by Kira Grunenberg
When thinking of a shark, one usually doesn’t imagine it getting into trouble, as it’s a predator of the ocean. I’m guessing many of you also don’t tend to think of sharks and whales in the same living space, let alone helping one another.
Well there’s a bit of verbal and metaphorical contradiction to be had with these two scenarios. Music streaming service, Grooveshark, has seen its namesake predator of the deep under fire with lawsuits by each of the four major record labels and is enhancing their artist support with a new data discovery tool called Beluga.
A press release put out by Grooveshark via PR Newswire contains a description by Grooveshark’s co-founder and CTO, Josh Greenberg, wherein he emphasizes Beluga’s positive potential; explaining specific ways artists can reap major benefits and specific advantages they’ll obtain from utilizing this service. It will essentially serve as a powerful refinement tool for understanding and connecting to an artist’s fan base, ideally fostering more appealing connections with consumers. Beluga creates a symbiotic bond for artists and non-music companies, by understanding what brands listeners flock to that exist around their favorite music.
“Any artist with music on Grooveshark can leverage Beluga’s revolutionary data to learn about their fans, route their tours, sell merchandise, work on building a following, and take their careers to the next level… Beluga opens doors for advertisers and brands to partner with artists who connect with their target audience, presenting endless opportunities. Best of all, we provide all of this market research information entirely for free.”
Beluga is free and accessible to all of Grooveshark’s 20 million users with music uploaded onto their servers.
Building up an extensive pool of what Grooveshark is calling “music insights” on artists’ fans, Beluga combines “promotional tools and analytics, [with both acting as] tremendous [marketing] asset[s],” according to the Director of New Media at SMC Entertainment, Ben Stidham. Typical factors like geographic location, gender and genre preference are analyzed but add in the observational aid of Grooveshark’s existing surveys and much more detailed (but still anonymously protected) information can be obtained. Examples of such data can include:
1) Dominant social network (Through what medium are your fans sharing?)
2) Lifestyle qualities of your fans
3) Fans’ primary mobile preferences. (Androids/iOS), and…
4) The main industry of particular fans. (e.g. students, creative, or business industries.)
Collectively, this information can reveal first-degree given listener patterns and social groupings that can act like a perfectly outlined formula to hone in on existing fans or strengthen a lesser contacted audience segment (perhaps a lesser visited tour site or age group,) to widen awareness and attract more fans.
Beluga fits well with Grooveshark’s mentality of artist support, discovery and free access, while also being, at least at face value for now, a step in the right direction toward the kind of openness that may help to keep Grooveshark out of legal hot water in the future. Below are some screenshots from the press release, of what Beluga’s data display looks like. The press release also states that Beluga contains research and custom case studies that can be viewed by anyone interested.
Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1
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