Adele’s 21 was the biggest album of 2011, hitting the top spot in dozens of countries and garnering six Grammy nominations in November. Her latest single, Someone Like You, is playing everywhere. Everywhere except Spotify.

Adele is among a vanguard of artists including Coldplay, The Black Keys, and Tom Waits who have opted not to make their latest albums available on streaming-music services like Rdio, Mog, and Spotify, where users pay a monthly fee of $5 to $10 to listen to as much music as they want, or listen for free with occasional advertisements. Artists earn money from such services every time their songs are played, but some believe the revenue doesn’t match what they’d get from outright sales.

“I am very concerned,” says Dave Holmes, Coldplay’s manager. “Spotify competes with download stores” like iTunes, he says. He plans to keep the album released on Oct. 24, Mylo Xyloto, available only as a purchase for several months. “Like all of Coldplay’s other titles, the new album will be on [Spotify] eventually,” he says. In effect, Holmes and like-minded managers are mimicking the so-called windowing practice pioneered by Hollywood. Movie studios usually stagger the release of films, first to theaters, then on DVD, and later on cable channels and streaming sites like Netflix (NFLX). That strategy maximizes revenue for movie and TV producers, says Needham analyst Laura Martin, but could be a problem for streaming sites if the practice becomes widespread in music. “It certainly hurts Spotify’s perceived value if the consumer frequently searches for songs that aren’t there, even if that represents a small fraction of titles,” she says.

It’s also creating headaches for music-industry executives won over by Spotify since its U.S. debut in July. Universal Music Group (VIV:FP), Sony Music Entertainment (SNE), Warner Music Group, and EMI Group, the four biggest record companies, took large advance payments from, and equity stakes in, Spotify before its U.S. launch. Yet labels can’t force their biggest acts to support the site, says Ted Cohen, a former EMI digital chief. Some musicians have clauses in their contracts that give them control over digital distribution. Others just tend to get their way. “If Lady Gaga doesn’t want her latest album on Spotify, her label will listen or she may get a creative flu or miss certain promotional appearances,” says Cohen, who now advises music-focused technology startups. “A recording artist can be petulant.”

Spotify’s supporters turn to data to defend the service. Streaming services are already the recording industry’s second-largest source of revenue after iTunes, and London-based Spotify says it paid about $150 million to rights-holders in 2011, compared with $55 million a year earlier. For every album like Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto, which manager Holmes contends would have sold fewer copies had it also been available on Spotify when it was released, there are many more albums like Drake’s Take Care, which was available on Spotify and still went platinum in five weeks. Even Coldplay’s label is enthusiastic: “Services such as Spotify are currently generating more revenue per user to EMI and our artists than the average digital music consumer generated in a world without these services,” says Mark Piibe, head of business development for EMI. The average iTunes customer spends about $60 a year, according to three senior music executives who asked for anonymity because the figures aren’t public, while a subscriber to Spotify’s top tier of service spends twice as much. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment.

Scooter Braun, the manager for teen sensation Justin Bieber, says the backlash-in-the-making may simply be the product of technophobia. “There were a bunch of artists who wouldn’t sell music on iTunes when that first started, and now it’s standard,” he says. “The same thing will happen with Spotify.”

The bottom line: Though streaming is the record industry’s second-biggest source of revenue, some stars withhold their music in hopes of selling more.

Courtesy BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/spotify-doesnt-sound-so-great-to-some-artists-01052012.html

London, 7th December – Webdoc (www.webdoc.com), the most expressive way to share your passions online, launched today. Enabling anyone to grab content from across the web and express themselves in a moment, Webdoc represents the next evolution of online communication. It’s as quick and easy as a tweet, but as rich as a web page.

Regardless of technical ability, it’s effortless to mix photos, audio, video, text, drawings and more to create instant Webdocs around your interests, and share them with friends. Your Webdoc can be made even more fun and creative by adding apps from Webdoc’s app store. The first app store for online expression, it enables users to include interactive content from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SoundCloud, as well as games, polls, “This Or That” comparisons and more, in their creations.

Stelio Tzonis, Webdoc CEO and co-founder, said: “Webdoc aims to democratize the web by enabling anyone to express themselves online in an easy, rich, interactive way. You use Webdoc when a status update isn’t enough to tell your story, but maintaining a blog is too much hassle. We think it’s pretty magical, and will make communicating online even more fun and expressive.”

Powered by HTML5, Webdoc inspires high levels of engagement and creativity from users. As an example, Universal Music’s Webdoc campaign for Nirvana generated a stream of richly expressive replies from participants who were encouraged to share their memories of the band, with users mixing their own personal thoughts and digital sketches with video, audio and text content of Nirvana from across the web.

