Unsprung Media is gone.  Thanks for all the comments and the attention.

Click here to subscribe to my new RSS feed.

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I am still posting on Music Think Tank...

and... finally on Twitter...

Here are my latest posts on my new blog...

I have to build a fanbase. I have to build a fanbase. I have to build a fanbase

If you wake up every day and tell yourself that you have to build a fanbase, then you have the wrong strategy in mind.

The Internet is a value delivery machine.  People use the Internet to obtain valued entertainment, information, knowledge, services and products.

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Power Comes Out of the Ends of the Battery

It’s safe to play the middle, but power comes out of the ends of the battery.  I use this analogy when I am talking about what to create or how to say it.

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Unsprung Media is gone.  Click here to subscribe to my new feed.

Over the last few months, I have slowly killed off Unsprung Media.

While I will still be writing about the music industry, most of my long posts about the industry will go directly to Music Think Tank.

On my new blog, which I am calling Echo Louder, I will be covering everything from the music business, to building branded communities, to the new media projects I am currently working on.

Why the name change?  Unsprung was launched on a ten minute whim.  I never liked it.  Moreover, I want to put some of my earlier writings behind me...

Echo Louder sums up my thinking about the state of marketing and business in general.  It takes a community to echo louder; a single voice doesn't get the job done any more.  Communities dominate brands and over-power messages.  To echo louder, a brand not only has to engage a community, it has to be the community.  

In a few short years, we will watch the world transition from a place where brands engage communities, to a place where communities launch and control brands.  Echo Louder is where I hope to describe, and have some impact upon, this evolution.

Thanks for subscribing to Unsprung.  I hope you join me on my new blog.

Click here for my new Echo Louder RSS feed (as of today, 10/12).

Click here if you would like to subscribe to Echo Louder via email.

Eric Beall (Berklee) is one of my favorite bloggers within the music industry. Over the last year, I have probably learned as much from Eric as anyone in the industry. Thanks Eric.

Last month or so, Eric wrote a post titled "The Best Kind of Feedback". I have taken his survey suggestions and dropped them into the new song survey module on Music Xray. (This is like the SONGsurvey tool that I had on SONGboost)..

Music Xray users can design any song survey they want.

Click here to try the Song Survey I created.

What survey questions (for a short/quick survey to use within the industry) should I add or subtract?  (picture below)

I hate getting notes from bands that want me to check out their myspace page.  The myspace music player is completely infuriating to use.  Artists, please use bandcamp, soundcloud, music xray or anything that makes it easy for people within the industry to rapidly check out your songs.

In a post last week, I errantly added a zero to my millions.  $50,000,000 should have been $5,000,000.  A reader pointed out that I had increased the size of the music industry to $100,000,000,000 in annual revenue.  It would not have been so embarassing if it had not taken me eight comments to get my head screwed on straight.  Thanks Suzzanne!

I like The Hector Fund. No reason given.

http://twitter.com/brucewarila

This is a quick follow up to my post from yesterday.

Craigslist continues to squeeze the life out of the newspaper industry by offering free classifieds ads. Consider how a widely promoted, free music directory of highly qualified music would be disruptive to the combination of radio and record labels.

The score on commercial radio and record labels (as a symbiotic entity).

• The range of new music is impossible to navigate.
• Music selection is driven by legal contracts (‘record deals’) that are constructed around outdated business models.
• No music selection is enabled outside of the contractual cocoon.
• The legacy cost structure perpetuates the model. Business as usual is almost a must.
• The price of music (any price) cuts out 50% of the market.
• On the plus side, music is promoted via radio. However, this is becoming less and less important. Find out why.

The score on a smartly-constructed & massively-promoted free music directory.

• The range of just-as-good new music (as good as artists on labels) is almost limitless.
• The navigation of (the ability to 'tune into') FILTERED new music is off-the-charts powerful and fun.
• Contractual arrangements are short, simple and attractive to artists.
• Music is available everywhere but terrestrial (linear) radio.
• The cost structure of this business is far less than the cost structure of labels and radio combined.
• Music is free if consumers want it.

A few notes…

• Could the entire thing be relatively ad-free and very profitable? I believe so.
• Jamendo is cool (if this site comes to mind), but they have a lot of wood to chop first. I don’t believe the Creative Commons license structure is going to do the trick for anyone building this.
• In five years most music will probably just stay in the cloud. The days of moving media to one’s hard drive are numbered.
• iLike, Last.FM and imeem have some of the components described here.
• TheSixtyOne is my favorite music site so far.