Conduit, a platform supporting users from all types of businesses, revolves around the premise of effectively merging personal individuality and convenience. Offering services to accommodate both desktop and mobile web surfers, Conduit provides easy and intuitive community-building tools, (e.g. their signature “Community Toolbar“) to keep surfers up to speed with whatever Conduit’s users are putting online for viewing.
Based on a cloud-run foundation, when it comes to musicians, “Conduit Mobile” is the service that has “for musicians” written all over it. Mainstream artists like rapper Waka Flocka Flame and UK singer-songwriter, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, have both taken to creating their own apps with Conduit Mobile’s quick and user-friendly interface. (For Leftwich’s click here and Waka Flocka Flame’s, click here.) Combining responsive, flexible mobile support, complete user content control and integration of various communication outlets – from Facebook to Picassa, Tumblr, Vimeo and more, Conduit Mobile can truly create an app that reflects everything a person represents as an artist.
I had the pleasure of talking with Adam Hanft, Conduit’s Strategic Advisor and Li-at Karpel Gurwicz, Conduit Mobile’s Marketing Manager. We talked about everything from Conduit’s “music-friendly” business model to how their services will ride the wave of increasing mobile interaction.
SoundCtrl: So, I have to tell you, the first thing that comes to mind is the whole simple mission you guys have – “Engaging People,” with Conduit. I think that it’s really great the company is open and broad enough to say, “We support creative types of all fields” but I was wondering, how do you balance the whole simplicity of your model with customizing for the different business types you support? I saw you isolate musicians, bloggers, teachers, restauranteurs… How do you manage it?
Adam: Well, the mobile business is a business unit unto itself and what we’ve done basically, is to say, “Hey look, we know what we can offer in terms of engagement tools,” and then [asking ourselves,] what are some of the “verticals” –as we call them– of the industries…where, what we offer is of particular value. Music came right up to the top of the list…because what we’ve got is such an easy ‘self-serve’ platform that you don’t have to be technical and you can end up with a great mobile app or great mobile website. So there are industries and personalities –like creative people– who have the need, given where the world is, for mobile experience that they just don’t have the time, skill or money to go out and spend on a developer to do it. It was a natural target for us to look at those areas where what we have to offer is especially valuable.
SC: My next question has to do with the various elements that Conduit has to balance with its factor of convenience. I see the services you offer: you know, the mobile, the regular and the other, Wibiya, that it’s all very much about one-stop integration. Put this on your webpage and it’s all very simple and quick but how do you balance convenience of engaging users versus encouraging real time traffic with clicks and visits? Maybe I don’t fully understand the service, and you can feel free to explain it, but it seems to me that if I were to put your toolbar on my website, for example…that I would keep my users engaged and they would have easy access to my content, but does that affect real time traffic that’s actually going to my URL?
Adam: Let me frame it out and then someone else can jump in. An easy way for you to think about it is that our tools for engagement really help [users] face when visitors are on their site and when they’re not. We call it “Home and Away.” …So that’s the duality of our user engagement: on the site, keep users there longer, and then engage them and keep them connected to the [user] when they’re off, wandering about the web.
SC: So this isn’t affecting my real time traffic statistics?
Adam: Well, Conduit is a marketplace. When you are in the Conduit network, you are essentially part of our marketplace. Other people can discover you and your blog through our marketplace, so there is a traffic-driving [benefit] with us as well.
SC: With there being a lot of saturation in the app market, there being [many] apps made everyday, how does Conduit Mobile’s “Build Your Own App” service market itself to stand out for interested musicians? In particular, I’m focusing on the fact that there are a lot of developers creating apps that are meant to aggregate content from a lot of the same outlets that Conduit targets but, by lessening the number of clicks or taps you have do between all your favorite artists.
Li-at: I think in the music industry, that’s part of a general challenge musicians face and not only with regard to their mobile apps but with regard to their music in general. It’s a crowded space; there are a lot of artists out there –especially for some of the smaller artists who are still trying to break through. The question is, “How do you increase your fan base?” and “How do you reach those fans to connect with them?” So, I think with our platform, musicians can make apps but it’s up to them for what they do with those apps and what kind of engagement they create with their fans. With our platform you could add all your music, you could send push notifications..and then of course it would be the kind of app fans would use more. Whereas, if you had just a very basic app with a couple of feeds, then probably your fans are not going to be looking at that app. Maybe they would even delete it and prefer not to have that [kind of] app…
Adam: …It’s early days in the [music] category. There are aggregate apps, like Stagedom, that you wrote about recently, that pull a lot of things together and I think with talent, particularly talent that needs a lot of exposure, you would use all of these, right? I think you could have an app with Conduit and you can be on Stagedom and be part of whatever other apps are out there, recognizing that users will often download apps and then not use them. It becomes incumbent upon the app itself to be extremely user friendly and to be present and alive. So I think you might discover something on Stagedom that you might not otherwise…and then want to get their app. I think within the ecosystem that’s emerging among these aggregators, that it’s interesting for artists to have their own dedicated app.
SC: In a way, you’re right. I guess there is that potential problem of over-stimulation and shouldering the app instead of the content itself…
Can you tell me a little behind the story of how Conduit teamed up with mainstream, UK musician Benjamin Francis Leftwich, one of your newer but well known users of the app service?
Li-at: We created that app for [Benjamin] as part of work we’re doing with Universal Music. It’s part of our partnership with Ingrooves (connected with Universal)…and they’re Benjamin’s digital media distributor. [Bejamin's app] basically includes all of his videos, music, news and exclusive content that he adds to his app. …We have partnerships with both Universal and Warner for creating apps for their artists. It’s becoming more and more of a requirement for the big music distributors who own or manage a lot of musicians’ content, how [the distributors] are going to approach the mobile industry and how they intend to mobilize their content and their artists.
SC: With regard to this new model you have on the mobile, the “Pay What You Want” plan…it’s very flexible and relatable to the hectic music market. If this strategy “catches fire” with users and let’s say [Conduit] hits a stride, do you already have plans in place to sustain the business model? Or are there other plans to knowingly evolve past it once you reach a certain ‘popularity benchmark?
Adam: This is a serious effort by us to create a model that is artist friendly and that can get this tool in more hands, so it’s not a promotional gimmick to bring people in and then all of a sudden make the switch and then say “Aha!” To your point, we think this is scalable. We think that, the more people that want to be part of the platform, the more valuable the platform will be and I think more artists will recognize it. So yes, there is an essential fairness [issue] built into the “Pay What You Want” model, but we think the creative community will be respectful of that…and I think everybody will benefit.
SC: Where do you see the future of mobile trends going and where does Conduit Mobile fit into that picture?
Adam: The way we look at it…we expect there to be more innovation not just in the sampling of an artist’s music but what happens in the lives experience with the artist. We think the artist will find new ways to use [Conduit's] app to connect with their fans emotionally and hear more of their lives, and experiences. Something that was not ever really open to artists before. We could see some kind of co-contributing creative platform where there could be this outsourcing of ideas between artists and their fans.
Li-at: There’s so many ways artists can not only use their apps to interact with their fans but also as tools in general for promoting their music. I know that a lot of our users in the music industry have told us that their apps are a great way for them to promote themselves to labels or potential partners. I mean, once, when you met somebody you had to hand them your music on something like a CD and make sure that they listen to it. Now [artists] just pull out their app and show their music straightaway –get the person to download it on the spot. That’s a huge benefit. People walk away with the artist’s music in their pockets.
SC: I think, once you go mobile, you never go back.
Adam: I like that!
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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