3 questions with…Wilhelm from Flowd

Posted on | December 27, 2010 | No Comments

From Finland comes a very interesting twist on the fan-artist relationship essentially creating an app that’s Foursquare meets Twitter.

I asked Wilhelm Taht, who is Flowd’s Director of Marketing, a few questions. This is what he said:

1. Artists and fans can connect directly through Twitter, so how does Flowd fill a void in the music industry?

Flowd delivers the only mobile loyalty program that specialises in the fan-idol relationship. The benefits can be summarized in:

Immediacy: Flowd is mobile and always available in your pocket
Intimacy: You can use Flowd to send your thoughts and photos directly to each of your fan
Connectivity: Flowd allows you to manage your full social footprint from one place (Facebook and Twitter connect)
Branding: You can choose your own pictures to skin Flowd to look like you

We’re the industry’s only loyalty app for fan-idol relationships. There is no direct competitor for the time being. In comparison to Foursquare e.g., they have check-in to places. We have check-in to places and to artists and their lives.

2. With loyalty points, you’re essentially turning Flowd into a microeconomy similar to Farmville or Mob Wars, which Zynga has made billions off of. Have you thought about allowing fans to purchase points? If not, how do you plan on monetizing the app?

In its first phase, Flowd is focused on providing increased value to its end users. Within the music industry there will be plenty opportunities to monetize fan activity (ticket sales, merchandise, record sales, etc). These evaluations are not on our agenda right now though. We have no plans of implementing advertising within Flowd although it definitely is an opportunity.

There are plenty of ways to monetize Flowd, because of the industry it’s targeted towards. In terms of direct monetisation, we could execute on record or song sales in some way (e.g. affiliate linking into album or track sales), there would be a natural cut for the record labels as well. Other avenues could be ticket or merchandise sales, for example.

3. 2010 is winding down. What sorts of goal or updates to the app do you have in store for 2011?

We just recently launched an exciting new events feature that’s available as a free update to the app. By using the phone’s in-built GPS, Flowd Events allows users to “check-in” to concerts, festivals and other live events while bands and artists can run contests and promotions that award fans for attending their gigs – and the first one to jump on board is none other than Armin van Buuren.

We will very soon have the tools available for artists to create exclusive offerings for their fans in Flowd. After that, it’s up to the artists themselves to decide how they want to reward their most devoted fans. Further details of the loyalty program toolset for music venues and record labels are being worked on and will be published in Q1 2011.

3 questions with…Wilhelm from Flowd

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