses were up $26 million in their first fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2011. Revenue in Q1 was flat, inching up from $778 million a year ago to $779 million. Digital revenue did go up 17% to $219 million and Michael Buble' sold 6 million units at Christmas, but that was not enough to cover 44% operating income increases of $39 million. The company attributed the $26 million net loss to "the impact of an increase in interest expense, to $57 million from $47 million, related to the July [...]

TasteMakerX has raised $1.8 Million from an A list group of investors for a mobile app mobile app that enables fans to discover artists, trends and inspiration; compete against other tastemakers; and share experiences through geo-tagging, commentary and photo sharing." The app is expected to launch at SXSW. Investors in this round include Guggenheim Partners (Billboard, C3, Variety Magazine), Baseline Ventures (Task Rabbit, Instagram), True Ventures (Schematic Labs, Automattic), AOL Ventures (bit.ly, Solve Media) [...]

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As we reported , music social network iLike was shut down on Tuesday with the url re-directed to MySpace . Just two and a half years earlier, iLike had 60 million registered users, was the # music app on Facebook and had just been bought by MySpace and Parent NewsCorp. Now Hadi Partovi, who co-founded and ran iLike with his twin brother, Ali Partovi is peaking out. "It's sad to see a social music site that once boasted 60 million users [...]

I spoke yesterday with the founders of Drip.fm, the platform that's powering Stones Throw Records' new digital subscription service . Sam Valenti IV , who founded Ghostly International , and Miguel Senquiz , Ghostly's head of product development and digital strategy, created Drip.fm as music fans who run their own label. Now they're gradually opening Drip.fm to other labels to feed superfans with an ongoing stream of digital releases. Sam Valenti IV [...]

Google Music has put most Grammy albums for sale at $3.99 and tracks for $.59. Most are a lost leaders for Google designed to drive traffic to their fledgling service, but are priced above the $3.49 that Billboard now requires for chart eligibility. TuneCore's new publishing venture has signed 1,400 songwriters and over 30,000 compositions in the past 10 weeks. The protests against The Grammys' cutting categories continues with a concert and more. ( GrammyWatch ) [...]

Willis Earl Beal didn't set out to be an Internet celebrity but he's in the process of becoming one though the next few months seem focused on making him an offline star as well. As someone who might be pigeonholed an outsider artist, I have to say I'm impressed by the sensitive and insightful treatment of the music publications that are currently featuring this powerful young singer online. The story of how he was initially discovered via fliers he posted in Chicago and Albuquerque leading to media coverage that then led to an [...]