Sunday, October 4, 2009

T-Pain: I'm On An iPhone!

Ringtones, radio, MTV...T-Pain is pretty much everywhere these days. Over the last few years, the "rapper turned singer" has become an integral part of popular music. He almost single-handedly made it cool to sound like a robot, taking advantage of the much used Antares Auto-Tune plugin.

But this week, Pain started working with another new technology: The iPhone. Along with developer, Smule, T-Pain has released an iPhone app that sold 300,000 units at $2.99 each. Now those are some pretty impressive numbers, especially considering the promotional benefits of having such an app.

To boost sales further, T-Pain has also created a contest to go along with the app. The contest involves uploading a video of yourself singing along with the hugely popular, "I'm On A Boat", and offers the winner $5,000 and the chance to hang with T-Pain himself.

For a musician like Pain, this is a great move. He knows that his fanbase is hip to new technology, and with a large number of them buying ringtones, iPhone apps aren't too far off. This is spot-on promotion, and it's been monetized. This is a great example of what it takes to maintain current in today's music biz.


Alex Katz

2 comments:

  1. Your right this is a great example of what it takes to maintain current in today's music biz. Just the other day I saw him on the Ellen Degeneres show. At first I didn't know what show I was watching or didn't care I was just interested in the app. She succeeded by bringing new fans to the show and he succeeded by opening himself up to fans that has nothing to do with music. Now those Ellen D fans may go purchase his CD along with his app. More money in the bank

    Tre

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  2. So the iPhone app pulled in around $900,000 already? Those are some impressive numbers. It seems that more people are beginning to market themselves this way, it is amazing how the different technology trends have been coming along in recent years. Myspace, facebook, twitter, and now the iPhone. I own an iPhone actually, but I have yet to buy any apps on it. I am in the minority I believe, as everyone else I know that has one has at least three "pages" full of downloaded apps. Nice article.

    - Derek Jenkins

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