This week we announced our partnership with 7digital. The deal brings millions of songs to our service including all the major record labels (Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner). This is excellent because it gives us a good opportunity to go further in our vision of building a network of musicians who will promote the sales of their music in a common platform.
Now it is time for every professional musician to register to Equal Dreams and check out our extremely easy to use tools to create a musician profile. You can promote your own music (which in many cases is already in the service) and customize the profile to your own look. It is also good to link to colleagues profiles by using Members widget (You can change the title e.g. to "Colleagues"). We hope that you bring your personality to our platform and participate in building the service that benefits both artists and music fans.
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As I mentioned in my earlier blog, in addition to our charity concerts we also joined two music fairs, Helsinki Music Fair, Finland and Womex ´09 (World Music Expo) in Copenhagen, Denmark.
With an internet service such as ours you actually rarely get to meet people in person. And the variety that these fairs brought to our days was of course highly appreciated. The timing was also perfect. We had just launched our new user interface and the fairs were an excellent way to not only present the service to new users but also get a face to face contact and instant feedback!
Especially Womex was such a fresh change and an opportunity for us to exchange thoughts and ideas with artists and music lovers from all around the world. From the day one you could tell that Womex was an already established music fair. The place was filled with music enthusiasts and that if something inspired us! Fairs like Womex could so easily have been a more business-like happening with all the parties of music business like artists, managers, labels, festivals, gig bookers etc meeting and exchanging contracts. But instead it all felt like a big family reunion! Cosy, relaxed atmosphere and the “bag in a boxes” that filled the booth tables every late afternoon gave it a special festival kind of feeling. Nevertheless, I’m sure that many important contacts were made and the jobs got done.
Thanks to everyone who came to meet us during these fairs. I just love it how music brings people together and you never know where it can lead you or what you might learn.
Yours,
Heidi
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Maybe it’s the time of the year that makes me want to look back a bit, to see what the busy fall at Equal Dreams was all about. Besides some major changes in the service itself, we’ve had a number of very nice projects, like charity concerts and music fairs during the fall.
It’s been a real pleasure working with the charity partners that we have on board. Someone said to me that ethical consuming is becoming more and more trendy, meaning that people are starting to care where the money is actually going. Trendy or not, if there is a chance of combining these two, consuming and helping, and if people are willing to find their ways of being involved in a charity work - I think we’re getting somewhere. Wouldn’t you think that’s the easiest way for a music lover to help: by going to a charity concert or buying music from artists who want to donate a piece of their sales income to charity (this is what Equal Aid is all about). It is actually a win-win situation for all parties!
Of course, ethical consuming doesn’t need to mean that you are participating in charity. Knowing, that the music makers are getting their fair share of the sales revenue when you buy a song, is also a part of ethical consuming. Well, this is obviously an issue for another blog post .. But I just couldn’t resist mentioning it here, could I?
In the late summer, 19th of September we organized a childrens charity concert with World Vision Finland in Kannusali, Espoo. Mimi & Kuku, the highly popular duo among kids was starring the concert and it was a success! All I can say is, that we had a lot of fun and the audience loved it. Not to forget the reason behind it all, to raise money and help children living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.
Photo of Mimi & Kuku by Pekka Kärkkäinen
The next big event was “Kuuluu Kaikille” club evening with Amnesty International at Korjaamo, Helsinki on the international day against powerty on October 17th. On stage we had a privilege to see Kauko Röyhkä, Paleface and Deep Insight. And let me remind you, that all the artists participating in these concerts were doing it “pro Bono”, that is not getting payed. Something I really admire and I once again want to thank these artists for sharing their music for a good cause!
On November 24th we organized charity concert together with our newest charity partner, the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health and the record label Holy Feather Productions at Gloria Cultural Arena, Helsinki. The idea to the “Medication Keeps Me Going” concert came from one band, Wolver, wanting to help children and youth with mental problems. The artists joining Wolver on the stage were Elastinen, Ra, Parannus and Belle Who.
Photo of Kauko Röyhkä by Christer Ådahl and photo of Wolver by Arto Koivisto
I personally want to thank everyone who participated in these concerts, whether it was as organizer, artist or audience.
Yours,
Heidi
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Equal Dreams at fairs, concerts and other happenings!
