• 05/12/2012 - ArtistServer Version 2 on the Horizon
• 05/31/2009 - 18 More Social Sites Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/25/2009 - Run Your Own Remix or Music Project at ArtistServer.com
• 05/22/2009 - AudioBoo.fm and YouNoodle.com Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/06/2009 - mp3tunes.com - no option to close your account
• 03/17/2009 - How to run a Remix Project
• 09/28/2008 - My Lovely Wife Lou is Pregnant
• 12/14/2007 - ArtistServer News and a new site: FreeMusicLicensing.com
• 09/18/2007 - AritstServer and ToneThis Serve Up Indie Ringtones
• 09/11/2007 - Running LightTPD and PHP on Windows

Last month, I announced the launching of http://www.IndieMobile.com on my blog, which is the ringtone section and mobile transfer tools from ArtistServer rebranded as it's own site.

The site is now complete with ringtone previews in Flash - which allow you to listen to each ringtone right on the page before downloading or sending to your mobile phone - for free.

Roll back to last year, and you'll find that in May of 2005, I announced that http://www.ArtistServer.com was providing a complete ringtone service for indie/unsigned artists - and quite possibly the first to do so.

Now, just a few weeks ago, MySpace and Cingular Wireless with all their millions and all their people, announced that they will have a ringtone service/program for artsits.

Cingular's Mobile Music Studio on MySpace is a free, truly original platform that lets emerging artists create and market their personalized wireless content. Australian Indie Garage Rock Darlings, Shifter, to be First Band to Benefit from Partnership

If music truly is the universal language, then millions of music hopefuls are sure to be talking about the new Cingular Mobile Music Studio available exclusively on MySpace. Announced today at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2006, Cingular's Mobile Music Studio is a first-of-its-kind platform that offers hundreds of thousands of unsigned artists and bands on MySpace the tools needed to turn their self-produced music into ringtones. forbes.com

More from MoCoNews.net:

Cingular hopes the service will boost revenue, customer loyalty and help its image among young people. Customers will be able to preview ringtones and buy them on the MySpace Web site, which will then send them to their cellphone. Cingular plans to charge about $2.50 for each 30 second ringtone and will give the bands 25 percent of the proceeds.
But hey, life is a bitch..if you are locked into a contract with some operator, you will not switch just to get ringtones from MySpace bands.

Meanwhile... ArtistServer, with no budget and a staff of one... has been enabling artists to provide uncensored ringtones to their fans for free for nearly a year now.

Cingular/MySpace plan on censoring content:

Once all licensing has been completed, the artists will then be able to upload a short track of their original song, via an audio file, at which time the music content is screened to ensure content is indeed original and appropriate.

And more on censoring from TelephonyOnline.com:

Cingular was hazy about what other criteria that panel might be using to decide whether a song makes the grade and implied there would be other subjective factors informing the decisions. "We don’t have a specific criteria yet," Garver said. "We'll take each song on a case-by-case basis and use our judgment on what’s appropriate content."

What does 'appropriate' mean?

As they pros play catch up, I'll soon be launching our next tool for promoting artists... and that will deal with Website 'widgets' - which are objects of some type that you would include on your blog or site. A demo of one is running on my blog right now - on the left site. It's a fully customizable widget that offers ringtones and is 100% controlled by the URL itself. This makes the widgets not only easy to customize, but it allows people to dynamically create them to fit their own sites.

So, as Cingular/MySpace make it difficult for people to obtain ringtones by indie/unsigned artists, I'm taking a different path, I'm making it easy for artists to take advantage of ringtones, mobile phones and connecting to more fans. Yes, our ringtones are free, and the artsits do not ear their $0.50 or less per ringtone, but really, how many artists are going to sell enough to even cash out? I haven't seen the details of the agreement with the artists, but usually with a payout system, there needs to be a minimum of $20 before they'll send you a check. That's 40 ringtones each artist would have to sell for $2.50 each - and that's to Cingular customers only if I understand their arrangement correctly.

