Money is a funny thing. It’s physical, digital, and imaginary. A symbol of success for some, a symbol of hope for others, and the rest think it’s just an illusion. That being said, the music industry has entered an exciting evolution of ideas and concepts to make $$$ because the old model doesn’t work for most, which is why I was pumped to go to Billboard’s Music & Money Symposium last Thursday. People are most certainly smartening up!
I went into the conference with high hopes of meeting great people, having compelling conversations, sharing the experience with Twitter, and hearing some incredible insights from the industry’s top minds…and the reality didn’t fall short of my expectations. More importantly, it was great to share the experience with fellow SoundCtrlers Tiffany Hardin, Jesse Kirshbaum, Emily Gannett, and Alex Kirshbaum.
Jesse with his hustling game face on
The music industry is a “complex field” as Howard Appelbaum indicated in his brief opening address to the audience. However, when you add money to the mix, the conversation gets even more complicated. Essentially, I can boil down the day’s conversation to the following question: music is amazing and all, but how do I pay my bills and justify spending the time?
Rio Caraeff, the CEO of Vevo, was the first to try to tackle that question in the first Keynote Q&A. Vevo is a music video site and distribution platform where artists can monetize their music videos while improving the experience of and value for the fan. They must be doing something right because they were 85% sold out of their ads in February. Rio summed it up amazingly when he said, “People can drink from wherever they want, but we want the water coming from our well.”
Next up was a brand panel, about which I was most excited to watch. Since “music is the easiest way to reach fans” (Cynthia Sexton, EMI *I quoted her for the title*), why wouldn’t brands wanna invest money in bands? However, when deciding which brands to align yourself with, pick the brands you are naturally drawn to because, as Rio said, “nothing sells like passion.” For more reading on this topic, check out my coverage of our Social Media Week panel.
The case study on Tunewiki was extremely interesting and delivered well. Tunewiki is mobile app that acts a social music player. However, when I downloaded the app to my Blackberry on Friday, the reality was far less exciting. Slow load times for the songs. Confusing navigation. Unnecessary battery draining visualizations. Also, you’re unable to use the app without allowing it to access GPS. However, I definitely like the vision of Larry Goldberg (COO), so I will hold my judgment until a newer version of Tunewiki that can hopefully address my concerns.
For the VC panel, I was thoroughly impressed by the comments from Tim Chang from Norwest Venture Partners. He has a deep understanding of both investment and the music industry since he is also an active musician. Also, he’s a fan of my buddies from Next Big Sound (pictured below), so he’s cool in my book. However, I was slightly disappointed that his favorite band was Incubus, but I gotta say that S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is one hell of an album.
Alex White and Samir Rayani from Next Big Sound
The long day ended with a cocktail hour where I caught up in depth with the people I had met throughout the day. Overall, I had a great time and learned a lot! Also, please come back to the blog later today for the announcement about the FlashFwd winners!!!
