RightsFlow, a leading provider of bulk mechanical licensing and royalty services, recently announced a deal to provide global reporting services for Beatport, one of the world’s leading international dance and electronic music digital aggregators.

This deal offers Beatport a comprehensive solution for reporting to rights societies around the world so that they can continue to make sure that musicians and songwriters are properly paid for their work. The deal will also enable Beatport to focus on their historically challenging customer service, an area of weakness that has improved as of late, rather than the time consuming and detailed processes required in accurately reporting metrics.

Beatport is a popular international online music service, offering hi-speed, quality dance and electronic music downloads to DJs and fans alike. It is a site known for its ease of use; as a web information architect, I applaud them on their superior user interface.

This partnership is significant;  DJs and producers will feel more confident that their work will be compensated with a global reach in a timely manner. Additionally, my hope is that Beatport will continue to ramp up its customer service processes to rectify any issues in an equally timely manner.

See the full story  on Mi2n.com here.

Yes, it’s been a minute between posts, but I’ve been insanely busy working on projects with my new digital consultancy, Digital Strategy Works.

Netmix has been this pro-hobby, if that makes any sense. I’ve actually been working full time and going to school at NYU for the last 5-years. I graduated in May with a Bachelor Degree in Digital Communications and Media.

While I love writing this blog, it hasn’t been my first priority. I know that shows given the time between posts, but I try my best to update when I can. Given the economic turmoil we’ve faced over the last few years and the demise of the music business as we once knew it, I knew it was important to focus on work first and the hobby second. I always say, you have to have a base from which to work.

Okay, so even though I always say it, I ended up throwing that advice out the window—sort of.

In November, I left my full-time job. Yes, in this economy, I actually LEFT my job! I know. Call me crazy. I’d been working for a web development company in Long Island, but I really missed the New York City digital media and music scene. Long Island just wasn’t where I wanted to be every day. I felt really disconnected from the community. It was time to make a change.

I was passing up so many opportunities making the 3-hour+ commute. I’d been running myself ragged going back and forth. Not only was I missing out on all the nightly Meetup.com events and other entrepreneur and start-up gatherings, I was wearing myself down in the process.

If that wasn’t enough to do, I’d also taken on the side role of Director of Interactive for the National Museum of Hip-Hop. And, along with DJ Ming, Harold Stephan and DJ Chad North, we’ve been running 20dot20, a monthly networking event for the interactive and advertising music industry. Between driving back and forth to Long Island, Netmix, and my other extracurricular activities, I decided to go back to entrepreneurship.

Given my 15-years of web development experience, I thought I might as well just launch Digital Strategy Works and put that knowledge to work. This new addition to the Netmix Media portfolio provides strategy digital media consulting services to individuals, entrepreneurs, start-ups and corporations with a focus on the media & entertainment industry, including music, nightlife, fashion, film and television. We’re building web sites on Wordpress and Drupal, e-commerce platforms on Magento, and mobile applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It all starts with the planning and execution of a measurable end-to-end digital strategy that makes an impact. In today’s competitive online marketplace, an effective digital strategy is executed across an array of online and mobile applications. This includes nformation architecture and user experience design, creative direction and graphic design, web and mobile development, search engine optimization, e-commerce and monetization, and social media and online marketing. There are so many things to know. Since that’s what we do everyday, we’ve become experts in the field and are passing on that knowledge to you.

Please visit the web site at http://www.digitalstrategyworks.com to read more about Netmix Media’s latest addition. We’re currently offering 2-hours of Wordpress consultation through March 31 for $250.

It is said that the music genre of Hip-Hop was born the night of August 11, 1973, when a young DJ named Kool Herc organized a party in the recreation room of a housing development at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue (New York Magazine story). 36-years have passed since that seminal moment in music history and African-American culture, and various efforts along the way have tried to capture Hip-Hop’s momentous contribution in the form of a museum. No one has gotten as far as the current organizers of the movement to create the National Museum of Hip-Hop. (Facebook | Twitter).

For the past five years, the museum’s organizers have been painstakingly planning a physical, interactive museum and cultural center to cement Hip-Hop’s rightful place in history. From meetings with Hip-Hop’s early pioneers to New York City’s office of Economic Development, the NMoH team are working through the process to make the museum a reality.