Media companies, brands, artists and record labels are already seeing the potential of Webdoc to engage their audiences in new ways:

- The Guardian have been using Webdoc on their Guardian Music Tumblr

- Nickelodeon created a Webdoc for the Facebook page of the character Fred Figglehorn

- Playboy ran a “Pose For Playboy” campaign through Webdoc

- Universal Music encouraged Nirvana fans to share their memories of the band on Facebook using Webdoc

- EMI Music is using Webdoc for the UK’s first ever national Pink Floyd treasure hunt

Other early adopters include NME.COM, PIAS, Idolos Brazil, Annoying Orange, and Jamiroquai. To learn more, please go to:

www.webdoc.com/discover.

Bertrand Bodson, EMI Music’s SVP Global Digital Marketing, said:

“Webdoc were a very deserving winner of the last Music Techpitch event which we were very happy to host at EMI. It’s a great platform which offers flexible and creative tools to help our artists engage and interact with their fans. Our first project with them for Pink Floyd is off to a strong start and we’ve got some really interesting ideas for how we can work together going forward.”

Adam Boult, Community Coordinator for Guardian Music, said: “Webdoc is a tremendously versatile tool, and very easy to use. We’ll definitely be using it more in the future.”

Luke Lewis, NME.COM Editor, said: “I’m a big Webdoc fan – it gives us a new way to present and structure our content, and equips our users with fun tools to express their passion for the bands they love.”

Notes to Editors:

Press kit (screenshots, logos, etc) available at: http://www.webdoc.com/presskit

About Webdoc

Enabling people to express themselves in a richer, more interactive way than traditional social networks, Webdoc is the next evolution of online communication. Webdoc users can start expressive conversations quickly and easily by pulling in rich content – video, audio, photos, and more – from across the web, as well as unique Webdoc Apps, to create instant shareable pages around their passions and interests.

Webdoc was founded in 2009 by Stelio Tzonis, Cyril Pavillard, Mathieu Fivaz, Alexandre Tzonis, Vincent Borel, and has offices in Lausanne, London and San Francisco.

For more information, contact:

Christian Ward
Head of Digital Strategy
Email: christianw@claritycomms.com
Twitter: christianward
Mobile: +44 (0)7764 254 011

Hoping to attract more users and keep them enthralled with its digital music service, Spotify has partnered with other Web and media companies such as Rolling Stone magazine, Songkick and TuneWiki to juice up its service with articles, reviews, recommendations, lyrics and other content.

Rolling Stone, for example, will integrate its year-end magazine issue with Spotify’s service so readers can instantly play most, if not all, of the songs featured in the articles. The integration will involve the magazine’s future issues as well.

“People used to take that issue with them to Amoeba Records to buy the albums,” said Bill Crandall, head of digital content for Rolling Stone during Spotify’s packed news conference in New York on Wednesday to announce its new partnerships. “Now we can instantly get that music to people through Spotify with a click.”

Spotify, which lets users stream music online and on mobile devices, is seeking more than just editorial content to accompany the 15 million songs it has available to listeners. In the coming weeks, it will begin rolling out a variety of music-related applications. One will allow users to purchase concert tickets for the band they’re listening to via Songkick, which lists upcoming concerts by location.

“The average American goes to fewer than two concerts a year,” said Songkick Chief Executive Ian Hogarth. “This will help us get people out to see more live music by letting us tap into the 10 million people who are actively listening to music on Spotify.”

An application from TuneWiki, a site that offers lyrics, will allow listeners to sync them up as songs are streamed on Spotify. Moodagent, a service that makes music recommendations, would generate playlists.

“Spotify wants to keep you engaged in their service for as long as humanly possible,” said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with Digital World Research.

Spotify, a Swedish company that has gained more than 2 million users in the U.S. since launching here in July, is looking to boost that figure by making the service easier to dive into, as well as keep hard-core music fans engaged by giving them more ways to unearth new and obscure songs, said Ted Cohen, president of digital media consulting firm TAG Strategic.

Getting additional visitors is critical to Spotify’s business, which relies on hooking people with its free service and persuading some to spring for its premium options. Those include a $4.99-a-month plan for an advertising-free service and a $9.99 monthly package that streams music to mobile devices.

Ken Parks, the head of Spotify’s U.S. operations, said enlisting outside developers lets the company introduce new features to its service without having to create them in-house.

“Some of our users want an editorial voice,” Parks said. “We don’t do that. But Rolling Stone does. Our users want an easier way to build playlists. Moodagent does that better than we can ourselves. At the same time, we bring value to our partners by providing them with the music to go with their services.”

