New Weezer CD + An Official Snuggie Only $29.99!

Music has now taken over the SNUGGIES. Everyone knows what a snuggie is, especially from their tacky commercials. Snuggies have even come out with a size for dogs. But who would have thought that Snuggies would be used to promote and sell music? Well, they do now. Weezer is now giving their new CD away if you buy a special edition "WEEZER" Snuggie. I know that many bands have used this strategy in promoting and selling their music, however I'm not sure how effective it will be to use a product such as an oversized blanket to try and get people to listen to your music. I think that it would be more effective if the CD came with any snuggie that is purchased, rather than only giving it away to those who buy the Snuggies that say WEEZER on the chest. Watching the commercial for this product made the CD seem tacky as well as the WEEZER snuggie. I personally like snuggies, I think they're a good product that many people would enjoy. However, I think some products mesh well with music, and some don't.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/11/new-weezer-cd-an-official-snuggie-only-2999.html

-Lyndsie Klott

Devo Designer Art-Rugs

Recently, the new wave band known as Devo kicked off a new U.S. tour along with a line of Devo rugs. Yes, rugs.

A blog on Wired explains a little bit about Devo today. Four of the five current members are part of the original line-up from 1973. Mark Mothersbaugh explains that the band plans to give fans an exciting experience by performing full albums during shows on the tour. The band is also planning on several plans for the near future. A new 2010 album will feature a "number of great minds" providing covers and "subtle remixes". Also, another tour next year will be feature a new off-beat multimedia show. And of course, there's the "art rugs".

Mothersbaugh has designed over 60 rugs that all seem to be consistent with the "de-evolution" idea that incited Devo's popularity back in the 1970's. Many of the rugs contain subtle references to songs and albums from the band. Some pretty crazy looking stuff indeed.

This is a great example of a band creating a brand of themselves. The full album shows, multimedia shows, and the strange rugs all fit the image that Devo has always been known for: off-the-beaten-path, anti-pop-culture style that sits in a realm all its own. For fans of Devo, all of this is a fantastic treat that brings back memories of Devo's heyday in the late 70's-early 80's. This ultra fan-based marketing is great for established bands that are potentially looking for a new surge of popularity.


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-Bill Ross

Lala and iLike Traffic Increased Since Google Partnership

Lala and iLike better be thanking Google! Ever since the new Google music search debuted, traffic for the two music sites has jumped dramatically.

When one searches for an artist on Google's new music search, it is possible to immediately listen to a snippet of any song by any artist, with an option to buy the song on the spot. The search utilizes various music services such as the up-and-coming Lala, as well as iLike, which just merged with Myspace.

Looks like things are on the upswing for these companies!

Alex Katz

Myspace likely to start charging for music...

Recently it has been announced that myspace will in fact start charging for their free streaming music. The question is, however, will anyone actually pay for this? Myspace has been declining in popularity it seems more and more while sites like facebook seem to be trying to trying to integrate music into their services. According to sources, Techcrunch reports that myspace spends 20 million a month on artists royalties for the free streaming music. So it seems only a matter of time until they decide to start charging for their services. I, however, don't really see anyone paying for myspace for several reasons. One, people already wont pay for a lot of their music and myspace was one of the ways they didn't have to. Also, with it's steady decline in usage, I really don't see anyone signing up now. If anything they would of had to start charging a while ago to get any sort of feedback. Now, with all of the competition these days it seems as if myspace is on the verge of ending in my opinion.

Trevor Kay

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/free-streaming-may-be-soon-be-history-spotify-delays-u-s-launch-myspace-may-move-to-pay-model/

Shazam!

Shazam Encore recently debuted on the iPhone. Apparently, Shazam Encore is a music discovery application that allows people to "learn more about their music." It also allows people to find music that is similar to the music that they already like. This new version of Shazam features some improvements and new functionality. Shazam also can apparently detect what a song is if you put your iPhone or iPod touch close enough to the speakers. This means that it will tell you who the artist is, song name, etc...

With this new release, the app is being considered a premium program, meaning that you need to pay for it now. The free version of Shazam will still be useable and downloadable. However, new users of the free version are limited to five Tags per month.

This seems like a neat program, although I have yet to use it myself. It also helps in introducing people to new music and would lead to at least some increased sales. Apparently it features Twitter and Facebook integration of some sort, so I am sure that there is some additional marketing opportunity in that functionality.

- Derek Jenkins

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Youtube gets social savvy.

The folks over at youtube, have added new socialization tools to their website. Even though Youtube is the worlds largest video sharing community, the website has apparently decided to stay relevant with web 2.0's massive social networking trend becomes even more in depth. Details and traffic figures are a bit scarce as of now but the article I read on it offered some interesting data..
- Over One Million users are now using youtubes autoshare options that allows users to seamlessly share their favorite videos on google reader, facebook, and twitter.

-With every auto shared tweet, YouTube is gaining on average 7 new users.

-YouTube now has a friend suggestion feature, based on the users Gmail address book.

I think that this is a great endeavor for YouTube to pursue. It is no secret that the website has had a bit of trouble finding a way to become profitable, and I've always thought that the lack of "personality" on YouTube has hindered it in the past. For instance, I don't know of any underground band that's Internet presence relies solely on YouTube; while most of the have an account and videos on YouTube, often times they use YouTube as a way to embed these videos on their other websites. Most bands have much less traffic and user activity on YouTube than they do elsewhere.
This could be a good thing for YouTube, and if they continue to improve, upgrade, and develop new ways to stay "social" on their platform alone, the situation I described above may start to change.
-Eric Hart

4 Ways Live and Digital Music are Teaming Up

The 'new' live concerts are becoming more popular to music fans because one can save costs without paying for expensive tickets and convenience fees. Music webcasting has shown promise for over a decade, but the stage is set now for an online live-music revolution. Recently, YouTube broadcasted its first ever live full-length concert. U2 was the performing band which brought in 10 million viewers worldwide in addition to the 100,000 attended in person. Overall, this event was seen as YouTubes biggest event in the site's history. The audience for live online music began first at the Tibetan Freedom Concert which drew 36,000 viewers in 1996. Today's users who are accustomed to social networking want entertainment and information in a real-time environment. Billboard Live, is increasingly becoming more popular. This service let fans choose between four high-bandwidth Microsoft Silverlight streams, using partner OWLive's technology. IPhone users can watch a particular show in near-real time through an app using iStreamPlanet's first-ever bandwidth-adaptive HTTP stream of live music. Most importantly, from a band's perspective, they are seeing these services as great opportunity to extend their presence beyond the venue they're in. The next step is for fans viewing a concert remotely to interact with a show within a venue, putting messages on the stage or even sounds in the speakers. Deep Rock Drive which has been experimenting with his concept stated in the article, " Instant participatory engagement is becoming key to the consumption of online entertainment, and the only way to do that is to make sure it's live." On the other hand, Sony Club Dates is developing an experience where fans can watch prerecorded shows directly to movie-theater screens. The company plans to beam live shows to theaters by satellite, selling tickets and sponsorships. Mike Fidler, Sony vice president of digital cinema solutions and services said in the article, " We've converted [theaters] to a digital platform, using digital projectors and a connected environment as we move into the world order that exists today." A valid statement almost made by Mike was the fact that theater's demographics are really aligned with music demographics--close to 70 percent of the people attending theaters are under 30. Finally, show goers can buy professionally recorded concerts as they exit a venue on USB stick, CD, DVD or as a digital delivery. EMI is generated this idea to offer fans the ultimate encore.

--Ryan Dolan

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/4-ways-live-and-digital-music-are-teaming-up-to-rock-your-world/