Prior efforts to create a Hip-Hop institution have been dogged by lack of funds, political issues, or the absence of a qualified team to pull it all together. Many of the pioneers of Hip-Hop had been unable or unwilling to agree to participate for one reason or another. Some of the early stars of Hip-Hop, who never enjoyed the financial success of today’s rap superstars, understandably want to make sure they are compensated for their participation. On the business side, label executives see the possible financial upside of a commercial enterprise, advocate for a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame, where they can clearly monetize Hip-Hop through a flagship restaurant, merchandise and other commercial activities.

On the political side, there’s heated discussion about where the museum should be located. In the Bronx, the birthplace of Hip-Hop? Brooklyn, where Jay-Z and Biggie emanated from? Or, Queens where Run D.M.C. were born? And, Staten Island is always a long shot, because of ease of access. All signs are pointing to Manhattan for now. Hip-Hop is a global phenomenon. Although the museum would certainly benefit any borough, the political and financial realities of a Manhattan location, with possible smaller borough-based satellites makes sense economically. Tourism will be an important driver and the museum’s success depends on being accessible to visitors from around the world.

To kick off fund raising for construction of the museum and drive awareness for the museum’s cultural programs and community-based initiatives, the organizers are planning a black-tie event, slated for February 9th at M2 UltraLounge on Manhattan’s West Side. Chuck D and KRS-One will host the star-studded event. Confirmed guests include Big Daddy Kane, the Cold Crush Brothers, members of the Rock Steady Crew, MC Lyte, Rakim, DJ Red Alert, Ralph McDaniels, The Roots, and Redman. The events co-chairs include, Bill Adler, Dr. Ben Chavis, Andre Harrell, Afrika Bambaataa, Terry Stewart and Jim Fricke.

“The timing is perfect for the development of a museum that will preserve the great culture of Hip-Hop, a museum that will serve as not only a beacon for Hip-Hop’s achievements but also as a hub for community enlistment,” said NMoH President Craig Wilson.

The project’s Advisory Board includes Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons; political activist Dr. Ben Chavis; Uptown Records founder Andre Harrell; Leyla Turkkan, C.E.O. and President of PR/Marketing firm The Catalyst Group; Hip-Hop curator, journalist and publicist Bill Adler; Bob Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s President and C.E.O. Terry Stewart.

For more information on the National Museum of Hip, please sign up on their Facebook page located at http://www.facebook.com/hiphopmuseum or follow their announcements through @NMoH on Twitter. NHoH’s proper web site is coming soon at http://www.hiphopmuseum.org.

(Disclosure: Netmix founder, Tony Zeoli, is also acting Director of Interactive for the National Museum of Hip-Hop.)

On the Grind…Building!

For the past six week, some of you may have noticed a bit of a slowdown in posting to the Netmix blog. It’s not for lack of trying, I’ll tell you that much. It’s simply because I’ve been insanely busy with a couple of projects, and I have been too frazzled to sit and crank out a few posting.

I know, you say, “too busy?” Yes, too busy. In face, so busy that I missed the Electric Zoo Festival, which was something I was really looking forward to. Too busy, that in the last 30 days, I think I pulled a few 12-hour days and one 19-hour day. The latter killed me, because I didn’t leave my office until 7:30 AM, which was 19-hours after I’d gotten to the office the day before. Okay, I cheated by 1.5 hours. I took a little break to share a plate of Calimari with some friends at a local eatery. Rest assured, I jumped right back into work shortly thereafter.

What’s one to do when you’re so busy you can’t post to your own blog? I tried to enlist the help of a Wordpress plug-in, FeedWordpress, which enabled me to aggregate RSS feeds from other sites to post to Netmix, but I stopped using it for a couple of reasons.

First, while FeedWordpress did a great job of ingesting posts from other sites for display on Netmix, it took the entire post from Billboard.com’s RSS service, which included both text and photos, instead of just a summary. I can’t be sure, but it seems as if Billboard.com’s RSS is displaying the full text with images of articles, and not the text summary. For legal reason, I did not want to infringe on Billboard’s copyright by using their content without permission. Because it was an automated tool, I didn’t have the time to go in and credit each news service pinged. After adding multiple services, I realized there were so many posts, it would have just taken way too much time to go through each one to post an attribution, so I gave it the old heave-ho and deleted it.

A second and equally important reason, is because FeedWordpress was causing a harsh php scriptiong error affecting the Netmix home page load incorrectly. Each time the page loaded with php parsing error, it affected Netmix’s page view stats with our analytics program. Certainly a very serious issue.