Read more at LA Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/11/spotify-invites-other-web-and-media-companies-to-come-play.html

By Chris Marlowe

BlueFrog and Tag Strategic have announced a joint venture to create a comprehensive digital consultancy, blueFrog Tag, designed to help international companies enter blueFrog’s Indian/Asian home markets and for Indian companies to branch out into global markets.

Kicking off the new relationship, the first blueFrog Tag Salon was held in Mumbai and sponsored by MIDEM. Tag Strategic Salons bring industry leaders, partners and associates together in a setting conducive to discussion and networking, and so far have been held in cities including Los Angeles, London, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin.

The blueFrog Tag Salon took place at the blueFrog facilities, which comprises a live music venue, recording studio, independent record label, management services and other music-related activities in the redeveloped mill district of Mumbai, India.

DMW Article: http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/11/21/tag-strategic-and-bluefrog-form-joint-venture

MUMBAI: After a long time Google has finally got into the online music business by launching a service. However if it is to make a mark in Indian then it will have to adapt to a market that offers diversity. There is a fragmentation of music content ownership here. There is a long tail of content owners. At the same time search, social and curated functions have to be combined for any online music service to succeed.

This was point that came out during a session at Nokia Music Connects Summit called Internet/Mobile Radio and Streaming Services. The moderator was Tag Strategic managing partner Ted Cohen. The panelists were The Orchard VP, GM Prashant Bahadur, EMI Music India MD T Suresh, music composer Raju Singh, Spice Digital head – business development and alliances ShehzadAzad, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment COO – Consumer Business and Allied Services Siddhartha Roy, Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo and Aircel head Vas Pradeep Rao.

Maroo noted the diversity challenge for overseas players looking to enter the music space here. At the same time it is easier to experiment now than it was four years ago. Today content owners with a large library would look at online services in an open way and try to figure out where it might be two to four years down the road.

ShehzadAzad noted the fact that India is a price sensitive market. According to him it took Android five years to reach critical mass here. The iPhone has not impacted India due to the price.

Bahadur noted that the challenge for international online music services looking at India is not licensing. It is about consumer experience. iTunes experience is similar in most markets apart from maybe Japan. If it wants to make an impact in India then it will have to change its approach from the point of view of genre, language perspective.

Orchard is a digital distributor of music and he says that transparency is one of the things he looks at in doing deals and looking at business models. Transparency makes it easier to license ones catalogue. His aim is not to capture a percentage of the revenue pie but to grow it. He also noted that searchability in streaming helps niche music. If you are subscribing for five bucks then it doesn’t cost much to experiment. The problem is that search engine functionality is poor in many online music streaming services. That is because they are not as data driven as Google. The social nature of a service can also help drive revenue and business. Recommendation is another critical part of the business.

ShehzadAzad noted that his company has been running a music streaming service for five years now. With even a basic mobile phone one can access the service even if he/she is in a remoter area. The challenges are how to communicate to the last mile as well as falling Arpus. At the moment the restrictions in GSM means that the quality of a song is at time limited. His company has enabled search through SMS. 10 songs are sent to a customer who is searching for something. One just has to hit the access code. This enables ease of use which is important.

It was noted pull is the sustainable model. Streaming services will make content discovery easy. They can find the long tail content that they are looking for.

Roy noted that while smartphones are not there in India in the future an ecosystem will be there for smartphones at an entry level. Also as broadband penetration and levels grow for the PCA and tablet increased selection and depth of content is coming into play.
Singh noted that music streaming allows him to reach areas where his albums are not available. Services can also be used as a demo pad. ShehzadAzad added that for somebody like Singh a streaming service can be used as promotional tool at a regional level. His service offers interactivity which allows the composer to get feedback from consumers.

At the session it also emerged that while non film music is not as big as Bollywood, it has a sticky fan base. For non film music to succeed one needs a large repository of music in one place. This would allow for recommendations. It was noted that consumption is happening in tier two, three, four towns. There is network seeding happening but the infrastructure is not there to give enough bandwith. The situation is expected to change by 2014. The important thing is that when a consumer goes to a buy a mobile phone he/she expects to be able to consumer video and audio content. That was not the case a few years back. Maroo noted that video consumption is going up on the mobile. That is significant given the fact that music gets there first in terms of benefitting from the mobile.

IndianTelevision.com article: http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k11/nov/nov185.php

The first day of Billboard’s FutureSound Conference featured the “Visionary Showcase”:  five demonstrations from new startup companies, as well as new technologies from existing companies, offering a peek forward at the services, models and technologies that define the digital music landscape of the future. Moderated by Karen Allen of TAG Strategic, a digital music consultant group for startups on licensing, the Visionary Showcase also addressed artists directly.