Some of our October happenings: We are exhibiting at the Helsinki Music Fair (22. - 25. of Oct., stand 4b8) and at the international Womex09 fair in Copenhagen (28. Oct. - 1. Nov., stand B3-129). Besides all the usual busyness we've been setting up our team for the coming up music fairs. We are really looking forward to be part of these happenings. At the stands we'll have a team of two demoing our new service, chitchatting and answering any questions you might have. And of course people can sign up for our competition 'customize the best profile page and win studio-days'.
Next weekend our CEO Kimmo appears as speaker at 'Musiikki & Media 2009', in Tampere on the 24th of October. He is going to talk about: how internet changes the way we seek, find and buy music. He'll be presenting some intriguing ideas about the future of music business.
We invite you to join us at the fairs, learn more about our future development plans and bring your own ideas along - see you there!
Coming here a tad late - on last Saturday we had our mutual concert with Amnesty International. It was a great event with some really cool music. Thank you for the music - Paleface, Kauko Röyhkä, Deep Insight and Sansa and thank you Korjaamo -club for the arrangements. And above all, a big THANK YOU for the audience, showing up in great numbers despite a lousy weather. A special acknowledgement and Thank you to Amnesty for a fruitful co-operation.
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Finalizing the new version of the service took longer than we expected. Well, I guess that's typical in software projects. Especially this update was a major one because we did so much restructuring in user interface.
It is great that it is finally out and we can get customer feedback on it. There are still many details in user interface that we are going to improve during this fall and we are planning to release also some new service concepts. Maybe the most important among these is a possibility to sell CDs and merchandizing (fan items) using the service.
Like you see the front page of the profile (artist/band/record label/user page) comprises of small boxes - called widgets - that are dedicated to present certain content like music, blog, pictures, members, etc. The idea is that the user can get a good overall view on the activities of the profile owner with one glimpse. Now we will also look at the possibility to embed those widgets to other web sites. Taking music widget to artist's web site gives excellent possibility to offer fans direct access to buy high quality audio.
On Monday October 12th I will be participating in panel discussion in Oktoberfest organized by ELVIS (Finnish Association of Music Authors). I am sure there is going to be an interesting debate about the challenges & possibilities that internet has brought to music authors, record labels and consumers. I am looking forward to that.
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The new version of Equal Dreams will be launched in the beginning of September. Then you will have a possibility to customize your profile quite extensively to make it look unique. It is like in MySpace but I dare to claim that our user interface for the customization is much easier to use (not to mention all the functionalities we offer). Anyone can do it in a minute!
Therefore, we are planning to arrange a contest for you. It would go like this: Create the most beautiful artist/band page and gather fans to your fan club. The one who has most fans will win the contest.
What do you think the winner should get? Studio time?
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EMI just came out with dire financial news. It seems that the company’s fate is in the hands of banks. Is the so often popularly proclaimed “end of labels” closing in? I think - hardly so! They are still sitting on vast catalogues which will bring them income for decades to come. However I personally do not think they are choosing the best way to monetize their catalogues (an issue for coming blogs). More interesting though, was what EMI CEO Leon-Sect himself said;
"We must complement our artists’ creativity with our own skills in innovation. That means listening to the desires and needs of consumers and delivering new products and services that they want to buy...We have a situation where 70% of music consumption is digital and yet only about 20% of music company revenues are derived from digital. Music is in demand and the demand is growing all the time, but we’ve clearly lost touch with our consumers.
I passionately believe that if we listen to our consumers, this gap will become our opportunity."*
This touches on my last posting - connecting with fans - and also means an increasingly new role for labels big and small. Every band knows to value “creative space” - having labels taking care of tedious work like promotional issues or simply stuffing t-shirts into envelopes and mailing them -leaves bands and musicians to do what they want to do i.e. create great music. Labels will have to close the gap between digital consumption and revenues. The way to do it; provide consumers a nice experience by bringing them new product packages and connecting with fans for great music experience.
This is where we set in - we look to provide the best set of tools for true co-operation. A two way street between music makers and music friends is the best way to ensure that all parties get what they want.
*http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/07/emi-ceo-leonisceti-weve-clearly-lost-touch.html
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The launch of Equal Dreams 2.0 is getting nearer every day so I thought I'd share our ideas a little bit more!