Lastly, the content coming through these feeds was of relatively little interest to the DJ culture community. It’s all pop crap, right? Netmix has always been committed first and foremost to DJ culture and not general music news. There are a few competitors out there already that do a pretty good job of covering music news. You know, Billboard, MTV, Yahoo! Music, AOL Music and the like. Yeah, I could go head to head, but…er…no, thank you. I’m just kidding, of course. It’s just little’ol me plugging away on Netmix whenever the urge arises. I couldn’t be bothered covering what a “jackass” Kanye West was, who’s getting divorced, or whic faux pas some superstar artist committed. Not my bag, man. We’ll stick to DJ oriented stuff here.

What’s New

There’s a few new things I want to tell you about.

1. 20dot20

20dot20.com

The first is an industry networking event the guys and Habitat Music and I launched four months ago. I know—not a peep here about it on Netmix. Crazy, right? That’s what happens when you’re juggling multiple Twitter feeds (@djtonyz, @netmix, @twiijdj and @eroticdisco, blogs, my Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, Tribe.com, Ping.fm, LinkedIn, Plaxo and all the other Web 2.0 sites that are keeping me crazy busy.

Fortunately, we’ve been documenting everything over at 20dot20’s web site (http://www.2odot20.com). We’re very proud of this event, which is the buzz of the advertising music industry.

The event takes place the last Thursday of the month. We were located at 20 W. 20th, however, we just gave up the space and are moving the event to 95 Morton St. in the interim. Check the 20dot20.com Web site for event details and to sign up to the event or receive email notifications of future events. Here is the invite link: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/431022199

2. National Museum of Hip Hop

For the past four months, I’ve been assisting the organizers of the National Museum of Hip Hop with their online strategy. We’re in the process of developing their Web site, which will be tentatively located at http://www.hiphopmuseum.org. The group is planning its fund raising campaign with a a gala event on November 10 at M2 UltraLounge in New York City. Stay tuned for more details and the Web site launch in just a week or so!

3. Twiij.com

Twiij

In the spirit of UltraLight Startups, a New York City small business networking event focused on entrepreneurs bootstrapping their ideas with a few bucks and some wind at their backs, I threw $500 an idea at the wall and got Twiij.com to show for it. What’s Twiij? It’s a Twitter-based music promotion service, where anyone can Tweet their tracks to DJs following our Twitter account: @TwiijDJ. With hundreds of DJs following, you can simply fill out the form. Twiij shortens your URL using the Bit.ly API, and through an online form service creates all the hash (#) tags. Hit submit and watch your Tweet roll out in our feed, where DJs following can pick up on the new music. Think of it as the first Twitter record pool for DJs. Just go to http://www.twiij.com to Tweet your track.

4. EroticDisco

There’s been an explosion of talented female DJs around the world. You can find a few sites dedicated wholly to female DJs, like the popular SheJay.com. One day last year, I was putzing around the Web, thinking up ideas for new sites. I’d been listing to an old Vanessa Dauo album, inspired by the poetry of Erica Jong. That gave the idea for EroticDisco. I completely understand that some people think the word “erotic” followed by the word “disco,” means that it’s some kind of porno site, but that’s the furthest thing from my mind. However, I do want to focus on the fashion of female DJs, because I think that’s going to be a driver for young women who are interested in DJ culture.

EroticDisco.com Tamara Sky

My girlfriend, bless her heart, thinks that EroticDisco.com should cover ALL female DJs, no matter what they look like. Well, that’s what SheJay is for. We’re trying to be a little different and focus on the fashion, the style AND the music. It’s my editorial vision for the site to focus on stylish, attractive women who are also slamming DJs. Call it whatever you want. If you’re not feeling it, then may I suggest that you start your own Web site. There are thousands of ways to launch your own Web site nowadays, it shouldn’t be too hard. Just don’t hate the player, hate the game! We’re just trying to have a little fun in all the seriousness.

Wrap-Up

Yes, we’ve been GRINDING it out this summer! That’s for sure. If that wasn’t enough, I’ve been in the studio with DJ Ming working on some music. And, I’ve been helping my friends with their sites: TrendyMommies.com, 622Photography.com, and MelibeeGlobal.com.

I’ve also started developing our NetmixMedia.com corporate site, which is the parent org of this site, Netmix.com, and Twiij.com, DJGig.com (coming soon) and SoundsSocial (also coming soon).

This, and all the work I’m doing with Zaah Technologies at Lead User Experience Architect, which includes a bunch of sites that I can’t disclose, but they are all pretty big projects and we’re doing some fun stuff!

That’s a wrap. Stay tuned, because I’m going to be kicking it a bit more here on the blog in the next few weeks! Apologies for disappearing for a minute, but you can see why. It’s been mad hectic, for sure!

