Let us start with the mp3, because that is really where the story begins. The mp3 is a compressed audio file that was developed sometime in the late 80s and released in 1993. At that time most of us didn’t know things were going to change. We were happily buying audio cassettes and CDs. We had slow computers with dial up modems. Some of us might have walked around with clunky mobile phones and been on the cutting edge of the tech. What happened over the next ten years took several industries by surprise.

The dial up speeds got faster, the hard-drives became bigger. Services like Napster and Limewire replaced mixtapes, now there was an easier way of sharing music with friends. Broadband speeds made downloading even easier, why buy a CD when you can download it for free in ten minutes? Mp3s where whizzing between hard-drives from the States to Finland to India. Then came the iPod and iTunes and their more piracy friendly brother the generic mp3-player. Physical music was slowly being reduced to a heavy clutter from the past. Digital was on the rise, both within Steve Jobs’s closed circuit and because of piracy.

The mp3-file ruled supreme, but a couple of years ago another change occurred, streaming. Today we’re walking around with mp3s or other compressed audio files on our smartphones, thinking we are on the cutting edge of tech. But things are changing again.

We are looking at an industry where mobile is overtaking computers. In 2011 more smartphones were shipped than computers. Almost half a billion smartphones were sent all over the world, a 60 percent increase from the year before. Mobile internet usage is doubling year by year. At the same time global digital revenue for music is going up and grew by eight percent in 2011 according to IFPI.

In 2011 Juniper Research predicted that the mobile music market will bring in revenues of $5.5 billion in 2015. Quite a lot considering that the global digital music market was worth $5.2 billion last year. It might be worth taking predictions like this with a pinch of salt, but the digital music market is growing and more and more of us are accessing music with the help of our smartphones.

Even though it would be easy to download files with P2P filesharing apps, mobile phones are offering legitimate and user friendly alternatives. As consumers we are already used to iTunes or streaming apps, mobile piracy seems like unnecessary hassle. This is an opportunity for the music industry and for mobile phone manufacturers.

So far Apple is still the major player in mobile music. With the help of iTunes it has built a platform and a loyal following, but Spotify has also been successful at breaking into the mobile market. Other big mobile players like Nokia and Android are lagging behind, not having been able to offer a platform that can rival iTunes, yet. However the battle is now being fought between compressed digital audio files, like mp3s, and streaming services. And that is where Apple’s hegemony can be broken.

Will users prefer subscription services with unlimited streaming or do they want to own the audiofile? In a sense the mp3-file is the clunky physical item here, it takes up space, it has to be moved from one hard-drive to the next. Sure cloud services is making this easier as they allow you to own your own files and access them from any device. Streaming is lightweight, it can be used anywhere, on any device, all you need to do is to log in. Saving playlists also means that it is possible to access the music offline, which is imperative for any mobile music player.

Where does this leave the mp3, the catalyst for many of the changes in the music industry during the last 20 years. Compressed audio files are used in streaming, but the file is just another container, a CD, a cassette. It is the services that really matter. In the end it is the users who will decide how they want to access their music. Mobile phones are changing the landscape again, but this time it looks like it could be a good thing for the music industry.

Want to know more about how the mobile phone industry is changing the music landscape, check out the next Music 4.5 event Mobile Music – the sound of the future.

We joined the music industry crowd at this year’s Midem. The session of marketing and social engagement music-tech start-ups offered up some interesting newcomers and one old acquaintance. Userdata and metadata were the keywords for many of the companies on the stage.

Pipe, Germany, Simon Hossell, Founder and CEO

The session started confidently with German start-up Pipe, a company that offers a direct communication between computers (“like a pipe between two laptops!!”). Users can drop files into the pipe and they appear on the receiver’s device. The system is platform independent and doesn’t use the cloud.

According to founder Simon Hossell all 800 million users on Facebook are already potential customers. If this seems like an opportunity for some innocent file-sharing, Hossell assures us that his company have hired a big law firm. “If I rented a car and drove to Monaco to rob a casino, no one would accuse Hertz of committing a crime”.

