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How to make your music website make some real profit? - get $25.00 for freePosted on 05 Sep, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.usSince I know there are quite some music site webmasters reading this blog and the rest of the website, I thought it might just be the time to present you 2 ways to actually make guaranteed profit from the visitors passing by on your indie music website. Why only 2? Because there are only 2 ways to make good money from a website about indie music, all the rest is really not worth trying out unless you want some extra peanuts here and there. We tested out over 15 programs and only 2 revealed to be working well. These 2 have revealed to be 100% successful in making traffic also actually paying our bills and we expect it will also pay yours. I know, for several amongst you all, it sounds not very 'underground' to earn money with music websites but then again, consider this: the time and money you invest in your site should not never be just slavery work, on the contrary, if some cash can soften the hard work, why not. So here we go with the two winning horses! Google AdsenseThis is a killer application for almost every site around. The best thing about it is that it actually serves you contextual text link adverts that often add a value to your content, and that is the key to its success. Also, the inventory of Google AdSense is so huge that it actually serves a lot of adverts which fit perfectly your 'underground' public, not in the most because of the fact that every indie shop has found its way to the platform. You really don't want to miss out on this revenue stream, so :AuctionAdsSince 3 months we are now also running AuctionAds and I must say that it has been a very pleasant surprise. What does AuctionAds actually do? It allows you to monetize your website by displaying live eBay auctions next to your related copy. When your site's visitors click on an AuctionAd listing and take an action on eBay you earn cash. Actions are defined as a Winning Bid, a Buy-it-Now or a confirmed user registration. Nothing new you might think as eBay had an affiliation program already? Well, you are wrong there:
Update: AuctionAds announces that they are are offering an instant $25.00 balance to all new publishers who sign up for AuctionAds. New publishers just need to sign up and they will receive a balance of $25.00 automatically. Which one is the best?I often get asked which one of both works the best. I just can't say this or that one, my feeling is that combining both will give you the best payout. What i do know is that you should drop affiliation programs which are just banner based, these are really not worth the effort and seeing the inventory most of these dino's have, I really wonder which music news publisher actually makes money with this outdated way of e-marketing. Try out the two options above and be suprised, VERY surprised.[0] Comments | read by 563710 members
Next generation HD DVD based music distribution and marketing platform launchedPosted on 11 May, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us I was forwarded this info ahead of the press so I guess it will interest more than one on here. nixbu Entertainment will announce the immediate start of the MuNa initiative, a next generation HD DVD based music distribution and marketing platform. This very complex project represents the most advanced HD DVD project so far, including even new online features. In order to run a demo, two parties were approached, Robbie Willaims (EMI) and Plastic Noise Experience (Alfa Matrix). In the end it was Alfa Matrix who got chosen to work together with nixbu Entertainment. Key featuresThe following key features are featured on this product:
New user experienceA total new user experience of MuNa is offered by integrating content based navigation. Associated with tracks of the Primary Content on the disc a variable number of songs can be accessed. The Secondary Content includes Artists Info as well. This represents a pandora.com experience, nevertheless content owners might select the Secondary Content arbitrary from their libraries. Due to the high capacity of the disc for each track of the SC Artist Info can be included for all tracks.Invual setupGood to now, the setup allows individual choice of audio formats. The MuNa disc will continue to work with CD-Audio navigation behavior, navigating through the entire disc with the remote control is independent from chosen audio formats or playlists. The playlist allows enabling or disabling PC or SC totally or choosing arbitrary selected tracks. Example of user scenarios could be to play PC of a chosen audio format only or play SC only with a high number of chosen tracks for a party. All capacity calculations are done with 1 audio format for SC only. Selection of Audio format can additionally be done with the remote control by pressing the 'Audio' button.Main benefitsThe main benefits of these new MuNa HD DVD products
For the vast majority of products DVD-9 is recommended for optimized cost-efficiency. Another advantage of DVD-9 is that when its used without AACS it will play in ordinary DVD drives as long as HD DVD player software is used. Technorati Tags: HDV / DVD [0] Comments | read by 106320 members
