Trends News

MySpace Adds 1 Million Users After Music Refocus

Source: HypeBot
February 14, 2012

MySpace traffic has been in a death spiral for more than two years. At its peak, MySpace attracted 75.9 million unique visitors each month, but that had slipped to 33 million when the site was sold at fire sale prices last June. Slowly, however, that's changing according to MySpace's new owners Tim and Chris Vanderhook. who offered stats to support their turnaround claim. MySpace's decline had continued under the new owners falling to 24 million unique users monthly. But according ...

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Live Nation CEO Predicts Strong Year for Live Music

Source: HypeBot
February 4, 2012

Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino is upbeat about the live industry's prospects in 2012. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rapino reiterated what the company had teased in an earlier quarterly earnings report; business in 2012 was up as much as 14%. The teaser also reported that the number of shows being booked was on the rise to the tune of 15% worldwide. Rapino also let slip that while officially, there was no confirmed Stones ...

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Music Funding Already up 27% in 2012...

Source: Digital Music News
February 1, 2012

Music-related financing collapsed during the second-half of 2011, though maybe that was just a temporary tank. Because in the first month of 2012, music-focused companies grabbed an impressive $65.55 million in financing, a jump of more than 26.5 percent over January funding levels last year.

Soundcloud made it rain to the tune of $50 million, though Next Big Sound and Moontoast collectively contributed more than $12 million to the purse. Here's our funding tracker.

Actually, Soundcloud also ...

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Analyst Mark Mulligan on the New "Agile Music" #midem

Source: HypeBot
February 1, 2012

On Monday, Music analyst Mark Mulligan  today shared is theory of “Agile Music"—how music products need to evolve in “the age of mass customization". Mulligan said that the decline and fall of recorded music is why there needs to be a “format revolution" now. Mulligan talked about some of the bright spots last year, including the growth of Spotify. “They were dogged by the access/ownership debate, questions and concerns about whether a stream cannibalises a download or a CD sale," ...

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Study: Merchandising and Branding Are Irrelevant to Most Artists...

Source: Digital Music News
January 31, 2012

There's more opportunity than ever in the history of the world for artists to sell merchandise and monetize their brands. The only problem is that very few of these artists are making any money from these non-traditional sources. Or, even pursuing the possibilities.

This was a slide presented at Midem on Monday morning by the Future of Music Coalition. It's the result of 18 months of surveying musicians across the US, with nearly 5,400 participating in exhaustive, ...

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Stop Complaining! Study Shows New Era of Abundance in Music, Entertainment [infographic]

Source: HypeBot
January 31, 2012

A new white paper presented today a Midem, Techdirt founder Mike Masnick heralds a very different present and future for the music and entrainment industries than the doom and gloom often presented in the mainstream media. Combining statistics from a  number of sources, “The Sky Is Rising" shows that: Entertainment spending as a function of income went up by 15% from 2000 to 2008 Employment in the entertainment sector grew by 20%—with indie artists seeing 43% growth. The overall entertainment ...

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Tom Silverman: 1st Anniversary of the Resurrection of the Music Business

Source: HypeBot
January 28, 2012

Guest post by Tom Silverman, music industry veteran, thought leader and founder of the New Music Seminar. As I sat and planned the program for the June 2012 New Music Seminar, it occurred to me that we are approaching the first anniversary of the music business resurrection. After ten years of decline, the music business hit bottom in the second week of February 2010 and began to rise the week of February 14th. There have been many reports of the ...

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Why Fans Buy Vinyl and the Apps That Guide Them

Source: HypeBot
January 27, 2012

As someone who spends lots of time thinking about the future of music as an app phenomenon, it might surprise you that I do a lot of my listening on vinyl records. I'm not alone—reports abound of vinyl's surging sales numbers over the past five or so years. Though they make up a tiny percentage of overall music sales, vinyl record sales have grown at a time when other physical formats are skidding. It might have something to do with ...

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