Hossell also wants to help the content industry make money by providing enrichment for the content providers, i.e. metadata. According to him services like Pipe can show that there is a “light at the end of the tunnel for the content industry”

CrowdSurfing by LiveOne Group, USA, Tim Ganschow

Webcasts are solitary experiences, says Tim Ganschow of CrowdSurfing. He wants to change the loneliness we feel when watching gigs online with an app that links into Facebook and shows you who else is watching in a nice grid of pictures underneath the webcast. You can then interact with friends or strangers, “almost like at a real gig”. Ganschow doesn’t offer an explanation of how his user experience would differ from just using Twitter or Facebook while watching a live webstream, but his app will gather user data for the content providers. Ganschow predicts this is the future and is hoping for 100 million users in five years. Revenue will come form licensing, ads, data-analytics and pay-per-view streams.

OleaPark, France, Co-founder and CEO Florent Quinti

OleaPark is one of many French start-ups pitching in English to a mainly French jury panel. It works better than you think. This company wants to make it easier for people to hook up during events. They have created an app that will take your social graph from Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and compute your compatability with other people at the event. Could it be the Grindr for the business world? Through the app you can ask to be connected to people who interest you, if you’re accepted you get their contact details.

OleaPark wants to sell their program to event organisers and would like to partner with companies like Amiando and Eventbrite. To make the service more interesting to the event they offer a real time analysis of interactions during the event.

Oocto, France, Co-founder Hugo Amsellem
Oocto is a French version of Kickstarter, founded by two 24-year-olds who originally wanted to produce their own record. They offer the same crowd-funding services as other sites, fans can choose how much they want to contribute and then get different rewards (from an mp3 to a gig in their kitchen). We’ve all heard this before, however, Oocto also allows artists to ask fans for help when it comes to finding a good studio or people to help with recording an album. Fans can also volunteer and offer their time instead of money.

Oocto will take 10 percent of the money raise through their site, however there is one little problem, one of the jury members pointed out crowd-funding isn’t actually legal in France yet.

Bandapp, UK, Adam Perry, Founder and CEO
Adam Perry is a professional musician who is playing with the Bloodhound Gang, he’s also launched an app making service for artists. Perry has lost his voice and doesn’t look like he got much sleep last night, but still delivers an engaging pitch.

He wants to own the mobile space and the aim is to become the “mobile Myspace”. The service is free, anyone can build an app on the website and sell music through the Bandapp store. The revenue will come from sponsorship, direct licensing to stores and restaurants, in app ads and store sales.

The company is currently in beta mode. They have 4000 bands using the app and about 20 partners. They are also launching a service which will allow sport teams and groups travelling together (stag parties, weddings, old people) to create their own apps.

Tastebuds.fm, UK, Julian Keenaghan Co-Founder

Tastebuds.fm is a dating site for music fans. Co-Founder Julian Keenaghan came up with the idea while browsing around other dating sites and realising that music is a good filter to match people. Users can connect with Last.fm and Facebook. The site has already had some good PR, mainly thanks to that story about how Coldplay fans are the least likely to have sex on the first date. Tastebuds.fm have no marketing spend and have only used press and PR to reach new users.

They have a growing community of young users who also seem to use the site as a social network around music. Users can hook up and go to gigs together. So far the site has lead to one marriage.

Rockstar Motel, USA, Emily McFadden, marketing director

Rockstar Motel is a social network where fans can sign and represent their artists. The site uses a gaming model to recognise and reward top fans and tastemakers. It also allows the artists to see who their most active fans are and to monitor how fans are talking about them.

The service is free, but there will also be a premium option for users. Rockstar Motel is also hoping to get revenue from advertising and by partnering with venues. So far the site is in beta mode with about a 1000 fans and 250 artists in their database. They are expecting to do a full launch in March and hope that their support network of music industry bigwigs will get them noticed on Facebook and other social media sites.