From out in the crowd someone yells, "But Gideon, if Cingular gets behind this and promotes it, that will be HUGE!"

Yeah... well, let's look at how they plan to promote it:

Cingular executive director of high-growth segments Dave Garver said that the program could have enormous potential for Cingular even though the MySpace music site would not occupy a slot in the Cingular content deck or the ringtones promoted in its MEdia Mall download center. The power of self-promotion and viral marketing would do all of the work, he said. “Shifter is way too small for Cingular to bring on as a partner -- it’s even way too small for a record label,” Garver said. “But when you aggregate all of those bands, each with their own ringtones, you get a significant number of downloads.”

Looks to me like they are expecting all the artists to have their "friends" buy the ringtones. If that is the case... ARTISTS... don't waste your friends time or money - join ArtistServer for FREE and set your friends up with up to 3 ringtones for FREE. If they want to hand you $0.50 in exchange, tell them to bring someone to your next show instead - or ask them to pass on your band's URL, etc.

If I worked for MySpace, I'd be ranting down the halls saying, "This has NOTHING to do with artisits or bands! Forget the deal! Let's do it ourselves! Connect with the community! Empower the people!"

I may not have any budget, nor any staff, and I certainly can't afford to be at all any of the conferences, nor can I even afford to pay myself for this work I do... but you know what? I'm still a year ahead of the largest social music site on the planet when it comes to providing mobile solutions to artsits.

While that doesn't help me pay the bills, it is a good sign for things to come. Plus, when you work for free, your salary is joy you harvest from your work, and I've been very fortunate over the years, as my work with ElectronicScene and ArtistServer has always paid me well.

:)

ArtistServer.com has started started adding support for Micorformats: http://microformats.org

ArtistServer is all about people and their media, so it makes sense for us to embrace these extensions of the Web. Through microformats, we are embeding descriptive intelligence throughout the Web. The end result is a much more intelligent network with more opportunities, faster and cleaner solutions and a step towards what people call the 'semantic Web.'

What are microformats?

http://microformats.org/about/

One popular definition is "simple conventions for embedding semantics in HTML to enable decentralized development." More precisely, microformats can be defined as:
Code:
    simple conventions
    for embedding semantic markup
        for a specific problem domain
    in human-readable (X)HTML/XML documents, Atom/RSS feeds, and "plain" XML
        that normalize existing content usage patterns
        using brief, descriptive class names
        often based on existing interoperable standards
    to enable decentralized development
        of resources, tools, and services

How do people benefit from this?

There's little benefit in the use of this technology 'right now' because there has been so little developed to take advantage of the technology. Once there are more tools and solutions developed to integrate, read, parse, dispaly, and find information that is associated to microformats, the benefits will be all over the place.

What microformats are being used on ArtistServer?

The following are the currently used microformats on ArtistServer.com.

• rel="license" - is now included on all music creative commons license links
• rel="nofollow" - was added to the reveiws popup div - since the review tool doesn't have any content
• rel="tag" - was added to all our tags in all places tags are used on the site
• rel="enclosure" - was added to all song download links
  

Are there plans to integrate any other microformats?

The following are microformats that I'm looking at integrating in the next few months.

hCard - http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard
A simple, open, distributed contact information format for people, companies, and organizations, which is suitable for embedding in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.

hReview - http://microformats.org/wiki/hreview
A simple, open, distributed format, suitable for embedding reviews (of products, services, businesses, events, etc.) in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.

XFN - http://gmpg.org/xfn/
A simple way to represent human relationships using hyperlinks.

Then later in the year, when I add in the events calendar for artists and fans, I'll also provide support for hCalendar - which you can read about here: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar 

If you run a site, take a look at microformats and integrate where it makes sense.

Powerful Marketing With User Generated Content: Part 2 of 2

Be sure to read part 1.

