When Next Big Sound was named one of Billboard's Top Ten Music Start-Ups of 2010 last month, a variety of people hailed its offering of actionable intelligence and analytics as a breakthrough for artists everywhere.
But other people, particularly those who had been watching digital music technology closely, must have thought there was something about NBS that looked a little familiar. Wasn't this exactly like the now-defunct Band Metrics? How did NBS differ from Music Metrics, a company that has been around for years?
There are, of course, some technical things that set NBS apart (more on those in a second). But one of the biggest factors just might have been their sense of timing, something that Alex White, the company's founder and CEO, freely admits.
“We're by no means the first company to do this," White says, “but it's all about the timing of when you hit the market."
“Only recently have the numbers gotten big enough to where [all this data] gets really interesting."
This, of course, is true. Companies across all industries are only just beginning to figure out what constitutes a successful Twitter campaign, for example, or what kinds of returns they can expect from social media outreach, or what kinds of practices are best applied to particular online communities. Which is why, as recently as 18 months ago, without a pecking order or many success stories to look to, the mountain of data that the Internet generates for artists and managers looked about as useful as a heap of rocks.
A snapshot of the activity bar available to NBS Premier users.
“I went out on tour with a band a few years ago," White recalls, “and set up Twitter clients on all their phones, and there was a wiki list of all of the bands that were on Twitter, and there were like 45 or 50. Now we track thousands and thousands just ourselves, and I'm sure there are more joining every day."
White's point is well taken. Today, having 100,000 followers is “kind of a real number," more like a stamp of media legitimacy than an outrageous achievement; and as such, it's not hard to see why NBS became such a hot commodity, so fast.
That said, getting artists or managers interested in analytics and social media data is easier said than done, and White's decision to stick a basic version of NBS on the front of his homepage counts for another ingenious piece of marketing. The basic version of NBS instantly and effortlessly communicates how useful it can be, and how it easy it is to use.
“We believe the real value is the visual presentation of the data and the context that surrounds it," White explains. “We could have charged for the data reporting and the e-mails we've been giving away for the last year, but we're working to commoditize the data...and the advice on what to do with that data."
This push—not to simply provide data in an easily digestible way, but to harvest information and insight from it—is what separates NBS's Premier offering. Simply identifying one's competition in the music world can take quite a lot of effort, but NBS Premier will suggest which artists are comparable to one another.
“We track hundreds of thousands of bands," White says, “and what everyone wants to know is, 'Who's doing this right? Who's two steps ahead of me? Who should I be looking at?'"
NBS does this by looking at genre “in a fairly high level [read: general] way"—aquacrunk, for example, is not a searchable genre—and online activity, “making sure we're not comparing a new MC to Jay-Z, because what works for one won't work for the other."
These may look like overly simple methods, but in terms of calculating risks or weighing investment of scarce resources, all you really want to know is what kind of success is possible, and whether that fruit is worth what's been put in to grow it.
It's tantalizing to think about what NBS will be able to do for artists attempting to grow their fan bases. After all, when it comes to success in the music business, timing is everything.
But other people, particularly those who had been watching digital music technology closely, must have thought there was something about NBS that looked a little familiar. Wasn't this exactly like the now-defunct Band Metrics? How did NBS differ from Music Metrics, a company that has been around for years?
There are, of course, some technical things that set NBS apart (more on those in a second). But one of the biggest factors just might have been their sense of timing, something that Alex White, the company's founder and CEO, freely admits.
“We're by no means the first company to do this," White says, “but it's all about the timing of when you hit the market."
“Only recently have the numbers gotten big enough to where [all this data] gets really interesting."
This, of course, is true. Companies across all industries are only just beginning to figure out what constitutes a successful Twitter campaign, for example, or what kinds of returns they can expect from social media outreach, or what kinds of practices are best applied to particular online communities. Which is why, as recently as 18 months ago, without a pecking order or many success stories to look to, the mountain of data that the Internet generates for artists and managers looked about as useful as a heap of rocks.
A snapshot of the activity bar available to NBS Premier users.
“I went out on tour with a band a few years ago," White recalls, “and set up Twitter clients on all their phones, and there was a wiki list of all of the bands that were on Twitter, and there were like 45 or 50. Now we track thousands and thousands just ourselves, and I'm sure there are more joining every day."
White's point is well taken. Today, having 100,000 followers is “kind of a real number," more like a stamp of media legitimacy than an outrageous achievement; and as such, it's not hard to see why NBS became such a hot commodity, so fast.
That said, getting artists or managers interested in analytics and social media data is easier said than done, and White's decision to stick a basic version of NBS on the front of his homepage counts for another ingenious piece of marketing. The basic version of NBS instantly and effortlessly communicates how useful it can be, and how it easy it is to use.
“We believe the real value is the visual presentation of the data and the context that surrounds it," White explains. “We could have charged for the data reporting and the e-mails we've been giving away for the last year, but we're working to commoditize the data...and the advice on what to do with that data."
This push—not to simply provide data in an easily digestible way, but to harvest information and insight from it—is what separates NBS's Premier offering. Simply identifying one's competition in the music world can take quite a lot of effort, but NBS Premier will suggest which artists are comparable to one another.
“We track hundreds of thousands of bands," White says, “and what everyone wants to know is, 'Who's doing this right? Who's two steps ahead of me? Who should I be looking at?'"
NBS does this by looking at genre “in a fairly high level [read: general] way"—aquacrunk, for example, is not a searchable genre—and online activity, “making sure we're not comparing a new MC to Jay-Z, because what works for one won't work for the other."
These may look like overly simple methods, but in terms of calculating risks or weighing investment of scarce resources, all you really want to know is what kind of success is possible, and whether that fruit is worth what's been put in to grow it.
It's tantalizing to think about what NBS will be able to do for artists attempting to grow their fan bases. After all, when it comes to success in the music business, timing is everything.
