If patience is a virtue then we’ve hit the mother-load of virtuosity at Aardvark. Nearly 4 years after our first attempts…and our artists' releases are now available in China.
So what's all the fuss and bother about? Western music is on the boom threshold in China. Barriers which make it extremely difficult for Western music labels and publishers to enter into the Chinese market have been coming down. And the digital format accounts for a healthy level of sales.
And Chinese online traffic continues to be a significant – and growing – overall percentage of traffic hitting our website.
While the bubbly isn't quite flowing at Aardvark HQ, we’re quietly elated that we just never gave up hope. For sure, we had spells of walking away from it and letting things go quiet and dealing with all manner of 'spanners'. We also tried partnering with other Western companies who had routes to the Chinese market.
In the end, it was down to one of our favourite digital aggregator partners IODA who struck a brilliant joint venture deal with WaWaWa Music in China.
Now the fun begins…translating an English press release into Chinese with regional variations. :)
17 August 2008
12 August 2008
Are all widgets created equal?
Are all widgets created equal? Frankly, no.
In the sharing and caring world that is now dominated by social networking, widgets are the ace, king, queen – and sometime the joker – of shared content online. A good widget will see content spread like a Californian wildfire on the web. A bad one will leave your content out in the cold.
Aardvark has made heavy use of widgets since the infancy of what's now called Web 2.0. We were brand loyal. We chose an audio widget from one of online partners. We created widgets based on artists' albums and used them all over our site. It was a cool and oft criticised move as these players were embedded all over the web. The widgets did the job. They brought our new releases and new artists to a worldwide audience. Music punters thought we were brave and ballsy for providing our music with no strings attached.
The crux for us came as new online partners brought out even better widgets. 'Better' is subjective. The new widgets did more of the kinds of things we wanted them to do. Take ReverbNation, for instance. This is a new partner for us and they have created, in my opinion, some of the best widgets out there. ReverbNation widgets not only allow us to put funky little audio player widgets on our artists' pages…they also provide tour/gig details, latest artist news and blogs, images, video and – an absolute ace for us – a means for people to join an artist's fanclub and become a part of an artist's street team should they wish to. These widgets also provide links to places where people can buy the tracks they’re listening to. And they are easily embeddable. It also doesn't hurt that they look wicked too.
It wasn't an easy decision for us to make between keeping the old widgets or going for some new ones with a different partner (we're kind of loyal people here). However, the ReverbNation widgets ticked all our boxes. So the former widgets are being replaced. In the competitive world that is the music industry, anything that gives an independent label an edge is welcome.
As any good Economics 101 course will tell you – you can never be too complacent with widgets.
In the sharing and caring world that is now dominated by social networking, widgets are the ace, king, queen – and sometime the joker – of shared content online. A good widget will see content spread like a Californian wildfire on the web. A bad one will leave your content out in the cold.
Aardvark has made heavy use of widgets since the infancy of what's now called Web 2.0. We were brand loyal. We chose an audio widget from one of online partners. We created widgets based on artists' albums and used them all over our site. It was a cool and oft criticised move as these players were embedded all over the web. The widgets did the job. They brought our new releases and new artists to a worldwide audience. Music punters thought we were brave and ballsy for providing our music with no strings attached.
The crux for us came as new online partners brought out even better widgets. 'Better' is subjective. The new widgets did more of the kinds of things we wanted them to do. Take ReverbNation, for instance. This is a new partner for us and they have created, in my opinion, some of the best widgets out there. ReverbNation widgets not only allow us to put funky little audio player widgets on our artists' pages…they also provide tour/gig details, latest artist news and blogs, images, video and – an absolute ace for us – a means for people to join an artist's fanclub and become a part of an artist's street team should they wish to. These widgets also provide links to places where people can buy the tracks they’re listening to. And they are easily embeddable. It also doesn't hurt that they look wicked too.
It wasn't an easy decision for us to make between keeping the old widgets or going for some new ones with a different partner (we're kind of loyal people here). However, the ReverbNation widgets ticked all our boxes. So the former widgets are being replaced. In the competitive world that is the music industry, anything that gives an independent label an edge is welcome.
As any good Economics 101 course will tell you – you can never be too complacent with widgets.
11 August 2008
Life imitating art imitating...?
When the über cool editorial team over at the live entertainment industry magazine LIVEUK asked me to provide a wee profile, I never knew just how humourous the outcome would or could be. I should have known better.
In my profile, I stated that "It's not enough for our acts to be competent live – they must have energy and project [that energy] into the crowd...I want to see a crowd at fever pitch." Harmless enough – and it is how I assess potential signings.
Well the edition containing my profile came out earlier this month. Variations of that quote quickly followed in recent demo submissions. "We work our fans/the crowd to a fever pitch" – and variants thereon – abound in the latest crop of demos to hit our desks in the past week. Had I been clever, I would have placed an office bet on how quickly this would happen. A couple of West Country ciders would have done me quite nicely.
One quip in the office stated I should be happy this was proof that potential signings not only could read – but read industry publications.
Indeed. What's literacy in the face of a few easily won bottles of Scrumpy or Rattler.
In my profile, I stated that "It's not enough for our acts to be competent live – they must have energy and project [that energy] into the crowd...I want to see a crowd at fever pitch." Harmless enough – and it is how I assess potential signings.
Well the edition containing my profile came out earlier this month. Variations of that quote quickly followed in recent demo submissions. "We work our fans/the crowd to a fever pitch" – and variants thereon – abound in the latest crop of demos to hit our desks in the past week. Had I been clever, I would have placed an office bet on how quickly this would happen. A couple of West Country ciders would have done me quite nicely.
One quip in the office stated I should be happy this was proof that potential signings not only could read – but read industry publications.
