Widget! Widget! Widget! Oi Oi Oi

Myspace are always in the news, a year ago most of the news was positive, and the last few months they have been receiving a backlash of bad press. The recent decision from Myspace to block certain ‘widgets’ (Revver, Imeem, Hoopa) are not doing them any favors for the future of Myspace.

Apparently working for Myspace is like musical chairs, it will not be too long before the co-founders Tom & ‘the other guy’ packs up & leaves once their contracts are complete later this year.

I think Myspace/News Corp need to sit back a moment to look at who & what made it what is it today – the users. Myspace arguably is the face of UGC (User Generated Content) well they helped make the term became ‘cool’. Being able to mold a webpage & fill it with goodies was all the rage until Myspace turned sour and realised this type of behaviour can not be good for their revenue model.

To make the widget-sphere work under Myspace’s new controlled environment I would put forward the following:

- Companies with a widget must contact Myspace for widget approval

- Each vendor agrees to a set of Myspace (fair use) terms & conditions for inclusion

- Myspace review the widget & approve for distribution

- After approval Myspace can monitor the widget to ensure it does not break the T&C’s.

If a vendors breaks the contract, then ban them.

I think Myspace needs to look at the positive effect of this current widget-madness we live in. Myspace traffic has flattened over the last 6 months compared to other high profile sites. While new comers like Bebo are rising rapidly, you will notice on the Alexa graph that Bebo traffic has pointed north since they announced Bebo Widgets (an approved set of widgets to appear within Bebo page guidelines).

Social networking is about keeping in touch and having some fun while doing so (or fooling around behind your girlfriends’ back if thats your thing!). The ying must go with the yang or else people will move to another site that offers all they need without restrictions.

Peter Davias Marketing Manager

Contact me: peter.davias (at) 7digital (dot) com

Who does a download store really serve?

According to a recent article, Lily Allen is complaining about being bullied. Apparently, iTunes are twisting her arm into releasing a remix early, exclusively to them, in exchange for promoting her on their front page

The first thought to enter your head is, “Lily Allen? Complaining? Surely not!” – followed by a flash of horror that the music business should work in such a dastardly, mercenary fashion.

After all, ‘twas ever thus. This mutual back-scratching or ahem, “exchange of values” is a fundamental tenet of business. So what is she complaining about, and who cares? Well, we all should, actually.

Let’s look at what she actually said: “iTunes [is] kind of bullying people into corners by making sure they have extra, you know, extra songs so they can put them on the front page. And they won’t [advertise] your album unless you kind of give them extra material and so on. And we’ve kind of been backed into a corner. We want to do this remix, but the remix isn’t ready, but they need it delivered by today and blah blah blah. So I said, ‘Okay, fine, give iTunes the rubbish remix, and then what I’ll do I’ll get the people remixing it to do a good remix and then we’ll give it away for free on MySpace.”

You can hear the interview here

It is not the trade-off between promotion and content that niggles. It’s that bullying allegation that makes leaves a sour taste. Rushing an artist to release material before they are happy with it because you can is just wrong. And you’ve only got to look at recent events on a UK TV show industry to see how much we hate bullies. Oh yes.

But with my commercial hat on, what would we do if she came to 7digital, with a secret little exclusive in her handbag? Would we put it on the home-page? Well, yes, there’s a good chance we would. But, conversely, would we give her a deadline, and threaten her with expulsion if she handed it in late? Erm, no.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not writing this with a view to playing pointy-finger, name-calling games with iTunes. This is after all only Lily Allen’s account, and let’s face it, pop-stars don’t make for the most reliable witnesses. The broader question is of balance. Whom should a digital store serve? Should it be:

a) the consumer?

b) the artist/label?

c) the shopkeeper?

d) all of the above?

It should be d) shouldn’t it? And while that might be slightly Utopian, it is a better goal than allowing one of the players in this game to become super-dominant & slap the others about for their own ends.

Stephen Somerville Commercial Director

Contact me: stephen.somerville (at) 7digital.com

indiestore launch

The traditional music business model has always been broken. Run from the top down, inefficient, undemocratic and pegged against the content creators (the artist). So when digital music revolutionized the business model and the consumption model of music, the industry experienced a re-birth. But this time around, it was run from the bottom up, with efficient distribution and driven by the artist and their fans. Music in the digital age is now democratic and as vibrant as it has ever been.

indiestore exemplifies this re-birth of music. The digital download service built by 7digital empowers artists to gain control of their own product and allows their fans to define their success while giving them a chance to actually make money. Using the same platform built for Coldplay, Gorillaz and The White Stripes, 7digital levelled the playing field by bringing a cost-effective download solution by way of distribution, marketing and consumption to every artist – signed, unsigned, independent and major.

We launched indiestore in late February after initially releasing the service in beta. The idea behind releasing a beta version was to allow the service to build around the needs of the artists who would be using the download platform. We had open forums to talk to independent and unsigned artists about tools that they wanted to help sell their music online, features they would like included on their download store and ways they could communicate with their fans. In response we introduced a widget for artists to sell anywhere on the web, increased payment accessibility with SMS payments, created a ratings and comments tool, counted sales towards the charts in 20+ countries and offered artists to submit their tracks to music licensing guru’s who choose music for synchronisation opportunities.

The democratic nature of indiestore and the control that artists have in using the service defines the new business model for the music industry. No longer can the music industry have a monopoly of someone else’s product. The digital music revolution is here, and we can finally hear what the world has to offer.

Tejas Mistry indiestore Product Manager

Contact me: tejas.mistry (at) 7digital (dot) com