Bckstgr

“Loyalty sucks,” said Justin Jarvinen, CEO of Bckstgr, yet consumers are a part of 18 loyalty programs on average.

Jarvinen proposed re-invigorating the loyalty-rewards space by uniting “big brands and big bands.” The founder of VerveLife said loyalty programs fail because the gifts stink, the rewards go to the one percent, there are too many programs, and they’re too heterogeneous. The average person has three to five rewards cards in their wallet.

Jarvinen also said loyalty programs are a $10 billion-a-year business and by 2015, there will be $200 billion in loyalty liabilities on corporate books.

Solving that problem, Bckstgr will launch “Fanpoints” in the first quarter of 2012, enabling people to earn points by engaging with a brand, then spend those points universally on hundreds of other brands.

“It’s a brand new revenue opportunity for music,” he said.

For example, Katy Perry fans can earn fan points by retweeting Katy’s tweets, then spend those Fanpoints on merch.

Tracktrack.it

Phil McCarty, founder of startup TrackTrack.it, said bands spend too much time using email, FTP, and companies like Yousendit to transfer music files.

“We’re trying to set up a situation where musicians can focus on making music rather than sending it around,” he said.

The company bundles track-sending features like watermarking and streaming and makes them available via smartphone app. The company will position itself as a leak-stopper with its security features. He said bands liken a leak to seeing their surprise party on YouTube before it’s scheduled to happen. “No one wants to have their surprise party put on YouTube,” he said.

When asked how TrackTrack.it could take on similar services like SoundCloud or companies like Yousendit – which can tack on features for musicians — McCarty said his company consists of musicians, giving them anedge over less specialized companies.

Rexly

The key to music discovery is recommending content to users without overwhelming them with choices – or at least that’s the philosophy of Rexly, a music service that provides social discovery andrecommendation by aggregating data across multiple platforms. Company CEO and co-founder Joel Resnicow spelled the concept out.

“Music is the ultimate paradox of choice,” Resnicow said. “Ninety percent of the time, people are listening to the same 10 percent of their music library.”

Nowadays people can listen to any song, any time, on any device. And though people tend to only trust a handful of their friends for recommendations, Resnicow said, most services connect users with many far people than necessary. To eliminate all that noise, Rexly only allows users six people whose taste they trust.

The service’s users can share theirlistening habits with as many people as they’d like, though: fromprivate feeds to a wide-open public viewing. And Rexly is presently looking to expand beyond just music, into film, books, television, and more.

“The next great disruption,” Resnicow said, is “a data problem, not an algorithm model.” And what’s most important, he stressed, is “getting good data.”

ThingLink

For his segment on the Visionary Showcase presentation, ThingLink CMO Neil Vineberg discussed how his company turns images into a platform for media. The more than 100 billion images floating around on the Web, he said, are a sort of untapped real estate.

Vineberg opened with an insightful observation about the evolution of record covers. “Album covers were once elaborate pieces of art,” he said.  “Now they’ve been shrunk down into something that needs to provide a lot of information, but not a lot of experience.”

To that end, ThingLink provides a wide range of interaction tools that effectively transform images such as cover art into navigationalsurfaces for search, commerce, and social connection. “ThingLink’s interactive images are viewable across all social and CMS platforms,” Vineberg explained, “and can be shared and embedded just about anywhere.”

The company’s tools are employed by brands, publishers and bloggers, to whom ThingLink uses its global click-through of more than 2.8% as a selling point. “We’re giving fans an opportunity to discover content on their own terms,” Vineberg said, and “to decide on how they want to interact with the content.”

Music Mastermind

Music Mastermind CEO and co-founder Matt Serletic unveiled a beta version of Zya, the company’s new cloud-based music creation and sharing platform, as part of the Visionary Showcase panel.

At first glance, Zya looks like a video game. But it actually functions more like a digital audio workstation, enabling users to create music hands-on. They can beatbox drum patterns with their voices,directly sing vocal melodies, or even simulate familiar hooks licensed frompublishers. Universal Music, Sony, EMI and others are already said to be onboard.

“Zya First Look” is presently available for all HP computers, netbooks and laptops sold in the United States.