Jury Member Alex White of the Next Big Thing, which started out as a similar service, comments that it is very difficult to get enough revenue without millions of users, but he wishes the service good luck.

Beloola, France, Tom Gauthier, CEO
Beloola is like Second Life, but for music fans. Although according to CEO Tom Gauthier Second Life is like Paris Hilton, “the media like talking it, but it’s empty”. Beloola on the other hand is a multimedia platform and easy to play.

The idea is to create a more fun experience for fans, who, according to Gauthier, spend too much time trying to keep up with social networks that only offer a false kind of intimacy. Beloola will change all of that and can be embedded on any system or website. Beloola currently has 1000 alpha testers and the beta is launched in April.

iPluggers, Netherlands, Marvin Kuijs, Founder and CEO
Marvin Kuijs is a DJ who has now launched his own start-up. Instead of pitching he’s using a video with an impressive voiceover. He is also wearing a tie with the company logo. For some reason this is more memorable than the pitch itself. iPluggers offer their customers worldwide radio promotion to a network of over 30 000 radio stations.

Last week disgraced media mogul Rupert Murdoch admitted that News Corp had failed when it came to Myspace. His exact words were ”we screwed up in every way possible”. Nice. Now as with any big failure there are lessons to be learned.

1. Be careful what you tweet. The news broke in typical Murdoch style, with a tweet from Murdoch’s already controversial use of the social networking site. During the Consumer Electronics Show Murdoch tweeted ” Many questions and jokes about My Space.simple answer – we screwed up in every way possible, learned lots of valuable expensive lessons”. Now Murdoch doesn’t really have to care about Myspace anymore, since he sold it for a pittance (35 million dollars) to Justin Timberlake (and others) in June 2011, but admitting failure won’t do his already dented reputation any favours.

2. Look at the business model. News Corp bought Myspace for 580 million dollars in 2005. Now we all know that hot tech companies are worth a lot of money. That’s how the industry works and a lot of people have invested time, money and their first born children in these astronomical figures. Figures that most people outside the industry find difficult to get their head around. It’s not always obvious why a company like Myspace or Facebook should be worth billions. One simple mistake to avoid is paying over the odds for a company just because everyone else says it’s worth a lot.

3. Stay ahead of competitors. This is a hard one for any big media or tech company. How do you stay ahead of the competition when everyone is looking for the next new and shiny thing. During the last five years Facebook has been the new and shiny thing in social media. Goodbye Myspace, you are now redundant. The question is, can any company stop this kind of exodus once it’s started. Could Apple do it?

4. Think small instead of big. The start-ups out there are going to be the stars of the future. Invest in them and you might win instead of losing billions.

Yesterday evening at TechHub — a shared office space utilized by many London digital media startups — entrepreneurs and stakeholders surrounding IP in the digital age gathered to address Richard Hooper, a UK government appointed official, who is currently conducting phase one of a feasibility study around implementing a proposed Digital Copyright Exchange (DCE) to foster innovation in UK’s tech sector.

The event, hosted by Mixcloud and The Coalition for a Digital Economy (COADEC), was made up of representatives from government, news media, and digital businesses in areas such as academic and medical research, music, software, and content management solutions.

From a music standpoint, the likes of We7 and Mixcloud believe that a DCE will make it easier for rights owners to be discovered and managed, as well as help offset the risk new startups and digital businesses face in the UK, where labels controlling large catalogs of music rights can change or pull out of contracts on a whim, destroying years of capital, work, and negotiations of smaller innovative companies.

The idea spun out of the UK government’s response in August 2011 to Professor Ian Hargreaves independent review of Intellectual Property (IP) framework, which included among 10 recommendations for growth that:

“In order to boost UK firms’ access to transparent, contestable and global digital markets, the UK should establish a cross sectoral Digital Copyright Exchange… A range of incentives and disincentives will be needed to encourage rights holders and others to take part. Governance should reflect the interests of participants, working to an agreed code of practice.”

Hooper was congenial, and fast to explain exactly how the attendees and other startups in the sector can help. What he’s looking for is detailed evidence, using hard data or summaries of past meetings, that either innovation is being held back, or infringement of copyrighted content remains persistent.