Fan Blogging / Group Blogging Workflow

The following is similar to the scenario described in my previous blog post, but only covers the steps involved.

1. Setup: Member sends settings to the system which will turn on the service for their account. This includes a standard title and tags to be applied to all photos and video, in addition to the default status setting. Advanced features will allow the member to offer a song or ringtone in exchange for adding the person to their contact/mailing list.

2. Announce: While at the event, the member would need to announce to the audience that they can publish their mobile phone photos and videos on their website live from the event. All one needs to do is provide the audience with their "MobPub" address [BandName@MobPub.com].

3. Event: Once the member's MobPub settings are turned on, those in attendance can simply snap a photo or video, and send it to the band's MobPub address.

4. Publishing: The email/MMS with the photo would then be sent to the member's site, and based on the settings, it would give the image a title, attach a photo number, and apply the tags (keywords) the member entered into the system. If the member set the status setting to pre-approve, the photos and video would then show up on the band's website. If the member selected to approve items after the event, they could login to the site, preview, and approve what they wish to display.

5. Networking: This next step would be available if the band selected to setup the advanced options. These options allow the band to setup a "Thank You" email and select either a song or ringtone to offer as a thanks for posting the photo or video to the band's site.
   

6. Buy In: Here the fan accepts the offer for the ringtone by replying to the message.

7. Connecting: The final link to the media is sent to the fan. Fans will always have the option of removing themselves from the mailing list. In this case, the term mailing list refers to sending out text messages and/or emails.

Powerful Marketing With User Generated Content

Most people I've explained this to start smiling right away and consider it a 'fun' thing – it's obviously about bringing the fans, the audience into the experience more. While this is true, I think it provides many more opportunities that are more significant to those who use this. For example, fans want to be a part of their favorite band, they want to own a bit of them – and that happens through the albums, t-shirts, things they create themselves, bumper stickers and more. With the Web becoming a larger part of the picture, fans now participate in all kinds of band-centric activities – from using the band as chat avatars, to posting on forums. If we can leverage that fan energy in more ways behind the bands, we should be able to improve the fan experience AND propel the band to new heights.

With that said, I think Fan Blogging is a very powerful tool for everyone involved.

• It provides a stronger bridge between fans and bands

• It provides more points of entry for the band.

• It allows the fans to participate and take ownership in the band.

• It documents events from the perspective of those who experienced it.

• It provides an opportunity to bands to increase the traffic on their site.

• It has potential to generate revenue through fans visiting their media, and shopping on the site.

• It generates a contact/mailing list with little effort.

• It's fun

Below is a diagram showing the same workflow which is listed above. If you'd like to see a larger version – click on the image or follow this link: http://www.artistserver.com/files/FanBlogging.png

If you have any questions about this idea, feel free to get a hold of me or post here in the blog. I'm currently building out the photo managing tools and should have mobile publishing done this summer, which means I'll have Fan Blogging online shortly after that.

I've picked up the following domain names for this service:

• FanBlogging.com
• GroupBlogging.com
• MobPub.com
• MobileBands.com

While at the Emerging Technology Conference earlier this week, I handed out 20 folders containing information about ArtistServer.com. I've been sitting on a few of my plans and haven't posted anything online about them, and since this information was in those folders, I feel it's time to start talking about one or two of those plans/ideas here on my blog so they are published publicly under my name.

Yes... we're talking “TOP SECRET” stuff here! Are you ready?

• Concept: Fan Blogging or Group Blogging - Initially, the service is for artists and bands who perform, but can and will be extended to provide the service for any type of event or location.
  

• Summary: To provide the means for an audience and/or participants of an event or location gathering to self document using photos and video from mobile devices. In addition, this system provides a greater opportunity for follow up sales and marketing through the Website which displays the user generated content. Lastly, depending on the settings, a contact list can also be generated which helps one grow their network.