Pandora pulls the plug in various countriesPosted on 04 May, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us Pandora, an automated music recommendation and internet radio service created by The Music Genome Project, is no longer available in most countries outside the United States. The decision was taking because of recent RIAA rulings that increase fees and ask for licensing guarantees. Listeners outside the USA got the following message:
We will be posting updates on our blog ( http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/ ) regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding." For those that still can access the service, Pandora offers two subscription plans: a free subscription supported by ads, and a fee-based subscription without these ads. Users begin by entering a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that it thinks are musically similar. Users are then able to provide feedback on the individual song choices — approval or disapproval — which the system takes into account for future selections. [1] Comments | read by 52030 members
Never again paying too much for concert tickets ?Posted on 18 Apr, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us(Sponsored post) A few days ago I was asked if I would be interested to write something about the US concert / theater and sports ticket reseller Ticket Liquidator. At first I must say I was rather hesitant, knowing that many of these resellers ask outrageous prices. But when I actually checked out the website of www.ticketliquidator.com I was surprised. Not only did it offer reasonable prices, they on top had the option for people like you and me to sell tickets to other people and this at very reasonable conditions. Let's have a look. First of all I went looking for the prices of some very wanted tickets. I took the upcoming The Police world tour which is by far the most hyped tour ever to take place since years. The result: they had some dead cheap tickets up for The Police shows in the US, priced only 55 US$. The tickets for the European shows were less cheap though (something that seems to be something 'normal' with every ticket reseller these days, don't ask me why), but nevertheless, cheap tickets for seeing The Police in the US. I do imagine these will not be the best places, but even then, the normal prices do not differ that much. So what about reselling your purchased tickets? Well, keeping in mind that eBay has plans to block all sales of tickets on their site due to countries like Belgium for instance having a legislation that prohibits reselling your tickets online, this website could well become your place to be for reselling your tickets. Your costs? Well, no cure, no pay, because adding your tickets to this site is free of charge. And when you manage to sell your ticket via the site, they take a 10% fee on the completed sale. Not outrageous if you ask me knowing that other sites charge you 15% or even more. All in all this service offers tickets that are often better priced than other online ticket brokers that honestly overprice in most of the cases. Having said that, you won't have any bargains to make when you want to go to a European gig because those prices are in several cases 6-fold the US ones. Check them out and let us know what you think of them ! You can find a list of the concerttickets they have on sale right here. [3] Comments | read by 58580 members
Microsoft Digg clone MSN Reporter abused by usersPosted on 07 Apr, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us A while ago Microsoft launched its very own 'Digg' service aka ' MSN Reporter'. The launch was obviously part of MSN's ongoing efforts to increase the amount of usergenerated content on its network. First launched in Belgium, Holland and Norway it got quite quickly a very supportive fanbase due to its easy access. However it also quickly became a place where cheating was the number 1 activity, especially on the Dutch version. Since Wednesday (April 5th) the service no longer allowed new postings and since tonight the service is completely down due to "an application error". Does this mean that MSN is working on improving the service and getting rid of the abuse? [Update: the sites are now back up except for the Dutch one but posting new articles is still impossible] Available in beta since October 2006, MSN Reporter was launched only in three markets, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. MSN Reporter more or less works like Digg where news gets promoted to the frontpage via 'Diggs'. On MSN Reporter you have to "Kick" or "Dump" an article. But, unlike with Digg, you do not need to be registered with MSN Reporter to start voting, which immediately explains the success of the services. However, this easy-go approach has now also opened the way for abuse so we noticed. Especially the dutch branch of the MSN Reporter network seems to be heavily abused. We made a test to see how the system was being cheated. We therefore added a post on the Dutch version of MSN Reporter pointing to a page we set up for the occasion with a newsbit that should attract quite some attention (to keep the test running, we will not disclose the exact url). In the first 10 minutes our post got 51 negative scores while there was no single visit counted towards the site. Strange, other sites, even the Belgian branch of the MSN Reporter network showed increased traffic even