In publishing, for instance, where Mendeley’s web program helps to research and share academic knowledge, remuneration for participating researchers has remained stagnant for years thanks to the University press and commercial publishers who are use to making money off research many now regard should be free.

In the Internet radio sector, the United States started Soundexchange after the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. The UK equivalent of Soundexchange is PPL…but without capped tariffs and a more united offering around streaming. As Clive Gardiner from We7 pointed out, “These are natural monopolies that don’t reflect market value for streaming. An exchange (DCE) format could help solve this.”

It’s thanks to Soundexchange that Pandora built up a user base of over 80 million users and had a successful IPO. During its 2011 fiscal year, Pandora reported $138 million in revenue with a $1.8 million net loss.

If you are a UK entrepreneur or working with a startup that wants to be in on the ground floor to help change policy/technology in the UK to help rights management scale (regardless of whether it is done with government funding or by private market forces) you need to download this form, and let Hooper hear from you by February 10th!!!

Ryan Sommer is director of Maintain PR. He has previously worked at Digg, Slide, and Hellotxt.

As some of us (Simon Cowell?) are waiting excitedly for the song that will top the charts this Christmas, others are already predicting the top hits for next year. Mobile discovery company Shazam has released its list over which artists it predicts will dominate the charts in 2012. The company has looked at at the number of tags and other data indicating which acts are trending with fans. This is their list:

Frank Ocean
A$AP Rocky
YG
Kreayshawn
Lana Del Rey
Spector
Azealia Banks
Friends
Michael Kiwanuka
Excision

Why should we believe Shazam? Well in 2011 Adele topped Shazam’s list of most tagged songs with her hits being identified over 6 million times through the service. In other words Shazam can tap into what people want to listen to or what songs they might be curious about. How that will translate to people actually buying the songs is less clear. However in the case of Adele that seems to have gone pretty well. Then again she’s probably one of the most played artists of last year. People hearing an Adele song in ten different cafes might eventually feel a need to figure out who they’re listening to.

Shazam’s chart is nonetheless an interesting way of predicting next year’s trends. It was also pretty accurate last year and predicted that artists like Jessie J, Clare Maguire and James Blake would top the charts. But Shazam is not the only company trying to understand the world of chart topping music and foresee the hits of the future. Scientists at the university of Bristol claim to have created a software that can predict hit songs (I feel like we’ve heard about this before).

The BBC writes that “The program looks at 23 separate characteristics including loudness, danceability and harmonic simplicity” and is “trained using hit songs from the Top 40 over the last 50 years”. According to the scientists the software can predict chart positions with about 60 percent accuracy.

But as with most of these things, algorithms aren’t very good at predicting human unpredictability (Rage Against the Machine in 2009 anyone?). According to one of the researchers what regularly tripped up the equation were the unexpected hits that became popular for reasons that often had nothing to do with their musical qualities. Even though the scientist admitted that their software was no guide to whether a song was worth listening to, the research did show that music had become easier to dance to and louder over the years.

The Bristol scientists aren’t just keeping the method to themselves, they’ve created a nice little site where they’re predicting chart toppers. It’s not yet clear what they make of this year’s Christmas number 1. The bookies are predicting that a choir of military wives will top the charts.

There were plenty of lively and exciting discussions at yesterday’s Music 4.5 event ”The social live industry – where is the money?”. Here’s a quick recap of the day for those of you who couldn’t make it.

The changing live music landscape – Jon McIldowie, promotions director, Mama Group, organiser of The Great Escape

• Live used to be a service industry to record industry, today it’s about 50 percent of an artist’s earning potential.

• Venues and traditional media used to be the only way to sell a ticket, now 80 percent of tickets are sold through the artist or the venue. Promoters have an impact on about 20 percent of the sales, using social media first and then radio and other traditional media. The best way to drive sales is through the artist.

