ReverbNation

ReverbNation

ReverbNation provides a whole lot of tools for the artists, record labels, management and venues.

Rather than acting as a platform in its own right (although you can use it as such), ReverbNation supplies you with widget tools, fan signup tools, mailing lists, street team management facilities and lots of different reporting tools so you can see who is doing what with your music and where. It’ll also help you get your music into Facebook.

Positioning itself as a kind of Swiss Army knife of online music business, ReverbNation certainly has a lot of features and uses. But is it any good?

Using ReverbNation? Has it helped? Is all that reporting useful or just information overload? What’s the best thing about ReverbNation? The worst? Let’s hear what you think…

SoundCloud

Soundcloud

Soundcloud is an online file upload/download site for music, mixed with some social networking facility. It’s designed to help people who work with music (say, musicians or record labels) with a way to easily drop their music somewhere that collaborators and other professionally interested parties can get their hands on it and do whatever comes next.

Worth the sign-up? Any compelling features? What makes this different from other large file transfer services? Go try it out – then let us know. As usual – let’s have the review in the comments, please.

So what's with all the silence?

You may have noticed that my week away from the blog turned into ‘the rest of the month’. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have picked up my return to blogging was scheduled for October 1st. That would be today.

I’ve enumerated my reasons on my personal blog, but suffice to say I just kind of needed a break.

I guess the same is true of most creative endeavours. Most people I know who make music for a living have times when picking up their instrument is the last thing they feel like doing – no matter how much they love playing, composing, performing and so on.

(more…)

Make a wish

Not strictly New Music Strategies territory, but I guess there’s a good reason I should tell you what I’ve been up to for the past week or so.

I So WishApart from all the usual stuff I like to occupy my time with – like travel to Northern Ireland to give a music industry seminar, make a video blog about whisky, listen to lots of records, meet with commercially inviable record labels, do a spot of research about the BBC, and involve myself in long examination board meetings at the university – I’ve thrown together a new website with a talented friend of mine.

It’s a simple idea: people make wishes – and then… well that’s kind of it, really. People make wishes. You can type your wish in on the site – or twitter it (just follow isowish on twitter, we’ll follow you back, and then “d isowish that I was Jimi Hendrix”) – and then you can take a code away and embed that wish on your blog or other website etc.

Like this:

What do you so wish?

The website’s called I So Wish… and the grammatical awkwardness serves a purpose as well as fills a need because so many of the other desirable domains were gone.

(more…)

How do I find time for the internet?

Time management

One of the biggest problems of integrating internet strategies into your already busy music industry life is the problem of becoming overwhelmed with information. Now that you’re using the internet, there are all these sites to maintain, update, and provide content for… and a whole lot of others to read.

There are online references, mailing lists, MySpace pages, blogs, social networks, photography sites, music communities and recommendation engines to contend with.

How do you even start to cope with all that, hang onto the other important stuff you were already doing, and yet not have some sort of nervous breakdown in the process?

(more…)

Songpull

[rating:3.5]

songpull image

What do they say it is?
Songpull offers songwriters a place to gather and try new songs in an encouraging environment. Inspired by the classic “guitar pull” of the past, the Songpull community gives genuine feedback and recognition on every performance. Finish your songs by joining a Songpull today.

What do we say it is?
This is a website that encourages groups of people to get together for songwriting and performance. You arrange a ‘SongPull’ event in a local space – home, cafe, bar, community hall – and songs that have been written and co-written by the participants are played on acoustic instruments in front of the other contributors and (if you choose) an audience.

Members are encouraged to video the resulting performances and submit them to the site, which in turn has a supportive community of enthusiasts, commentators and critics. There’s a chart system on the site and performances can be ranked and commented on – but the main push here is the live event itself. Events are promoted and advice and support is given for people setting up their own.

(more…)