– by Tony Z.

I just came across this blog post on Boston.com’s Metro Desk: Defendant’s lawyer puts on a show in illegal downloading case. Globe staff writer, Jonathan Salzman, describes the courtroom antics, he writes, that “Charles Nesson, the flamboyant Harvard Law School professor defending a college student accused of illegally downloading and sharing music online,” has used to make the case that his client is not responsible for copyright infringement. At the time of this post, there were over 40 comments to the original article. I wanted to share my two cents on the subject, which I posted in the comments section earlier tonight. I’ve fixed a few errors and added a few words to this, but it remains pretty much intact from my original comment.

When someone says that music is not a tangible thing, I tend to disagree. When you can take digital bits of information and move them using a USB drive from one computer to another, although it seems as if you’re moving air, you’re actually migrating a process that thousands of man hours went into creating.

Digital music is a “physical” product. When we think of the CD, we think that is the physical product, when in all actuality, it is simply the transport mechanism, not unlike an MP3 device is today. I believe that if I make a song and it is converted into digital format, then it is a product that is my property. If I choose to share that property with others as “open source,” then that’s my choice. If I choose to restrict access to my product, that’s also my choice. The copyright laws in this country protect that choice.

What most people don’t think about is this: One day you download someone’s music file and then place it on your computer. You allow open access to your computer through a file sharing network. Others then come and take and share that file through their computers. All of a sudden, that file has been downloaded a million times, usurping the ability of the content owner to generate revenue based on their production of that music. The next day, you write a blog post about that music, then someone copies your blog post and puts it on a hundred web sites, which they are monetizing with Google’s Adsense program. You get angry and say, “that’s unfair! I wrote that article about that song that I downloaded…for FREE!” And, the cycle continues.

What happens then? How do you generate revenue? Well, most people think today that the creative process is really just a driver for sales of tickets to the live performance and a piece of your life in the form of merchandise and other stuff that people will buy, and therefore support your life. In today’s world, if you’re a musician and you’re not monetizing your life in other ways than just through the sale of your music, then you’re not very entrepreneurial.

Sell the right to have dinner with you and talk about music with one of your most ardent fans. Provide inside access to a recording session and sell the right to be there to a fan. Let that word of mouth about how cool you are translate into more people who are interested in you and then watch that word of mouth, viral marketing strategy take off. Get innovative.

Stop depending on music sales, which were NEVER your bread and butter anyway. The less we sell music, the more we sell access to our world. We’ve always given music to radio and they’ve profited handsomely by only paying ASCAP and BMI, but not the other entities that are arguing they should be paid today. If you want money, go after radio, who play your music and play commercials in between every song, or go after a file sharing networks profits from advertising around your music. But once you start suing your constituency, you tell them they are not valuable to you. That they can be tossed into the cesspool at any time for simply wanting to support the music by freely sharing it unencumbered.

It’s tragic that the major labels continue to sue their way into oblivion. All that money gone to lawyers, when it could have gone back into the business of music and generating new pathways. I can totally understand the desire for control, but haven’t we learned that there will always be leaks? Haven’t we learned that it’s so hard to control human behavior? You can try to kill all the mice in a house, but one always gets away, only to start a new family somewhere else.

There is surely another way to embrace and not destroy your audience. A way to give them what they want, when they want it, and find other ways to profit from their use of your copyright. Look at companies like Wordpress. They have found a freemium model of giving away the software, but providing fee based support services around that model.

I know some labels are starting to become more like boutique agencies that are hired by their artists, instead of artists being signed to them. The better they do, the better the artist does and everyone wins in the end. The new paradigm that being a label isn’t really being a product provider, it’s become being a service provider. That’s where the world is headed and these stupid lawsuits are just postponing the inevitable demise of the old model.

If you took all the money and invested it into the service model, which is what Live Nation and Ticketmaster are sort of doing, that could be (a decent) solution. Hire your label, not the other way around. Say, I don’t want to be signed, I want to hire you to be my label and work for me. If they don’t, then you can fire them and move onto another group more to your liking.

There you have it! My take on what ails the industry and a possible other way of looking at what it means to be a recording artist today, and why you have to change they way you think about the label system. The old way is dead. There’s no looking back. The new paradigm is “software as a service.” or SAAS. Giving software away for free and providing services around that. Music companies need to think about how software companies are giving away the product, while providing value on the other end. If Wordpress, Movable Type, Jomla!, Drupal, and a ton of other Open Source companies can do it, why can’t we do it in the music business?

– by Tony Z.