with a lot less votes, negative or positive. This rather unusual 'dumping' went hand in hand with a few postings getting increased 'kicks' as if the posters of this newsitem wanted their news to get higher ranked while 'dumping' other people's news at the same time. We continued the test and found out that the first 60 votes had led to exactly 3 click-throughs... the first 48 votes on the Belgian MSN Reporter led to 1157 click-throughs which makes us believe that the Belgian version of the user generated MSN website is still more or less clean. But for how long? Let it be clear, MSN Reporter delivers quality traffic and it is an initiative that is less restricted than Digg is which gives it a better chance to reach a broad public. It is however clear that the site (especially in The Netherlands) gets exploited by some not so honest users making abuse of the system. Let's see how MSN will solve this. Here are the 4 different versions:
And if you wondered what the hell this had to do with music: think twice, all marketing is good marketing for your band, you just need a nice idea to launch to a wide public to get it picked up. [0] Comments | read by 66530 members
Apple goes for higher quality DRM-free music on its iTunes storePosted on 02 Apr, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us DRM-free songs on Apple's iTunes store are no longer a secret wish, it is actually becoming true and on top of that the songs come at the higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding instead of the current 128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM. EMI will debute and start the operation in May. Great no? Well, there are a few points to consider before you actually start to empty your credit card on the online store. In the very recent past, Appel's CEO Steve Jobs aired his wish to start selling DRM-free music, something that especially Indie labels requested time after time because they also saw the DRM as a barrier to reach an even wider public. Jobs now reached an agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music from this giant's back catalogue. Earlier on EMI already agreed with Jobs on the DRM issue, but as expected they did not exactly had the same idea on the pricing because the DRM-free story has literally price, as the songs downloaded RM-free are 0,30 US$ more expensive. Jobs on the other hand got EMI that far to agree to deliver the songs in a higher quality, at 256 kbps instead of the current 128 kbps. The price setting will most probably also become the standard for the downloadstore, something we should be less enthusiast about as this means that full albums will be priced 30% higher which comes quite close to the pricing of the physical product, the CD that is. It was the margin betwen both price settings that made the digital option a lot more interesting. We would have expected that the current 0,99 US$ priced downloads would come in higher quality downloads in the near future but that will be a no-go with the introduction of higher priced downloads. Add to this that iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available. Especially the idea of buying 'less good' versions could well be a problem for many users who expected no rise in prices for this option. Consumers who want to upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased (EMI) content to the higher quality DRM-free versions will be able to do this for 30 cents a song, no pricing was given for album deals. Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, expects to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year. The DRM-free songs will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players. Note that all (EMI) music videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price. The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over two billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store. Read also: iTunes Completes My and Your Album at a reduced price. [0] Comments | read by 62210 members
iTunes Completes My and Your Album at a reduced pricePosted on 30 Mar, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us With the new "Complete my album" functionality iTunes tries to encourage people to actually also purchase a full album after having bought a single track from that album. When you have bought (a) track(s) you are able to buy actually the rest of the album without having to pay the full album price, a full credit is given for every track you have previously purchased from that album. That is if you buy the album within 180 days after purchase, a reasonable period. So how will this be visible in your iTunes software you may ask? When you buy a song on iTunes the corresponding album will appear on your personalized "Complete My Album" page with the reduced price listed. This new feature could well change the way people start handling 'single' tracks again and cause an increase of digital album sales, something that with the buy-track-per-track model seemed to have been lost forever. One way to develop the system a bit further is allowing people - who bought a first single as a download - to deduct this cost from buying the complete album price. Of course, this new model would only work when the major labels realize the benefit from doing this. But the current iTunes move is a good step in the right direction. It's just a matter of time before other download stores will apply the same system. The idea of using downloads in price reductions or as incentives is not completely new, Amazon has had plans to let customers deduct the price of a download from the price of the actual CD when the customer decides to purchase the physical product afterall. So far the Amazon download shop is still not operational but the news got out that this would be the way the shop would handle its download incentives. [0] Comments | read by 58060 members
