SONG CONTEST BLOG

iLike, the hugely successful consumer-facing extension of the not-so-hugely-successful indie artist community, GarageBand, announced its further investment in self-promoting artist tools for iLike registered artists, specifically the marketing and syndication of music and music-related collateral across several social networks.  The 300,000 member iLike artist community will now be able to automate their feeds to Twitter, synchronize their YouTube channels to their iLike accounts, add an ‘up-selling’ widget to their MySpace concert listing, and include an iLike ‘music tab’ to their Facebook profile… and this is just the very tip of the ice-cream: iPhone apps, content syndication tools, premium artist stats, own web-domain management and many more flavours. 

iLike is a powerhouse, catering to 45 million music fans across its network.  This investiture will undoubtedly put some pressure on small players such as BandMetrics and RockDex who focus on statistics for artists, and ArtistData who focus on content syndication, to offer value features that iLike can’t or simply chooses not to.  And in spite of ReverbNation’s exponential growth and market lead on the indie artist front, iLike enjoys an unmistakable advantage: primed access to consumers en mass.

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Gigulate is a new dotcom out of England that provides performing artist gig schedules and tour details by analyzing music industry news, blog posts and published gig listings across the web.  Much like SongKick, LiveKick and ItsLiveMusic, to name just a few competing gig listing search engines, Gigulate’s business model is fashioned on live music ticketing, a music industry sector on the up&up.  The idea is to provide music fans with a free and swift method of searching for and subscribing to specific live music events, and up-selling ticket purchases via third-party online ticket sellers such as WeGotTickets or See, two UK leaders.  Although the site, currently in private beta, does not yet provide a direct means for ticket purchases, the company will probably pursue a merger or acquisition by a leading player in the field to deploy the ticketing end; Ticketmaster would be an ideal candidate.

Online music will arguably be the fastest moving and consistently evolving industries in 2007. Previously undiscovered artists will come to the fore via high-traffic tastemaker blogs such as Stereogum, innovative retail platforms such as Amie St. and the ease and availability of content distribution. The traditionally reluctant giants of music, such as Universal and EMI, have already embraced the idea of becoming more than a ‘record company’ by providing their large catalogues to a variety of digital platforms and, I expect, will re-brand themselves as leading digital purveyors rather than the illegal file-sharing ‘arm of the law’.

With the much anticipated advertising-driven download services such as SpiralFrog, Napster and eMusic lending themselves to mobile networks such as Cingular and TicketMaster’s $13.5m investment in iLike (founders of Garageband), the music space will become, quite literally, universal. More artists are likely to show up on the radar due to, say, an unexpected public vote on a music community such as PureVolume or a great show at a festival sponsored by the renowned artist service, Sonicbids. By the end of the year, I believe that the increase of independent music communities and number of online artist profiles will pave the way to greater choice, more accurate recommendations to consumers and more alternatives to expose previously unheard-of music.

And while all of these multi-million dollar start-ups promise more exposure and business for unsigned artists and a better experience for music lovers, as musicians, we can still depend on good ‘ol fashioned live venues – another sector on the up & up. T-shirt anyone?