Wow! How MySpace grew to over 1,400 employees, no one knows? Maybe that’s the worldwide number. Regardless, the company, which was acquired by News Corp a few years ago for what was then thought as a steak, is trying to streamline operations and get back to the “start-up” mentality that helped to fuel it’s growth. This blogger highly doubts putting senior executives from companies like AOL and Viacom in charge of anything at MySpace resembles anything close to stealth mode.

Remember, most of these guys and gals have never, ever worked at a start-up. If they have, they are far removed from those experiences and can now sit back and collect six figure salaries to try to stem the exodus to other social media sites, which have been chipping away at their lead. How would they know what start-up even feels like? Nice to want to be something your not, especially in the face of competition from Facebook, whose “Pages” are quietly becoming the new port of call for many recording artists–many of whom have tired of paying someone a couple of grand for a tricked out MySpace page, when what they really need are simple artist tools to aggregate an audience, then promote and share their events. Can you say Going.com or event EventBrite?

To me, MySpace is an entertainment destination. Certainly a necessity for artists, actors, comedians, photographers and other media-centric folk, but Facebook has overtaken the service in terms of functionality and usability as a true social network. For example, the other day, I was looking for a Twitter app for my MySpace page. First, trying to figure out where the application directory is was confusing. Once in the director, I entered Twitter into the search box. The search returned the same application home page twice. It wasn’t until the third time that I found a couple of hits on a Twitter app. I quickly learned that whoever are developing these apps on the Open Social platform are not as sophisticated as Facebook developers. The “iTwitter” app I selected required me to unblock my status on Twitter, in order for it to feed my Twitter data into the app on my MySpace profile page. And, I learned that I couldn’t move the app up or down the page, as Facebook allows, when you’re logged in to your profile.

In comparison, I’ve been Twittering to my Facebook without an issue since the first Twitter app was created. Enuff said. And, with TweetDeck, I have the functionality of both. Where is MySpace in making a relationship with TweetDeck? With anyone for that matter? This is what happens. Control, control, and more control. Once social media companies are snapped up by larger concernes, they lose their mojo. While some argue that Facebook is stupid for not taking the money, I argue that they have a smart plan to be the best at what they do. If you focus on what you’re good at and you don’t sell out (can anyone say Google?), then you will win in the public markets in the end. MySpace now has lost the opportunity to go public. Facebook–if it goes public–will be Google-esque in their command of the social media marketplace. I’ll admit I could have learned a thing or two from that strategy with Netmix back in the day. Fortunately, I have a second chance. Most people don’t get a second chance.

Needless to say, MySpace is light years behind Facebook now in functionality and usability. Where Facebook is almost a perfect (is anything every really perfect?) social media interface and Twitter makes social networking simple, MySpace lags far, far behind. MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta is correct in saying that MySpace is a bloated company. If they can’t get their app search correct, which is one of the simplest of concepts, how do they expect to compete against the next generation? They have a lot of ground to cover, that’s for sure.

Check the Gawker post or read the story at NYTimes.com.

Speaking of closures, I just found out from a friend who worked at Ticketmaster owned and operated, Echo Music, that the company is jettisoning over 200 artists with hosted web sites from division and merges the company with it’s L.A.-based Entertainment division. May artists have been left in the lurch, scrambling to build new web sites or redirect their domains to their MySpace pages. We think Echo Music made a huge mistake being acquired by Ticketmaster. This is what happens when you look for the big payday. You can be out of a job in less time than it takes for a scalper to score 100 front row seats to a Miley Cyrus concert. For more on the Echo Music shutdown, check the String Theory Media blog. They’ve got the in-depth scoop.

– by Tony Zeoli

Tue, Jun 30, 2009
Fordham University (Lincoln Center)
New York, NY
7:00 p.m.

NARIP’s Art of the Music Deal series continues, this time with top music attorneys duking out a 360 deal. Join this special program and mock negotiation with special guest speakers M. JAMES COOPERMAN, Esq., COO & EVP Business and Legal Affairs of
Wind-Up Entertainment and DINA LaPOLT, Esq. of LaPolt Law.

Also joining the panel is Lisa Van Zuidam – Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer,
Tenth Street Entertainment and The Eleven Seven Music Group.

Get more details and register now at www.narip.com

.

WMC 2009 Blogging, Podcasting and RSS Panelists

The Blogging, Podcasting and RSS panel at WMC 2009 focused on the various ways to get out the message through blogging, podcasting and RSS. Although BPM.FM and Play.FM are more streaming services than podcast outlests, the point was that Dance music radio has moved online and is where many people are accessing their favorite mix shows and artists.