Excentric Phil Spector innocent in murder trial ?Posted on 20 Mar, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us The selection of jurors who will be asked to decide if legendary music producer Phil Spector, 66, was responsible for the shooting death four years ago of a cult movie actress has started yesterday, Monday 19th, in Los Angeles. And typically American, the judge has ruled the trial can be televised. The jury has to consider conflicting evidence about what happened before police found Lana Clarkson, 40, on February 3, 2003 dead in a chair in the foyer of Spector's house. Her teeth blown were out by a gunshot to her mouth. Clarkson was best known as the star of Roger Corman's cult film "Barbarian Queen". According to Spector, born Harvey Phillip Spector, the death of the actress was a suicide, something which has not been ruled out by the coroner's office as they had found gunshot residue on both of her hands, which indicates she may well have pulled the trigger herself. If he is found guilty he faces a life sentence. Spector is responsible for the so-called "Wall of Sound" revolutionizing the recording of rock music. The production technique yielded a dense, layered effect that reproduced well on AM radio and jukeboxes. You find his production skills in such famous records as the Beatles' "Let It Be" album, George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh", Leonard Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man". His work also included production for artists as diverse as the Ramones for their 5th and most succesful album "End of the Century" album. He increasingly became known though for eccentric outbursts, litigiousness, and a reclusive temperament, Early in the Ramones recording sessions, Spector reportedly held the band hostage at gunpoint. While awaiting trial, Phil Spector is back in the studio producing a single for the upcoming documentary "Strawberry Fields:Keeping the Spirit of John Lennon Alive" in which Spector is featured reminiscing about his years spent with John Lennon. Emerging artist, Hargo, wrote and is performing the single, which is not currently scheduled for commercial release. For the fans, Spector also wrote such rock classics as "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Be My Baby", "You've Lost that Lovin'Feeling" and "River Deep-Mountain High". [2] Comments | read by 70340 members
April becomes MySpace hacking monthPosted on 19 Mar, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us MySpace is full of leaks and can be easily hacked. That is the opinion of 2 american hackers known under the nicknames 'Mondo Armando' and 'Müstaschio' who have announced they will go public - each day - with a security vulnerability of the MySpace website. The news was announced on the duo's LiveJournal.A run against time because it is believed the leaks will be exploited as soon as they get public. It is not the first time MySpace is facing security problems, phishing and virusses have been a daily problem for almost every MySpace user (and that is when he realises it because most don't). The first problems disclosed by the duo will be several cross-site scripting-errors on the netwerk site "which can allow an attacker to execute malicious script within a victim's browser". Other targets might well be errors in browsers, in Quicktime or in the Flash-technologie used on MySpace. In a reaction why they chose MySpace the hackers duo said:
News Corp., the owner of MySpace.com is not realy pleased with the initiative of the two but refuses to react. In the past MySpace was never so reactive on bugs disclosures but with the attention this 'Month of Myspace Bugs' will get they might just change their policy. The MySpace personel has already been put on red alert and has been given the order to immediately develop patches when the hackers duo announce their findings. Let's hope that they also work on the speed of the netwerk... More info at the 'Month of Myspace Bugs' LJ ! [1] Comments | read by 82690 members
The Police to record entire reunion tour ?Posted on 08 Mar, 2007 - Bookmark at del.icio.us While concert tickets for their reunion tour are going to be pretty expensive already it seems that the post punk act The Police have found another way to fill some financial gaps left and right. The band, which is to embark on a worldwide tour later this year, would have plans to produce and sell live concert recordings of each gig on their forthcoming tour. Concert goers would be informed the day itself via displays and via a special website that live recordings of the night itself are available for purchase. This move is not exactly new as several other band in the past have done this: Moby, The Pixies, Erasure, Dead Can Dance or yet Depeche Mode. It would however be the first time that such a large band like The Police would launch itself