Ariel Publicity

Host of the PC Podcast, featuring eclectic music from around the world: http://pcpodcast.blogsome.com and The Dub Zone, featuring the very best dub reggae: http://thedubzone.blogsome.com and PCP{2}, a deeper look into the musical genres explored in PC Podcast: http://pcp2.blogsome.com

Plus he is the co-host of “Made In The UK”, featuring some of the very best UK music, for the world: http://madeintheukshow.co.uk and AMPed, the weekly digest of the Association of Music Podcasting at: http://musicpodcasting.org

Q: How can a podcaster become a part of Association of Music Podcasting (AMP)?

Firstly, you need to have produced at least 5 episodes of your podcast. We want to make sure you don’t “podfade” after your first couple of episodes. Secondly, all of the music must be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podsafe podsafe. AMP is about the music that doesn’t get airplay on mainstream radio. Unless artists have specifically made some of their music podsafe, we can’t play it. We also charge a small membership fee, which helps with hosting and other activities.

Most importantly you need to be good at podcasting. Before becoming a member, your podcast will be peer reviewed. We take into consideration the podcaster’s passion about their music, their broadcasting style, the quality of their broadcasting equipment, the quality of the music they play and even the sample rate they create the podcast at. Not everyone makes the grade.

Q: What is the background story on how AMP came about?

AMP’s history goes back to late 2004, long before I joined. Chris MacDonald, Derrick Oien, Bob Goyetche and Jason Evangelho all had important parts to play in setting up the association long before podcasting became a mainstream term. Back then, Apple was reluctant to accept music podcasts into their iTunes store, because they were worried about licensed music being freely distributed under their umbrella. AMP became the first association to offer Apple a “safe harbour” knowing that AMP member’s podcasts would be podsafe. AMP was also the first association to offer episodic downloadable media, and start creating a library of music. This library later went on to become a profit-making enterprise as the http://podsafemusicnetwork.com Podsafe Music Network.

AMP was, and remains, a non-profit making association, and after a hiatus in mid 2005, George Smyth got things moving again. After revamping the website and building some tools to automate the process of making a collective podcast, the AMPed podcast became a weekly event in the podosphere.

I joined the association in March 2006 and have been a regular contributor since then. Like many new members, initially I just submitted tracks to be played on AMPed, and occasionally became the host. More recently I’ve taken over a few more duties, like webmaster and membership secretary. Now many of the members have regular roles maintaining the podcast feed, making sure we all submit music on time, organizing the host rota and hosting the show. Everyone gets to do as much as they want to do. We’re a good team.

The best thing about the association is that we all have a voice. We’ve had some great suggestions from new members and old members alike and we keep moving forward.

Q: How do you go about choosing which shows to feature on http://amped.musicpodcasting.org/

Each podcaster can submit a track to AMPed each week. If everyone submitted a track the show would be 3 hours long, but we generally get enough submissions to fill a 40-60 minute show. It’s entirely up to the podcaster which tracks they want to play, but as they have only one track to chose, it means AMPed ends up being the best of the best. AMPed is also work and child safe.

The week’s host is the final arbiter of what tracks make the show, and the running order. All the hosts have a different style and like different kinds of music, so it’s as much of a journey of discovery for them as it is for the listeners. I’m sure some of the hosts groan when I’ve submitted a track sung in Russian or Cambodian, but hey, I like that stuff, and I think the listeners deserve to hear it. You don’t hear that on mainstream radio!

Q: How does AMP keep changing?

Every new podcaster brings a new perspective on how to promote their podcast and their favourite music. We have members who really understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and we’ve completely revamped out website, http://musicpodcasting.org to pull in all the latest information from our member’s blogs and podcasts, straight to our front page.

We have other members who are really passionate about social networking, be that via Facebook, Myspace or last.fm. We’ve recently started using Twitter to publicize when we have new podcasts available, and we’re looking at using Twiturm to “tweet” podcast “samplers” of the shows out to people on the move.