The conversation turned to the new Flip video recorder, which is, for some, equivalent to the iPod for music. It’s a nifty $150 device ($200 for more storage) that has a built-in USB output, which means not having to worry about carrying around a USB cable. And, it syncs your video direct to YouTube for instant web channel publishing. The company was recently acquired by Cisco.

Flip Video (Photo courtesty of Pure Digital)

We also covered the power of Wordpress and it’s over 2,500 3rd party supported plug-ins, which enhances the power of the popular Open Source to a full blown CMS, if that’s what you need.

From left to right: panel moderator Laura Betterly (Yada Yada Marketing), Stuart Miller (Smart Move Music), Jamie Peterson (BPM.fm), Diego Sanchez (DMSR.com), Tony Zeoli (Netmix.com) and Thomas Buchstaetter (Play.fm).

Here’s a short clip of New York’s Dance music leader, Pulse 87.7 Program Director, Joel Salkowitz, discussing how the station came about, his role in it, and the recent action by Arbitron to add stations in the 87.7 range to their regular books. Other panelists included Vic Latino from Long Island, New York pop station, Party 105.5; Mike Spinella, Director of Industry Relations at AOL Music; and Skyy from Sirus Satellite Radio.

Nielsen SoundScan, the entertainment industry’s data information system that tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, Nielsen BDS, the music industry’s leading music performance monitoring service, and Nielsen RingScan, which tracks mobile ringtone purchases, have announced their 2008 U.S. year-end sales and performance monitoring data for the 52-week period December 31, 2007 through December 28, 2008.

2008 Year End Factoids:

* Music purchases in 2008 reached 1.5 Billion, marking the fourth consecutive year music sales have exceeded 1 billion; 1.4 billion (2007) vs. 1.2 billion (2006) vs. 1 billion (2005).
* Music sales exceeded 65 million in the final week of 2008, representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2007 with 58.4 million music purchases.
* Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album sales) declined 8.5% compared to 2007.
* Total Album sales declined 14% compared to 2007.
* Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” is the best selling Internet album for the year with 144,000 sales.
* During 2008, more Vinyl Albums were purchased (1.88 million) than any other year in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was in 2000, with 1.5 million LP album sales.
* Note that more than 2 out of every 3 vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during the year.

Digital Factoids:
* Digital Track sales break the 1 BILLION sales mark for the first time with more than 1,070,000 digital track sales. The previous record was 844 million digital track purchases during 2007; an increase of 27% over 2007.
* Digital Album sales reached an all-time high with more than 65 million sales in 2008; up from 50 million in 2007; an increase of 32% over the previous year.
* Note that digital album sales account for 15% of total album sales compared to 10% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2006.
* In the final reporting week of 2008 the following digital sales records were broken:
* Digital Track sales surpassed 47.7 million. The previous sales record was 42.9 million, week of 12/23 -12/30/07.
* Digital Album sales this week broke the two million mark for the first time with sales of 2.4 million sales; breaking the previous record of 1.9 million (12/30/07).
* The top 200 digital songs for the week posted an all-time high with 13.6 million sales; breaking the previous record of 11.9 million during the last week of 2007.
* The first time that the Top 5 digital songs (combining all versions of the same song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a week with Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” selling 419,000. The record for most downloads for a digital song in one week continues to be Flo Rida’s “Low” with sales of 467,000 set during the last week of 2007.
* 2008 is the first time a digital song broke the 3 million sales mark in a single year. There were 2 songs that achieved this milestone; Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” and Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop;” with sales of 3.4 and 3.2 million respectively.
* In 2008, there are 19 different digital songs with sales that exceeded 2 million compared to 9 in 2007.
* 71 Digital Songs exceed the 1 million sales mark for the year compared to 41 digital songs in 2007, 22 in 2006, and only 2 digital songs in 2005.
* Rihanna is the biggest selling digital artist in 2008 with nearly 10 million track sales compared to Fergie in 2007 who had 7.5 million track sales.
* There are more than 450,000 different physical albums that sold at least one copy over the Internet during 2008 compared to 390,000 in 2007.