Before I go through the flow of the process, I'll give you a scenario using this system.

Scenario:

Ok, we have this band, and they've joined ArtistServer.com, and they're going on tour across Europe or the U.S. A few of the guys in the band have mobile phones, one possibly has a laptop. Since they're using ArtistServer and have an upgraded account, they'll have access to the Fan Blogging tools. The first show is in their home town, so before the gig, they login to the site, and create a new Fan Blogging Event. After entering the start and end times, a title, some tags and the status setting (which sets if the published content needs band approval first), they publish the Event to ArtistServer. Before heading to the gig, they print out a bunch of flyers with the band's Fan Blogging address: BandName@mobpub.com – this way they can get the word out to the fans at the show on how they can participate.

The band is now at the club/venue, the flyers are placed around at the tables and just before the show starts, the singer announces, “Good evening everyone... All of you that have mobile phones that can snap photos or video, and can also email them to people, we have something for you to do tonight. If you take any photos, or video here at the show, send it to our Fan Blogging address – it's printed on the flyers, which is: BandName@mobpub.com. When you do this, your photo or video will be posed on our band's Website! Plus, if you do this, you'll be sent a message back to your phone asking you if you want a free ringtone! It's our new song, This Is Our New Song, and it rocks. If you are confused, just take a photo and send it to that address – you'll see. After the show, you can always check out the photos from this gig by visiting our site. Check it out at: ArtistServer.com/BandName."

The band launches into their first song and right away, a few people pull out their phones, run up to the band and start snapping photos and video. While back at their seats, they select the photo they like the most, tap in the address, and off it goes. A minute later, these people receive a text message from ArtistServer.com which they probably won't hear it while inside the club, so it stays valid for a day. If they do hear or feel their phone, they can then accept that they wish to be added to the contact list for the band and be sent another message with a link to the free ringtone.

The fans start having fun with it now, and realize that they should start taking photos of each other and themselves at the show to post on the band's site. As the night carries on, the band gets into photos with fans, takes photos from the stage themselves, and posing for group photos. All the while, the photos and video are generating a real-time Website for the event – even text messages getting posted alongside the media.

It's now the next evening, the band is about to head out to the next gig but decide to pull over to a WiFi hotspot to look at last night's show. To their surprise, there's dozens of photos and video, not to mention another 15 new signups on their contact list. Not bad for only filling out a form on a site, passing out a few flyers and making one announcement at the show. The band is now even more motivated for tonight's gig, and head out the door in a rush.

Due to the quick exit, they forgot to setup a Fan Blogging Event for tonight's gig. But that's not a problem, since several of them have mobile phones. One of them flips his mobile open and sets the event up either using a J2ME application on the phone, or by sending a simple text message to their account with the settings inside. ArtistServer.com pings them back with a text message so they know the Event was added, and they're ready to go.

This is only part 1 - be sure to view part 2.

Last month I posted about my adventures with geocoding and posted a screen design of an idea I had for ArtistServer. That idea bounced around my head some more and mutated into a new Website I'lll be launching sometime in the next 2-3 months depending on my schedule.

http://www.mp3maps.com/

MP3maps is going to be a Map 'mashup' (Yahoo! or Google) and the Music and Data of ArtistServer.com

Through this site, you'll be able to see where music is coming from in interesting ways...

• View the Distribution of Genres across the planet
• View the Distribution of an Artist's Fans
• Display a Playlist, Showing the Origins of Songs
• View a Map of Your Listening History (if you are a member of ArtistServer)
• and more...

MP3Maps is under development and will serve the same function as ArtistJukebox.com, which is what I call a "Satellite" or simply, "Rebranding Yourself" - which is where you rebrand your service/content as a means to stimulate more traffic and awareness by providing alternative means and interfaces to the same core service/content.

Here is an initial screen design for MP3maps.com - I'm sure it will evolve by the time it goes live. http://www.artistserver.com/files/mp3maps.png