• Twitter drives more ticket sales than TV advertising. If someone like Fearne Cotton tweets about a gig she can reach 300 000 or 400 000 people.

• Radio 1 dictates their playlist after how many views a band has had on Youtube.

• Promoters aren’t getting a large share of the pie anymore and will get about 5 to 10 percent of the gross profit.

• The artists really are the key. Braver acts, like Mumford and Sons, are now doing it all themselves. They hire venues, push tickets through social media, collect email addresses and do it without promoters.

• Bob Dylan might have started promoting his shows 20 years ago, but social media makes it easier. There are fewer layers between the artist and the fan and the artist is becoming powerful.

• Artists fees have gone up every year for festivals. Artists can command huge prices, as much as £20 000 pounds to do a festival. They will make more out of the process than anyone else if they’re doing well.

• Artists don’t really need record labels anymore. Promoters are booking talent straight off Youtube and sometimes pay the same money as for signed act.

• An ad in NME doesn’t make a difference anymore. The exceptions to the rules are acts like JLS or a heritage act, for them it’s still worthwhile to book a half page in tabloids or in the Times.

• The dance scene is going to be huge next year, it’s emulating bands and doing gigs in the same way. Every major promoter is aggressively targeting that market. The economy is going down the drain, a good way of coping is going out clubbing.

Debate: How can new digital business models help artists earn money from playing live

Panellists: Laura Kidd, SheMakesWar, DIY artist, Rynda Laurel, digital marketing, Smashing Pumpkins, Jon Mansfield, MusicConnex and CEO, JM Music Limited, Gaynor O’Flynn, BeingHuman

LK: I wouldn’t have a fan base it wasn’t for twitter and facebook. Getting the fans involved on the same level as me is important. I’m also doing targeted mailing lists, ”London alerts”, for people in London who can go to my gigs. I’m also using Pledgemusic, I was against it at first and didn’t like that I had to pay for it.

RL: I’m marketing Gish, the first Smashing Pumpkins record, again and it’s a completely different market place. Today is one of the best times to be an artist, but it means a lot of work and artists don’t always want to do a lot of work. There are a few really motivated artists and a lot that aren’t and they bitch about it a lot. It is hard to promote yourself. It’s also completely different to work with a machine like the Smashing Pumpkins than working with an emerging artist.

JM: The digital revolution has democratised everything, people use social networks. Lots of people are competing for share of voice, but they can now do it a lot more cheaply and effectively and quickly. Good promoters and artists can get people to turn up to a gig within a week. Even with the power of radio that didn’t used to work. There are services like Crowdsurge, MusicGlue, Amiando and Eventbrite, that allow people to set up gigs and cut Ticketmaster out. It is harder and harder for artists to get serious global traction. It is more about niches now and how to monetise those niches. You can do that more effectively if you’re doing it yourself, with less people taking a cut. A lot of people aren’t brave enough to do that though.

GF: We have to get back to live as artists, Youtube is the biggest radio station out there and artists have let royalties slip. People don’t want to read 15 000 random tweets. Digital should follow live. We need a new generation of internet entrepreneurs who want to share their wealth. If you find an idea that will create us money, then you’ll see your start up fly because we will spread the word like nothing else.

Brands + Live Music = Money? Only if done right… – Paul Sampson, EskimoLive

Don’t waste your money if you’re a brand. Make sure you get a return.

There are three keys to a successful brand partnership:

• Create an experience – just sticking your logo on an event doesn’t work.
• Engagement – Engage your target audience in the lead up to the event, during and after.
• Access – You must offer access to your audience

Brands should take ownership – create your own event, own the experience.

Global ad spend on music licensing in 2010 was $2.3 billion, sync for TV $1.5 billion and for film $1.3 billion

Advice to artists:

• Find a sync agency
• Do some non specific song-writing – the Olympics are coming, it’s a big opportunity to sync music and people will be looking for music about glory, success and winning.
• Mix your songs properly
• Provide alternative versions, ie instrumental versions and separate vocals.

Brands are interested in investing in up and coming talent.