Best Seller Factoids:
* Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III is the biggest selling album of the year with 2.8 million sales.
* Taylor Swift is the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater than 4.0 million albums and AC/DC is the biggest selling group in 2008 with sales of 3.4 million.
* Taylor Swift stands at the top of the list, marking the 2nd time in the last three years that a country artist is the top selling artist for the year. Rascal Flatts was the biggest selling artist in 2006 with 5 million sales. Josh Groban took the honors last year (2007) with 4.8 million sales.
* Taylor Swift’s Fearless and her self-titled album finished the year at #3 and #6 respectively with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. This is the first time in the history of Nielsen SoundScan one artist had two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart

Holiday SeasonFactoids: (last 6 weeks of year).
* Overall Album sales during the 2008 holiday season were down 19% compared to 2007, with sales of just over 80 million.
* Album sales during the holiday season accounted for 19% of all album sales for the year.
* Digital Album sales during the holiday season experienced significant growth over 2007 with an increase of 37% to 9.9 million sales.

Strata Factoids:
* Album sales at Non-Traditional music outlets (digital, internet, mail order, venue, non-traditional retailers) hit an all-time high in 2008 with sales breaking the 100 million mark for the first time. Non-Traditional is the only strata that experienced album growth over the previous year; with an increase of 15% over 2007.
* Non-traditional outlets account for nearly 25% of all album sales, compared to 18% in 2007, 12% in 2006, 9% in 2005 and 5% in 2004 (4% in 2003).
* Digital services account for 65% of the Non-Traditional album sales.
* The last two weeks of the year produced the two biggest album sales weeks for Non-Traditional outlets; 3.3 and 3.2 million sales.
* The percentage of album sales at mass merchants declined for the second straight year after experiencing year over year growth from 2002 � 2006. In 2008, 37% of all albums purchased were at a Mass Merchant outlet compared to 40% in 2007, 41% in 2006, 40% in 2005.
* Chain music stores account for 33% of all album sales in 2008; compared to 36% in 2007; 41% in 2006, 45% in 2005 and 48% in 2004.
* Album sales at Independent music stores account for 7% of all album sales; up 1 point from a year ago (6% in 2007 and 2006, 7% in 2005 and 9% in 2004).

A little bird flew in and told us the possible cause for Beatport to suddently abandon their affiliate marketing program, while leaving many sites in the lurch with broken links and no answers.

The little bird surmised that Beatport’s affiliate program was costing them more dollars in fraudulent transactions than they were making in revenues. How does something like this happen? Let us explain.

User A sets up a blog on a hosted blog network, like Blogger.com, complete with Google Adsense links, which in time will become a secondary revenue stream in this scam. We’ll get to that later. Once the blog is set up, User A contacts LinkShare, which operates affiliate programs for hundreds of web sites, including Beatport’s now defunct program.

User A registers for the program. After the LinkShare registration is completed and User A is accepted into the affiliate network, User A then generates affiliate links to each weeks Beatport Top 10 and posts them on the Blogger blog with the Google Adsense program.

Using a stolen credit card number, User A clicks on his/her own affiliate links on the blog to purchase the Top 10 tracks from Beatport, generating affiliate revenue, which is then distribued back to User A through LinkShare. $2000 in transactions might mean about $57 in revenue to User A, funnelled back through LinkShare.

Because Beatport takes the transaction and then pays labels their share, once the transaction is disputed by the card issuer, Beatport has already paid the label and has to fight it out with the credit card company. Of course, the label is not going to return the money and it’s on Beatport to have to deal with it.

The more fraudulent transactions happen through the LinkShare program, the less inclined credit card companies are to work with Beatport for sending them an large amount of questionable purchases. As a business, Beatport can’t operate without credit cards. They are beholden to the card companies, who probably threatened to shut them off if they weren’t able to reduce the number of fraudulent transactions.

Under potential pressure from the card issuers and losing money by paying out affiliate revenue for fraudulent purposes to labels, Beatport was forced to abruptly cancel the affiliate program with no notice.

Now how does Google’s Adsense play into this? User A not only posts the affiliate links to the blog, but also a zip (compressed) file containing each week’s Top 10 tracks on Beatport for anyone to come and download. Of couse, this drives traffic to the blog and potential clicks on Google’s Adsense links, which become another revenue stream for User A.

Although Beatport might complain to Blogger about this practice, Blogger is under no obligation to take down illegal content unless served a take down notice by the copyright holder (generally the label or producer).

Since Beatport only sells the music and are not the rightful copyright owners of the tracks posted to the blog, their hands are tied. Many fledgling dance music labels that subsist on Beatport may not have access to attorneys for a variety of reasons. Blogger.com then goes unchallenged on many occasions, because they are not served with take-down notices.

Google, who owns Blogger, operates the Adsense program. In essence, as User A posts illegal content to Blogger, Google makes money from clicks on their Adense links against that illegally posted content. Nice work, if you can get it.

