5 Startups Changing The Music Industry
Startups these days seem to be all the rage. Take a visit out to San Francisco and you probably wont be able to walk a full block without running into a funky new workspace devoted to a startup. New York also has the startup fever, as new businesses are popping up left and right, based on ideas believable and trustworthy enough to earn funding from big whig venture capitalists somewhere in the world. It seems this generation isn’t satisfied with status quo; we like to take it one step further and understand that we are capable of turning our dreams into reality. Sunset in the Rearview is my personal venture that I’ve spent almost three years working on building, but the fact is, Sunset wouldn’t be where it is if it weren’t for the help of certain music startups that have helped fuel the blog’s success. Continue reading for the full list and descriptions of each startup and its pros and cons.
1. SoundCloud
SoundCloud, originally started in Sweden but now based in Berlin, is a tool that allows artists to publish their music and make it available to the entire Internet population. By uploading your music to SoundCloud, you give users the ability to embed your songs (which are featured in customizable SoundCloud players) onto websites and download your songs on the fly. The service also gives you a unique URL where all of your tracks are hosted and can be organized into groups. You can follow other users on the site; your unique page shows who you follow and who is following you. The tool is great for allowing music to become viral very quickly. Users can comment on songs, which can automatically pop up in the player itself, which fosters a very social user experience. For bloggers, SoundCloud is a great way to collect music submissions and host music. They have implemented a dropbox system, which automatically hosts the music in an embeddable player.
Pros: Free hosting for artists and bloggers, Social user experience, Customizable widgets, Streaming-only option, Free dropbox and messaging system, Great API
Cons: Free plan is limited for artists (only allows certain number of downloads per song), Paid plans are very expensive
2. Spotify
Spotify is another startup that originated in Sweden and that has the potential to change the music industry. Based on the notion of the music industry shifting from music ownership to music streaming capabilities, Spotify has challenged the status quo in a major way. Founder Daniel Ek noticed that music fans were no longer willing to pay for music, so he decided to create an application that gives listeners streaming access to millions of songs on the fly. Users can create playlists that they can share with their Facebook and Twitter friends, can browse based on geographical popularity and suggested artists, and have the option to purchase the music if they so desire. With paid plans, the benefits increase significantly; streaming becomes unlimited, libraries become mobile, and ads disappear. So what’s in it for the artists? Spotify pays out artists and labels based on streaming count. Pretty neat, right?
Pros: Millions of songs at your fingertips, Social user experience, Shared playlists, Reasonably-priced subscriptions
Cons: Are artists getting paid enough?, Subscriptions are daunting to this generation, Free plans stream at low-bitrates
3. Turntable.FM
Turntable is a new hotspot on the web where Internet users in the U.S. (only) can gather and interactively share their music. Upon landing in the Turntable lobby, a user is able to create a room or join a pre-existing room with a title such as “Indie While You Work” or “Coding Soundtrack.” When choosing a room, you can see if any of your Facebook friends are already in the room and if there are any DJ slots available. Once in the room, if you’re DJ’ing, you can upload any of your songs and play them for the room. There’s a gauge in the room where users select if the song is “Lame” or “Awesome,” and all the little avatars in the room who like the song start bobbing their heads in an adorable sort of geeked-out way. Apparently the company uses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to license the music being streamed on the website, which makes it legal. Oh, and an iPhone app is on the way!
Pros: Interactive, Social, Great music discovery tool, Allows for a hands-off listening experience, Group chat ability
Cons: Only accessible in the US, Legality issues, Immediate clones on the market already, Can take a long time to play a song, Poor DJ user experience
4. Bandcamp
Bandcamp allows artists to have a microsite of their own where they can offer their music for free download or for a set price. For artists who are not very tech-savvy, this is a great way to develop a website on which to host their music and point people to. As a blogger, I get tons of emails from artists who point me to their Bandcamp page where I can not only stream their music but can also embed the Bandcamp widget.
Pros: Bandcamp’s cut drops to 10% after selling more than $5000, Artists get email addresses of those who download their music
Cons: Bandcamp takes 15% cut of sales, Widget does not get picked up by Hype Machine aggregator, Having email block is a burden for users/bloggers
5. Hype Machine
Hype Machine was started in 2005 as a way to bring together all of the music blogs on the Internet. Six years later, bloggers beg to be included in Hype Machine’s list of blogs they pull songs from. It serves as an aggregator that pulls MP3s from music blogs and hosts them on their site, where users go and can stream the songs and “heart” the ones they like. The songs that receive the most hearts in a set period of time make it onto the “Popular” list and very quickly gain steam on the Internet. It’s a great tool for artists who want their music to go viral very quickly. The user accounts allow people to follow certain blogs, track all of the songs they’ve ever “hearted,” and go directly to the blog that posted it and read their review and download the MP3. Since its inception, Hype Machine has added features such as Zeitgeist, Radio, and filters.
Pros: Great for artists and listeners, Allows songs to go viral very quickly, Easy filtering options
Cons: Mobile app is weak, Remix-heavy, Can be overloaded with one artist (example: Watch The Throne release clouded the Popular list)
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