Is social and digital promotion for festivals and live gigs too expensive? And does it lead to conversion? – Joshua Greene, Digital Marketing Consultant – Social Media Strategy for the Lovebox and Wilderness festivals

Social and digital is a means to an end to drive ticket sales.

Remember:

• Acquisition – every attribute of your fanbase is exciting, you need to understand and connect with your fanbase. Knowing them is also important to any partners who want to align themselves with you.
• Retention – If you treat your fans well they will come back, you can’t build that over night, have a loyalty programme, become a trusted source.
• Conversation – Enabling your fans to talk will give you huge reach, listen to your audience, provide support.

Twitter is a discovery space, Facebook has a lot more opportunity to create your own environment.

Develop consistent content, messaging and engagement.

It’s all about narrative, letting people buy into your journey, give people an opportunity to be connected with your brand and share your journey.

Using exclusive content is a key drive in social media.

We recruited 150 people to become brand ambassadors online and set them tangible tasks. The results were amazing. The advocates had to provide print screens of their activity.

Facebook advertising can be effective if done in the right way. Wilderness festival got 12000 fans in three and a half months. We spent 600 pounds on Facebook ads and got a few thousand fans through that.

Getting more people through the door, the digital way – Saint – 10Tribes

If you can raise the bar of live music as a whole it’s good for the whole industry and can help us compete with the cinema, the pub or with people just staying at home.

The goal is to build bigger audiences.

We’re an impartial third party and want to build better ways of sharing knowledge.

Artists can create their own profiles on 10Tribes. We were thinking, what would Myspace have been like if it had only been for music?

The dirty ticketing market… do you ask for legislation or do you work around/with it?

Discussion moderated by Eamonn Forde, with Joe Cohen, Seatwave and Tom Hopewell, MusicGlue.

TH: A ticket is something that was sold by an artist, venue or promoter. Keep it clean, it should not be sold by a second source.

JC: The problem with ticketing is that it is fundamentally a BtoB business, but it is the fan who will pay for the ticket. It should be about what fans and consumers want. There should be more transparency around the transaction and what it means for the market price. It’s probably the least transparent business there is.

JC: There is still a lot of opacity going on, a big chunk of the booking fee is rebated back to the promoter or artist, so no one wants to reduce the booking fee to zero, people don’t want to make the price lower for their consumers, because everyone is hooked on the booking fees.

JC: Most promoters are working on a thin margin, one of the sad facts of the industry is that you have to fill the house and sell beer. What are the other income streams? Everyone’s margins are squeezed so much, 90 percent of the gross goes to successful artists, so there is nothing left on the table for anyone else and they have to fight over whatever is left.

EF: Fundamentally it is a broken business model. Ticket prices have been growing steadily, but are now hitting the wall.

TH: There are more independents in the live industry to spread it out and come up with new models. We have had the record industry as a model for such a long time, so there was time to prepare for a crisis.

JC: The profit is coming from rising ticket prices, not from rising attendance. But there is a backlash against growing prices. People who buy tickets and hope to sell them on for a profit are losing out this year. Tickets are released late with a dumped price, which is also hurting the industry.

JC: One of the reasons festivals attendance has gone down is why would you go to three festivals to see the Killers over and over again.

TH: There will always be an excuse, if an artist wants to do a five pound show someone will tell them not to do it because it devalues their brand.

According to Jon Mansfield the changes in the music industry are good for smaller artists. Mansfield has over 20 years’ experience as a successful entertainment executive and is now using his background to help people set up a career in music. He runs the MusicConnex conference which empowers artists, producers and people wanting to work with the service side of the music industry to either set up on their own or to choose a more traditional route.

For Mansfield it’s important to show that there are alternatives to the traditional music industry.

- There’s very little you can’t do yourself today, the internet has democratised things both in the music industry, but also in the media industry. Traditional barriers of entry are disappearing.

The live industry still has a bit of catching up to do when it comes to artists doing it for themselves. But according to Mansfield recent developments have had a huge impact on a part of the live industry.