We also want to hear what our listeners have to say, so we’ve created a survey on the main page of our website http://musicpodcasting.org. They can tell us what they think of the show, what we do right, and what we should be doing better.

Q: What changes in content laws, broadcasting rights, etc. have affected any podcasters being able to air their music?

Back in 2004, there were no clear guidelines, but, as I mentioned, Apple was worried about allowing music podcasts into the iTunes store, especially after the legal ruling in the MyMP3.com case. Because all AMP podcasts were vouched podsafe, this gave Apple the solution they needed and all the AMP member podcasts were approved.

Since then, many content laws and broadcasting rights have been suggested, and these vary from country to country. AMP has always been international and we have podcasters based in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Portugal, Australia and even Nepal, so it’s not easy to see which rules would apply. There are also more stringent rules for streaming services, than there are for podcast downloads, but as long as we keep within our guidelines of using podsafe music, we can continue producing podcasts.

Today there are a large number of resources that podcasters can use to get podsafe or Creative Commons licensed music, such as IODA Promonet, Magnatune, Jamendo and Music SUBMIT as well as the Podsafe Music Network, and, of course, Ariel Publicity. We also get music from other sources such as Myspace, last.fm and from the artists directly, but we do need to make sure the artist, manager, or label gives us permission first. Ariel Publicity is a great service for us, because we know all the hard work has been done beforehand and we can legally play the music.

Of course, nowadays everyone knows what a podcast is. When AMP first started, artists were quite unsure of our motives or even what a podcast was. It’s great to see some of the big artists like, Tom Waits, Bloc Party, Nick Cave or the Manic Street Preachers leading the way and making some tracks podsafe. This encourages up and coming artists to do the same.

Q: A recent study found blogs to be more effective than MySpace in generating album sales, do you feel that podcasts will have the same effect as well?

Absolutely! I wear a T-shirt that says “Podcasting Is Selling Music” and another one of our members talks about “Promotion Not Piracy”.

Myspace is great for artists to allow listeners to hear their music, but the listener has to go searching if they want to find something new. If you find a podcast that you like, you can let the podcaster be your guide. We’ve all heard from listeners that they’ve bought an album that they never expected to like because they’ve heard it first on a podcast.

I’ve played bands back in 2006 that none of my friends had heard of, and now they’re playing the main stage of the largest festivals in Europe. OK, that’s not all down to podcasting, but it’s part of the process. Mainstream radio only picks up on bands when they have a major record deal. Podcasters are playing the music months, even years before then.

If you want to hear something you’ve heard before by the Beatles or the Eagles, then feel free to go to Myspace or listen to mainstream radio. If you really want to hear something really new; something recorded this year, recorded yesterday, something that’s not even finished yet – then listen to a podcast!

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Many experts say that the #1 way we will all communicate within the next 3-4 years will be thorough our mobile devices. It is no secret that the United States is far behind Europe and Asia in ease of use and advance technologies in the mobile realm but it is never too early to begin looking at a mobile strategy.

With that said I will be exploring how musicians can fully utilize using mobile technologies throughout 2009 but here is a primer. I saw Helen Keegan present in Iceland at the You Are In Control conference at Iceland Airwaves 2008 and I was wowed by her presentation.

Helen is a mobile marketing, advertising and media specialist working with a range of clients from media owners to brands and agencies to mobile technology companies. She has been working in mobile marketing for more than 8 years.

I asked her a few questions via email and she was generous enough to answer them for us here:

How Can Musicians Effectively Use Mobile For Marketing? – 7 Questions For Helen Keegan of Beep Marketing

Using mobile phones is now integral to our lives. Artists should be thinking about who their audience is and how to build it – whatever ways are relevant. And that has to include mobile today. Young audiences in particular are technology agnostic and want instant gratification and will use the nearest device or service available to them whether that’s their phone, their laptop, the TV, their iPod, their PSP, whatever.

