Al Lewis launched into a Wall Street Journal essay on the economy with the phrase: Shared sacrifice follows every disaster. It’s only a matter of deciding who shares it. Thinking about some of the choices Lori and I have been…
Grow Your Band’s Audience on Kindle! (SPONSORED POST)
[At the start and end of every week, I’ll reserve one post for a product, service, or sponsor that’s paying to keep the lights on at spinme.com.] Even though I’ve offered a version of Grow Your Band’s Audience as a…
Nimbit uses venture capital to fund band-to-fan e-commerce platform
Techcrunch profiled Nimbit, a “band-to-fan” e-commerce platform that seems to roll up all the services from CDBaby, HostBaby, and Fanbridge into a single service. According to Rip Empson, the service has already rolled up $5 million in venture capital it…
Coconut man, moon heads, and pee?
Ways to make me feel like an old geezer, #142. What is Jessie J talking about at the top of “Price Tag?” Are these shout outs to people? Is this part of some Illuminati code? Has a sleeper cell been…
What’s the value of entertainment?
Hollywood’s going nuts this weekend, because of a deal between Lionsgate, Groupon, and Fandango, to pack theatre seats for the premiere weekend of Matthew McConaughey’s new movie, “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Here’s how the deal works. In most cities, it costs…
Would you really want to be the next Rebecca Black?
Rebecca Black made it into the iTunes Top 100 this week. While Jay Frank’s analyzing the songwriting mechanics that make Rebecca Black’s “Friday” a chart success, I’ve been getting lots of e-mail and DMs about a new wave of song…
My @SproutSocial Experiment: Setting Boundaries on Social Media
I’ve been teaching some workshops on social media lately, and one of the questions that comes up very often involves how to keep Twitter and Facebook status updates from taking over your life. In the new edition of Grow Your…
Why I’m paying $60 a month for someone to pick my music.
The first I heard about the scandal at NPR was a tweet from my former colleague at WXPN, Bruce Warren: That sounds about right. In case you haven’t been following the news, a senior NPR official got pranked by a…
How microfunding sites like Kickstarter can stifle success.
Michael Epstein suggests that microfunding better suits a label model, where funders on a Kickstarter-type campaign can invest in a slate of projects rather than in a particular artist. Scott Andrew notes that sites like RocketHub encourage some acts to…
Finding the Twinsumers in your perfect audience.
I love reading the monthly briefings from the Trendwatching team. This year, they called out “Twinsumers” and “Social-lites” as part of their 11 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2011. Grow Your Band’s Audience charts a course for finding “your perfect audience.”…
How to offer your services as a producer, and how to find local talent.
Mailbag time! One of our readers writes: I am into urban/dance music. This relies on an artist as well as a producer. I’m a producer. Here is what I am willing to offer the artist: -I am willing to allow…
Bieber’s Grammy Snub, Explained
Steve Stoute’s a little angry at NARAS. Every year, folks complain about a Grammy snub. But Steve’s wondering aloud, in an open letter to the New York Times, whether the Grammy voters have consistently snubbed “pop culture” with its selections…