- Not much has changed for artists like Lady Gaga, Adele and the heritage acts. They can perhaps increase their margins, but the market is as buoyant as ever for them and new technology has only made their lives easier.

However the same technology is something of a revolution for independent artists.

- Artists can now build their own fanbase digitally and then galvanise that fanbase, put them in a venue and organise their own gig, says Mansfield.

There are now platforms where artists can sell their own tickets, without having to go through ticketing organisations or the box office. They can even create their own ticketing system, which makes it easier to book venues. It also means the money goes directly to the band and that the band themselves keep track of who’s coming to their gigs.

- There are a few examples where the bands have a big enough fanbase themselves to be able to rent larger venues. If they have a guaranteed audience of 2000 people, that’s a good deal for the venue.

But there is still a large gap between higher end artists and the little guys. According to Mansfield this gap could be closed in the coming years.

- We’ll probably have the rare Lady Gagas in the future and a few heritage acts, but there’s fewer and fewer coming through. There’s more choice than ever before, which means people will make more choices and we’ll see more niches. This could be a problem for the bigger arenas, but venues with a capacity of 3000 or 4000 will probably do better. Not everyone will want the same and it’s going to become more difficult to become a mega artist.

If you want to know more about how artists can empower themselves in a digital world, check out the next Music 4.5 event on the 13th of December, Music 4.5: The social live music industry – where is the money. You’ll be able to catch John Mansfield there, as he’ll be speaking on a panel about how can new digital business models help artists earn money from playing live.

- The start-up scene in Cardiff is terrible, there’s not enough investment. We have a great SME culture, but I just don’t see where Wales’s equivalent of Twitter, Tumblr, Groupon etc is coming from. There just don’t seem to be many companies working on interesting platforms, disruptive models and scalable businesses, says Neil Cocker CEO of music tech start-up Dizzyjam and co-founder of Ignite Cardiff.

Cocker isn’t originally from Wales, but he has spent the last years trying to improve the start-up scene in his new hometown. He has based Dizzyjam, a start-up that makes it easy for bands to create and sell merchandise, in the city.

But in order to find more fertile grounds for investment, Cocker and the Dizzyjam team travelled to London to pitch at the first MUSIC techpitch 4.5, where they came second!

- We haven’t done much pitching in the past, we launched two years ago, but were operating in beta mode until six months ago, so we’re a fairly young start-up, says Cocker.

He came up with the idea for Dizzyjam while running his own record label and working as an artists and a DJ.

- We then tried to create and sell our own merch, but quickly realised how difficult it can be.

Dizzyjam wants to make that process easier and allows independent bands, DJs, labels, musicians and venues to create and sell merchandise without any cost.

But even though Dizzyjam hasn’t been around the pitching circuit yet, Neil Cocker is used to pitching and runs pitch-competition Ignite Cardiff where participants have five minutes to present an idea.

- You never realise how quickly it will go, pitching is a skill you have to work on and it’s important to be prepared.

Cocker explains that he spent a day stripping stuff out of his three minute pitch for MUSIC techpitch 4.5, until it didn’t feel rushed. He explains that it’s important to always have three solid points to fall back on when pitching.

- We broke it down and went for our background, where we are now and what we want to do.

Neil Cocker and the Dizzyjam team are currently looking for investment. They already ship about 20 percent of their merch to the States, a market they want to grow in. However in order to do that they need to be able to print and ship merch within the States. Neil is still working out the details of this expansion.

- We want to make it cheap and easy for Americans to buy from us, that could mean doing our own printing out there or licensing it to someone else.

The company will still be rooted in Cardiff though and Neil Cocker thinks it’s important to stay local, but to think big.

A while ago I wrote about Nokia’s new crowd-sourced ringtone, which got a mixed reception online (by mixed I mean it was heavily criticised).

Behind the competition was Finnish music tech-start-up Audiodraft. I got hold of company CEO Teemu Yli-Hollo to ask him about audio crowd-sourcing and his thoughts on the Nokia ringtone.

