Category Archives: long tail

Sam Phillips goes subscription route with fans

By this fall, singer-songwriter Sam Phillips will have released five EPs and a full-length studio album.  She’s taken the step of making her music available through The Long Play, a subscription-only service on her website that gives members access to … Continue reading

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As Music Mags Fall, Pitchfork Is Booming

from Dirk Smillie, Forbes 07.07.09 The Big Four of music publishing–Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin, Vibe–became the Big Two this year. Industry watchers weren’t surprised to see the demise of 8-year-old Blender, whose ad pages dropped 31% last year. The death … Continue reading

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Broken Guitar = 3 Million YouTube Views

Reckless handling by United Airlines motivated Halifax-based musician Dave Carroll to pen “United Breaks Guitars,” a track that has already garnered 3 million views on YouTube. Good way to turn misfortune into career-enhancing viral marketing.

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Developers push limits of games and distribution

Edited article from Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Not every video game creator was musing about how to sell more hardware or craft more realistic virtual weaponry at the Game Developers Conference, the annual convention of game designers, programmers and … Continue reading

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Google Books to have paid content model – hooray!

Books are starting to take off in digital form. Electronic book readers are shifting from novelty item to household item; touch-screen smartphones have already gone from trendy to ubiquitous. And Google is positioning itself as a reseller of literary products … Continue reading

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Latest Marketing Marriage: Parton+Cracker Barrel = Rocking Chair

Where once musicians viewed being attached to an advertiser as “selling out”, leading artists now routinely strike major deals with consumer brands. Beyonce doing CoverGirl ads, for example. Now Dolly Parton has announced a branding partnership with Cracker Barrel, the … Continue reading

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YouTube Music Videos

The music video is enjoying renewed attention, thanks largely to YouTube. Where once music videos were confined to MuchMusic, MTV, VH1, and BET and treated as filler between TV ads, now music fans call the shots online, and the music … Continue reading

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Apple drops DRM

MacWorld San Francisco Apple will begin selling song downloads from all four major music companies without the anticopying measures that have been part of its iTunes store since it opened in 2003. It will also move away from its insistence … Continue reading

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World of Goo – Success in Indie Video Game development

Digital distribution platforms, a boon for indie music artists, is also impacting indie game developers, allowing innovative and quirky games to be developed and released at low cost. The Steam platform, Wiiware and other download variants are allowing games like … Continue reading

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YouTube videos are pulling in serious money

By Brian Stelter, International Herald Tribune Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living. One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to … Continue reading

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Anderson’s Long Tail Theory Challenged

Chris Anderson helped define initial digital media thinking with his “Long Tail” theory, a theory that argued that the internet helps distribute attention across a wider range of content beyond highly financed blockbusters and major artists. The thinking was that … Continue reading

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iLike and TuneCore Join Forces to Help Indie Artists Promote & Sell Music

SEATTLE & BROOKLYN, N.Y., Oct 20, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) iLike, the leading social music discovery service, and TuneCore, the leading digital music distribution service, today kicked off a joint effort to help independent artists make money and get discovered, effectively … Continue reading

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eMusic Catalog Crosses Four Million

The evolution of music catalogs from physical to digital is mostly over: a few name bands like AC/DC, Kid Rock, and Garth Brooks are still holding out to commercially release their catalogs in digital format (although all their music has … Continue reading

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iLike Opens Full-Length Streams, Net-Targeted Concert Listings

From Digital Music News iLike came out swinging this morning with a number of site enhancements, including the integration of full-length streaming and an innovative concert listing service. The song playback option activates an earlier-announced deal with Rhapsody, though a … Continue reading

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Access the entire NAXOS catalogue for $19.95/year

For classical music lovers, this is a sensational idea. For $19.95 A YEAR, you have full access to the entire NAXOS catalogue (at www.naxos.com), which arguably is the world’s largest classical music label. While Naxos doesn’t have the star power … Continue reading

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