in such a very personal targetted endeavour. Not that they should be frightened of sales not going as planned, because even a smaller act like Dead Can Dance managed to sell out of all individual disc-sets and box-sets from the European leg of their late 2005 tour. Around 500 copies were pressed per show. A short estimate shows us that Sting and Co might well earn an extra 3.200.000 US$ by doing this (considering they would shift up to 120.000 copies during their tour, which according to me is a very reasonable guess). Add to this the various downloaded purchases and you are in for a very nice treat ! This new way of marketing (live) albums is obviously a way to get the listeners back closer to the bands and creating an I-was-there-to atmosphere. Also good to notice is that very company dealing with this kind of live CDs has completely abandonned the instant delivery on the night itself of the actual recordings on CD-R as it became soon clear that this often ended with unplayable CD's, sound problems and so on. Instead every in live concert recording is now being properly produced and shipped off to the fans who signed up for the service within 2 to 3 months after the actual gig took place. And for those worrying that this would prevent them from having an 'official' release, the release of such live documents does not prevent a later more elaborated release as this now mostly happens in the more versatile DVD format holding a more cleaned up recording of one or more gig cuts. In related news, here is the list of songs that The Police rehearsed in Vancouver:
For more news, check this The Police newspage. [0] Comments | read by 79840 members
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05/01/08 Arkane – Enraptured Serene Mesmerism (cd Seduction Prod)
05/01/08 Lost Reality – What Remains (cd UK Division Records)
05/01/08 F.O.D. – Synthesizer Tanzmusik (cd Fear Section/Out Of Line)
05/01/08 Wumpscut – Schädling (cd Betonkopfmedia/Soulfood)
05/01/08 No Tears – Obsessions (cd Str8line Records)
05/01/08 Kraken – Drift (cd Spectre Records)
05/01/08 Herrschaft – Tesla (cd Aural Music/Code 666)
05/01/08 Klinik – Projects (dcd Hands)
05/01/08 Pridon – Apnea Eina (cd Low Impedance Recordings)
05/01/08 Pecadores - 10% For Jesus (cd Hellion Records)
05/01/08 Lethargy – Music Biz (cd Zoo Recordings)
05/01/08 Flesh Eating Foundation – Seethe (cd Rebco Records)
05/01/08 V/A Festival Der Genialen Dissidenten (cd Enfant Terrible)
05/01/08 Elvis’GhettoBlaster – Love Is A Schizophrenic Hungry Monster (cd Elvis’GhettoBlaster)
05/01/08 Dreddup – Future Porn Machine (cd Insurrection/Dark Revolution)
05/01/08 Accessory - More Than Machine (cd Out Of Lline)
05/01/08 Midnattsol – Nordlys (cd Napalm Records)
05/01/08 Caned & Able – Smoke (cd Malicious Damage Records)
05/01/08 Diffuzion – Bodycode (dcd Alfa-Matrix)
05/04/08 Yendri - Yendri is even sadder and darker than me
04/12/08 Juno Reactor - Touring is very expensive when you have to fly over up to 15 people
04/10/08 Tzolk'in - The cinematographic power of Tzolk'in...
04/08/08 Memmaker - Destruction is imminent!
03/25/08 Wavefall - "From Russia with love !"
03/16/08 Anne Clark - I have never had a child but I can only imagine likening giving birth to getting this album out!
03/09/08 Angie Damage - "I'm a bit of a homebody and a dork"
02/29/08 Recoil / Alan Wilder - "Music For The Masses - I think not."
02/16/08 Hooverphonic - "I'm a gearslut!"
02/11/08 Gary Marx (ex-Sisters Of Mercy) - "The Nowhere Exhibition and a Then and Now"
02/03/08 DEKAD - "Music is definitely a therapy"
01/25/08 Y-luk-O - "Too many people are just imitating the one successful pioneer"
01/24/08 Die Krupps - "Just shut yourself out!"
01/22/08 Michelle Darkness - "From drugs to silence"
01/20/08 Nachtmahr - "Thomas and the quest for the perfect beat J"
01/20/08 Schallfaktor - "A new love is in sight"
01/20/08 [:SITD:] - "Shaking out the Savage"
01/17/08 Magica - "Goth greetings from Romania"
01/16/08 Painbastard - "Between rage and melancholy"
05/15/08 Side-Line off air due to server maintenance
05/15/08 A Different Drum releases 5th volume 'Synthpop club anthems'
05/15/08 Prikosnovénie launches 'Fairy World 4' book/CD set
05/13/08 Lost Signal debut to be re-released digitally on 23db Records
05/13/08 To Mega Therion Legion gives away debut album for free
05/13/08 Cyanotic on Summer tour with 16 Volt + new material
05/12/08 New Junkie XL remix for Nike advert
05/12/08 Free to download EP 'Number 8 Wired' by N.U.T.E
05/12/08 M-tronic anounces new signing: Ex_Tension
05/09/08 The Cure launch '13' in September preceded by no less than 4 singles
05/09/08 Make your very own Neikka RPM video via Animoto.com !
05/09/08 Crunch Pod announces re-release Caustic EP 'I am on fire'
05/08/08 Yendri interview online now
05/08/08 Side-Line presents Delerium and The Wheathermen live at Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp (Belgium)
05/08/08 Garten Kirkhof returns with 'Le Dormeur - A Retrospective 1989-1994'
05/07/08 Fixmer / McCarthy to launch second album, 'Into the Night'
05/07/08 Parade Ground returns with 'Rosary' album
05/07/08 Bisclaveret releases remix album
05/07/08 Reissue for Gestalt's 'Le sommeil du singe' album with bonus tracks
05/06/08 Yet another free album from Nine Inch Nails: 'The Slip'
05/06/08 Remix contest for De/Vision
05/06/08 First two albums Psychic TV reissued