1. Could you briefly and in your own words describe what Audiodraft is

We want to emphasize the meaning of audio branding and we are offering a platform which makes custom made audio accessible for companies and brands. Through our service you get custom made music and sound design whether you need a background track for your TV commercial, theme music for your mobile game or an audio logo. We have over 15,000 sound designers and musicians in more than 90 countries who can do the composing for your needs through sound design contests.

2. What was it like working with Nokia?

The Nokia Tune is a perfect example of audio branding and we are extremely excited to be part of the remaking of the iconic sound. Nokia was really dedicated to this contest and one of the reasons for its success was that Nokia gave feedback to every 6,200 entry in the contest. This engaged people even more with the contest and with Nokia’s brand.

3. What do you think about the reactions to the winning song?

Nokia was looking for a fresh new version of the Nokia Tune. I think the winning tune fits that perfectly. I have it as my ring tone and I’m loving it. The final selection of the winner was done by a jury including audio branding, sound design and marketing professionals such as Julian Treasure from The Sound Agency, Kai Bronner from Audio Branding Academy and Mark Dewings from SoundCloud. I’m glad that jury selected a tune that is different. The reactions to the winning tune were really powerful also because of the misunderstanding that the original Nokia Tune will be replaced. The winning tune will be placed in more than 100 million Nokia devices but not as the default ring tone.

4. What has the feedback been after the competition? What do you think about the publicity it’s given you?
The feedback has been great. People are really excited that Nokia invited people to be part of remaking the Nokia Tune. The publicity has been good for Nokia and AudioDraft as well. Not many platforms offer the amount of engagement we gained through this contest: over 6000 entries that where played over 10 million times in four weeks. That’s amazing!

5. Would you work with big brands in the future? Why?
Definitely. Consumers are nowadays expecting a dialog from brands. We really want to offer a channel to brands to have this kind of authentic conversation through audio production.

6. What’s the next step for Audiodraft?
In the beginning of 2012 we are introducing new services that will make unique audio even more accessible for brands and will also help the sound designers to build up their career. Also major sound design contests are launching quite soon! Stay tuned!

Zak Biddu is an ambitious man. During the last two years he’s been bringing western artists to India. He’s slowly breaking into a market that has so far mostly been interested in Bollywood.

- Few international artists have had the chance to perform there in the past and there are a few barriers to entry, explains Biddu.

One of the main challenges in India is the lack of venues. Artists and promoters can either choose between smaller clubs or massive cricket stadiums, which means Biddu and his team have had to build their own venues from scratch.

- It makes you have to think hard about the format and who you bring over, since you have to cover your costs, says Biddu.

Other factors to take into account are an outdated system which makes it difficult to deal with officials and the police, the costs of paying for visas, hotels and travel and the fact that about 95 percent of the market only cares about Bollywood.

- There are a few well-travelled consumers, but they still add up to tens of millions of people.’

Biddu is passionate about India and thinks all of these problems will eventually be overcome.

- In about 10 years time it’s going to be a bonafide market, but it takes time and investment to get there, otherwise it wouldn’t develop.

Another part of Biddu’s reasoning is that the market for festivals and gigs in the UK is already saturated, but India is full of opportunity.

Biddu started small-ish, with bringing over Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling two years go.

- They only played small venues, but had a great time. It was really good for the artists and they also shot three videos in India.

Biddu has quickly moved on to doing festivals and is buzzing after his latest festival in Pune, which sold out had over 24 000 visitors. Biddu also focuses on big artists and in October he took Lady Gaga to India.

- She was great. She’s not a superstar in India compared to the Bollywood stars, but she did lots of promotion and stayed for five days. She was in the headlines for a week after she left, just because she did the right things and met the right people.

India might be a challenging market to break into, but according to Biddu it’s worth it for the artists and the promoters.

- It’s the best part of the world to be famous in, there are about 1.2 billion people living there.

Want to know more about the changing live industry? Check out Music 4.5′s evenThe social live music industry – where is the money.