Billboard article: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/billboard-futuresound-visionary-showcase-1005544122.story

Integrated music project blueFrog and digital entertainment consultancy firm TAG Strategic have joined hands for a comprehensive digital consultancy – blueFrog/TAG.
The joint venture will pool their collective expertise to benefit the media and entertainment industries in India and Asia. It is a partnership, claim both parties, aimed at helping international companies enter the Indian/Asian markets and Indian companies branch out into global markets.
The announcement was made at the country’s first TAG salon held at  the Mumbai blueFrog on Tuesday evening. TAG Strategic founder Ted Cohen said a series of blueFrog TAG salons and conferences would be held across the country in the coming days.
The first salon was attended by several representatives of music labels, entertainment companies, radio stations and others in the media sector and was marked by a lively discussion on the monetisation and future of music in the country, led by Cohen.

Original article here: http://www.soundbox.co.in/bluefrog-tag-launch-digital-consultancy/

blueFROG AND TAG STRATEGIC LAUNCH A JOINT VENTURE AND SALON SERIES IN INDIA

Mumbai, India, November 15, 2011 — blueFROG and TAG Strategic have joined to host India’s first of a series of TAG Salons (“the blueFROG TAG Salon”) and launch a global JV on Tuesday, November 15^th, 2011.

TAG Strategic Salons are synonymous with attracting some of the leading thinkers within the music, mobile, new media and the entertainment industry and have been held in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, and other cities. The Salons are an intimate gathering of friends – industry leaders, partners and associates – for a no-holds-barred session of chat, debate and networking.

The first blueFROG TAG Salon will be held on November 15, 2011 at the blueFROG venue in Mumbai and is being sponsored by MIDEM, the world’s largest music industry trade fair, held annually at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.  The discussions will be led by TAG Strategic founder Ted Cohen. Ted started his career at Warner Bros. Records, touring with Alice Cooper and others, and has provided career guidance to artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Prince and Van Halen.  During his tenure as head of digital at EMI Music, he was instrumental in crafting the licensing agreements upon which the Rhapsody subscription service and the iTunes Music Store were built.

Today blueFROG and TAG are also announcing a comprehensive digital consultancy, blueFROG TAG, which will pool their collective expertise to benefit the media and entertainment industries in India and Asia. It is a partnership aimed at helping international companies enter the Indian/Asian markets and Indian companies branch out into global markets.

Contact:

Deborah Sass
VP Business Development, TAG Strategic
deborah@tagstrategic.com

#           #            #

ABOUT TAG STRATEGIC

TAG Strategic is a digital entertainment consulting firm, providing expert strategy, market intelligence, product ideation, business modeling and business development services to multinational companies and select emerging businesses. TAG accelerates business development for its clients and delivers market leadership and sustainable, defensible advantage in the dynamic and rapidly evolving global marketplace.

TAG executives routinely speak at industry trade shows, conferences and events, as well as holding relevant board positions and chairing various symposiums. TAG is actively sought out to provide its advice, counsel and services to both emerging start-ups and multinational media corporations. www.tagstrategic.com

ABOUT blueFROG

blueFROG is a revolutionary integrated music project in India. It is the country’s premiere live music performance club, music consultancy service, and an independent artist promotion, licensing and distribution agency.

In an era where the music business is faltering, blueFROG has taken an alternate approach and built an integrated music platform, at the core of which is the discovery of great music. The club forms the fulcrum of this strategy,consistently creating great experiences through fantastic music, service, design, food and drink. It serves as the seeding post, infecting music lovers one concert at a time, influencing music tastes and developing a vibrant platform for musicians and music afficiandos.
It is for these great experiences that blueFROG has been named one of the top ten music venues in the world by The Independent UK, and one of Mumbai’s game changers by Timeout. Great live musicians such as Richard Bona, Angelique Kidjo, and John McLaughlin, as well as electronic music giants Armin Van Buuren, Skazi, and Infected Mushroom have performed on the blueFROG stage and are big supporters of the venue. www.bluefrog.co.in

In collaboration with Export Music Sweden arranged this week TAG Salon – An intimate gathering of like-minded people at Nalen in Stockholm. Under the direction of the promoter and music industry guru Ted Cohen from the USA discussed the thirty specially invited representatives of the Swedish music industry, among other things Apple, Spotify and the digital revolution in general.

Both the Swedish local issues and problems that the global developments in the digital entertainment business was on the agenda when Ted Cohen, founder of TAG Strategic, after a brief opening statement started the open discussion at Nalen, where some thirty industry personalities attended. The discussion contained in Harlem was unusually frank and Cohen ruled routinely call that gave many new insights.

Both the majority of the managers of the biggest Swedish music companies were on hand, like most people with expertise in that particular digital music.

After the visit to Stockholm continues TAG Strategic their European tour event with TAG Salon. This week is also Copenhagen and Berlin on the program.

Original post in Swedish: http://www.musikindustrin.se/artikel/2957/KONFERENS_TAG_Salon_i_Stockholm.html