1. Where is a good place to start for artists just beginning to think about a mobile strategy?

The artist should probably start by using their mobile phone to create and capture content themselve – short video footage, podcasts, moblogging, photographs, twittering etc. All this can be done instantly and cheaply from a mobile phone and helps the audience get to the real essence of the artistóthey feel they’re getting beyond the branding and the manufactured image. Music is about soul after all isn’t it so being able to share what you’re really thinking and doing would seem to make sense to me.

2. How often should artists communicate via mobile platforms once they have one set up?

There is no fixed answer to this. It’s about building a community and having a conversation with members of your community and allowing your community to chat to each other. What I would say is that if you’re using SMS, then make sure you have permission, make it easy to opt out at any time, make sure it’s free (or very cheap or sponsored) and don’t overdo it. Think about how much you might tolerate. Also think about what messages those individuals might be getting at that time – Friday night at 6 PM is probably not a good time to promote stuff when a lot of people are organizing their weekend. Similarly, if you have a teen audience then waking them up with a text message at 7 AM on a Sunday morning might not always go down well. We’re talking about real people here and real conversations not just push alerts about gigs and releases.

3. What’s the easiest way for an artist to build a mobile list?

It’s not about building a list; that’s too simplistic. It’s about building a fanbase and community and allowing those people access to you via mobile and vice versa. Permission is a given when using a communication method. Spam is in the eye of the beholder and even if it’s legal, people won’t tolerate it – fans or not. Personal information can be collected in a variety of ways – text in promotions at gigs, fill in leaflets with your information, capture it on websites or mobile websites – all the usual methods. But make sure you have the tick box to opt in and make it easy to opt-out (by replying STOP to a text message for example).

4. What’s the easiest way for artists to deliver MP3s to fans via mobile?

Helen suggested we ask Steve Lawson who coincidentally also writes for Music Think Tank and he generously provided the answer:

The MP3s to fans thing is an interesting one – the easiest way if you don’t want to make your audience pay for them would be to do an MP3 blog with WordPress, add the Mippin plug-in, and just post the links in blog posts – most mobile phones will just ask where you want to save the file when clicked on.

If you want to charge for it, life gets a little more difficult. I had a conversation recently with the former head of Paypal mobile – there’s a joke name for a division. He left after Paypal failed to do anything sensible for mobile at all, despite him organising meetings with the top dogs at Nokia for them. He did say there is some code that can be used, so I’m going to get onto him, find out what it is, and as soon as I do, I’ll post it on music think tank! But at the moment, it’s pretty tough to do.

The big problem is that most of the online sales apps is that the front end is flash driven, and virtually no mobile handsets can handle flash. iPhone users can obviously use iTunes. I’ve no idea what the deal is with getting ones music onto the Nokia music store. I’ve had emails from the head of Nokia music, so will ask him as soon as I can!

This is an answer that seems it will unfold as time goes on.

Helen also comments:

Research tells us that young people are sideloading more tracks than their downloading from their phones. That means they’re downloading tracks to their laptops and transferring the files across to their iPods, phones, whatever. So what I would say is that DRM is a no-no otherwise you’re not able to share the track between devices.

5. I know ringtones have experienced a decline in popularity. Should artists still make their music available as ringtones? If so, what’s the easiest way for them to do that?

Yes, ringtones are still important – short snippets of a track available in the various mobile formats would make sense. There’s plenty software available on the Internet to allow for you to do that cheaply or free.

6. I know you are a twitter evangelist, just like me. Are there any tips on how musicians can use Twitter to create group mobile communication?

I love twitter and for me the most important things are authenticity and joining in. Be yourself and engage with other Twitterers. If Stephen Fry and Richard Branson can do it, then so can an artist!

7. Do you have any parting mobile advice you’d like to give a band or an artist looking to learn more?

Yes, check out Paul Brindley’s MusicAlly and read David Jennings’ book Net, Blogs ‘n Rock ‘n Roll. And get yourself into blogs and google alerts to keep track of what’s happening in mobile and music.

You can read about Helens work and follow her interesting blog here:

http://www.beepmarketing.com

http://technokitten.blogspot.com

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