Indeed. What's literacy in the face of a few easily won bottles of Scrumpy or Rattler.
07 August 2008
rss feed me
I received a fairly unexpected phone call today from a freelance reporter researching a music industry story for the BBC. The fact that I had a call from a journalist isn't what was surprising (ok, stop your smiling). Press releases get sent out on a fairly regular basis and they typically generate coverage.
It was how the journalist came across something I had written that really got my attention. It was the RSS Feed on the news page of our website.
Fairly recently, I made myself buckle down and set up RSS Feeds from our website – and do the whole feedburning and RSS Feed submission thing. RSS Feeds aren't new. The sheer number of them made me procrastinate in actually creating them for our website. I thought ours would merely get lost in the menagerie of RSS feeds that exist online. But I knew we should have them. Newsdesks, editors and journalists use them to source stories. So in the end I did it.
The call today prompted me to actually take a look at the stats for the number of subscribers to our blog site and podcasts. OK, we’re nowhere near the number of subscribers of, say, the BBC – but the number of people subscribing to our feed certainly made me smile. That and the quick interview I had over the phone today as a result.
While RSS Feeds won’t replace press releases, they certainly take press releases to a much wider audience than you could ever imagine.
The moral of the story is, if you don’t have an RSS Feed on your website – create one. It’s well worth the effort.
It was how the journalist came across something I had written that really got my attention. It was the RSS Feed on the news page of our website.
Fairly recently, I made myself buckle down and set up RSS Feeds from our website – and do the whole feedburning and RSS Feed submission thing. RSS Feeds aren't new. The sheer number of them made me procrastinate in actually creating them for our website. I thought ours would merely get lost in the menagerie of RSS feeds that exist online. But I knew we should have them. Newsdesks, editors and journalists use them to source stories. So in the end I did it.
The call today prompted me to actually take a look at the stats for the number of subscribers to our blog site and podcasts. OK, we’re nowhere near the number of subscribers of, say, the BBC – but the number of people subscribing to our feed certainly made me smile. That and the quick interview I had over the phone today as a result.
While RSS Feeds won’t replace press releases, they certainly take press releases to a much wider audience than you could ever imagine.
The moral of the story is, if you don’t have an RSS Feed on your website – create one. It’s well worth the effort.
05 August 2008
Can a record company survive at all right now?
www.aandronline.com is one of my favourite industry ports of call on the web. Aardvark's directors frequently get labelled as mavericks – that’s when industry peers from the large labels are being polite. So visits to aandronline let’s us know we’re not alone. There are others in the industry that approach the business in a similar way to us. They see the business in a similar way to us...and they share a lot of our ideas about ways forward for record labels in the medium to long term.
Can a record company survive at all right now? If it couldn't, we would have packed up and called it a day ages ago. While the directors here like to root for the underdog, we're not ones to fight a losing battle. There's a big difference between thinking out of the box and being quixotic.
So how does the new paradigm for the successful label of the future shape up? Smaller. Much smaller. We're talking about a partnership shared between 4 to 5 people who have clearly defined roles. Each partner adds value that the others can't and, by working together, builds an organisation that is far bigger than the sum of its part.
• Partner 1): The Producer
Produces finished masters for the label and understands the needs of the market across genres and delivers killer tracks - and can build the necessary relationships with artists to make this happen.
• Partner 2): Head of Business Affairs
Deals with contracts, licensing and royalty payments – and has a little black book of business contacts to kill for…or is capable of networking to build the kinds of contacts a label requires in order to survive. Forward thinking, a calculated risk taker and one to never settle for the status quo. Capable of delivering more than business partners/affiliates were expecting. The king of queen of merchandising.
• Partner 3): Head of Communication
An opportunity creator across terrestrial, digital and online platforms – and has a little black book of press and media contacts to kill for. A press and media networking junkie who can present to press and media in one breath and speak to music lovers in the next. Forward thinking, a calculated risk taker and one to never settle for the status quo.
• Partner 4): Head of Radio Promotion
Works radio in house and talks to music directors as well as music promoters and agents about booking opportunities.
Aandronline has even more to say on the subject. It's worth having a visit: http://www.aandronline.com/reading-room/survival.html
Can a record company survive at all right now? If it couldn't, we would have packed up and called it a day ages ago. While the directors here like to root for the underdog, we're not ones to fight a losing battle. There's a big difference between thinking out of the box and being quixotic.
So how does the new paradigm for the successful label of the future shape up? Smaller. Much smaller. We're talking about a partnership shared between 4 to 5 people who have clearly defined roles. Each partner adds value that the others can't and, by working together, builds an organisation that is far bigger than the sum of its part.
• Partner 1): The Producer
Produces finished masters for the label and understands the needs of the market across genres and delivers killer tracks - and can build the necessary relationships with artists to make this happen.
• Partner 2): Head of Business Affairs
Deals with contracts, licensing and royalty payments – and has a little black book of business contacts to kill for…or is capable of networking to build the kinds of contacts a label requires in order to survive. Forward thinking, a calculated risk taker and one to never settle for the status quo. Capable of delivering more than business partners/affiliates were expecting. The king of queen of merchandising.
• Partner 3): Head of Communication
An opportunity creator across terrestrial, digital and online platforms – and has a little black book of press and media contacts to kill for. A press and media networking junkie who can present to press and media in one breath and speak to music lovers in the next. Forward thinking, a calculated risk taker and one to never settle for the status quo.
• Partner 4): Head of Radio Promotion
Works radio in house and talks to music directors as well as music promoters and agents about booking opportunities.
Aandronline has even more to say on the subject. It's worth having a visit: http://www.aandronline.com/reading-room/survival.html
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