Now that we understand the dynamics, maybe we were a bit hard on Beatport in our original post. No one wants to see Beatport lose money or be the victim of fraud. That doesn’t benefit the industry that is now being supported through sales on Beatport. That being said, could they have been a bit more sensitive to their partners? Sure. We think they were losing money and needed to shut it down so abruptly, that they really couldn’t notify anyone in advance.

If we were too hard on you Beatport, we apologize. But, we’d at least like some acknowledgment of how much we’ve promoted the service, instead of just being but off with little explanation. A little massaging of your friends goes a long way in terms of good will.

– by Tony Z

After attending the Virgin Mobile Festival a few weeks ago, I swung through Atlantic City on the way back to NYC for the 2008 DJ Times Expo. Organizer and DJ Times Editor, Jim Tremayne threw me on a panel at the last minute to speak on alternative business models and careers for DJs and what they should be thinking about for long term success.

Just a few years ago, the Expo was filled with CD turntables. How times have changed. This year, the Expo was loaded with digital DJ products. From software to controllers and DVD VJ decks, the transition to digital is in full swing. Even the remix services, X-Mix and Promo Only, are promoting digital downloads through private, subscription only stores, which will be launched soon.

We loved the Hercules RMX digital controller, show above. The key features are the jog wheels and ability to interact with your audio library. We also were really excited Numark’s NS7 Motorized Computer DJ System with Audio/IO. A very sleek looking product with real vinyl emulators, this is could very well be the digital controller to watch. Numark collaborated with Rane to create a product that syncs easily with Serato. Sending signals over USB, Numark claims the resolution is double that of midi.

The Hercules controller was being promoted in conjunction with Virtual DJ, a similar product to Traktor Scratch and Rane’s Serato, available for both PC and Mac for U.S. $299 after discount from their web site.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

Buy Products from JR.com:

Hercules RMX

– Tony Zeoli

Peter Kafka on Tech Ticker

Everyone seems to have an opinion on what ails the music industry. In this Yahoo! Finance Tech Ticker video interview, Silicon Insider managing editor, Peter Kafka proposes that labels drop supporting new music and focus on their valuable catalogs. Doing so would leave the door open to independent labels to figure out how to sell music in a digital era.

Then again, if things continue the way they are, major labels will end up getting dropped from the stock exchanges anyway, once their stock drops below a buck for a few quarters. Once that happens, they could feasibly take themselves private and go back to the way things used to be. Cultivating artists instead of churning out pop crap to see if it sticks to the wall.

On the other side, Sony Music Entertainment, the new entity born out of BMG’s desire to extract itself from the music business, may know something we don’t. Or, they may be doing exactly what Kafka thinks is going to happen, control the masters of all those hits over the last 50 + years and/or simply control the music in a convergence strategy tied to their original video content.

We’ll keep watching and waiting for the music giants to figure it all out, while the digital era continues to chip away at their profits.

Burnlounge almost got away with one of the best scams in digital music history. I called it here on Netmix and was ostracized by people like Hazel Zoletta from Tommy Boy, who sang the virtues of Burnlounge, while tens of thousands of people gave up their hard-earned dollars to a bunch of people who had been investigated for pyramid-type operations before.

One of my best friends (who shall remain nameless) threatened to never talk to me again over my calling Burnlouge out for what they truly were, one of the biggest online music scam’s since digital music was invented. Both she and Hazel were mad that I said “B and C” level” executives were at the first Burnlounge New York meeting, which took place in the lounge under Coffee Shop in Union Square.

I still stand by that statement, as I didn’t see Diddy, Lyor or Clive there. And if I was there, then I was calling myself a “B” or “C” level executive anyway. Of course, in their furor, they couldn’t see the forest from the trees.

So, what happened to Burnlounge? Well, the FTC shut them down. The URL is finito! Gone. Poof! Digital Music News reports that the FTC has settled with a former Burnlounge promoter, Scott Elliot, who agreed to pay $20,000 of a $117,000 judgment against him. We hear it’s about all he could afford.

Of course, we’ve never again heard from Burnlounge Barry in our comments section. Who is Burnlounge Barry? He was a Burnlounge operator who found our blog and carried on a running argument with me about the sanctity of Burnlounge. He was adamant that Burnlounge was the wave of the future…yada…yada. That Burnlounge would revolutionize the music industry. Where is Barry now?  Nowhere to be found now. He’s probably on to the next big scam. We wish him the best of luck and look forward to the day that he’s locked up like the rest of them.

read more | digg story