The principles behind the update are:
- improve the user interface and make it more intuitive and fun to use
- give you a chance to be active
Apart from the front page postings, our current site is pretty passive, and our most important assets, users, have no way to connect with each other. In the next version users are going to be able to comment on music and share thoughts on pretty much everything.
Our old user interface isn't really bad, but we think it's nowhere intuitive enough! We have spent a lot of sleepless nights developing the pages for browsing music and also creating and selling albums.
Finally, here's a little glimpse of what Equal Dreams 2.0 will look like:
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I came across an interesting article by Kevin Kelly (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php). He states: “When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable. When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.“ Furthermore he lists 8 qualities that cannot be copied. So, I thought I go through those items here and comment how Equal Dreams is dealing them:
“Immediacy -- Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset.”
This is one of the reasons why we believe in the Equal Share concept or a pre-order concept in general. Customers will be able to participate already during creation process and get engaged with the artist. Customers will also be able to get the music as soon as it is produced. We will still further develop pre-ordering features.
“Personalization -- A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room -- as if it were preformed in your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot.”
Personalization for a customer in case of music is a tricky task but it is possible. Artist could be in a constant communication with their fans and get feedback and ideas from them during the creation process but this doesn’t necessarily fit into every artists’ way of working. Jill Sobule has done personalization with a great success and fans where really willing to pay for it. So, it can be done. As we are developing the pre-order functionalities further we are also looking into possibilities to support a more interactive artist-fan relationship.
“Interpretation -- As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it's no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that. They provide paid support for free software.”
I guess it depends on what format the interpretation is. If you write it down as a text it can be easily copied and makes it superabundant. What if customers could subscribe to a special fan club by paying a fee and that would give them a possibility to ask questions about the lyrics/composition or something else from the artist himself. This kind of an interpretation package could also be bundled with some other type of service to customer.
“Authenticity -- There are nearly an infinite number of variations of the Grateful Dead jams around; buying an authentic version from the band itself will ensure you get the one you wanted.”
That’s why we like to get artists registered in the service to promote their music even in cases when the actual seller is a record company. As an artist/musician you can create a profile and list your music in it. One thing related to this is also the importance to check the origin of the sold content in order to make sure that customers’ money is not going to a wrong address. I think we are addressing this issue really well with our verification procedure.
“Accessibility -- Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you.”
In Equal Dreams, customer buys a license to listen to music (for personal use). He gets an access to download music to his desktop or mobile devices. As a registered user you can always login again and go to your music library to find your music there (backed up). So, as an Equal Dreams customer you will enjoy music always when connected to internet and even when not connected!
“Embodiment -- At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good.”
I agree, it does feel good. I strongly believe in revenue potentials of physical sales. The CD itself is not going to be a very interesting product in the future but the cover leaflet or some other printed materials will be. Especially when you combine some authentication (artist signatures) and maybe even personalization in it. This is what we definitely will be looking at already during this year. I mean physical sales.
“Patronage -- It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect.”
We also strongly believe in that and we also support it with the service. And this can be done in good harmony also in cases when the artist has a contract with a record label. Record labels have an important role to support artists especially in marketing efforts. But more and more artists have to participate in marketing efforts themselves, too. During this year we are bringing new solutions that will further support this type of collaboration between the artist and the record label.
“Findability -- Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless.”
Yes. We call it industry’s dilemma: How to find relevant music for you? The supply of music is vast. What to choose? It used to be easier for a customer. You could just go to the local record shop and browse through the collection of finite size. You can find a nice article about small shops here: http://www.helium.com/items/928681-how-small-local-music-shops-can-compete-against-big-chain-stores
I also like the talk by Barry Schwartz about the paradox of choice: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
We think that we actually have a great solution for this. But there is an essential feature that we have to implement before it really kicks off. More about that later.
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I’m looking into business development at Equal Dreams. The music industry is unravelling fast nowadays. We’ve seen a number of services with innovative ideas sprung up in the last few years. We’d like to think we are at the forefront of this development. It’s all about connecting with your audience, providing fans with music in different packages; like in the Equal Share by Gringos Locos (great music by the way - well done Tipe!) fans get music in different prices and sizes all the way up to a deluxe package including merchandizing and tickets. This ongoing connection between fans and artists allows for great music experience. In our coming up release we’ll continue this road and will introduce new features allowing for a true 2-way co-operation between fans and bands.
For our German artists and bands I have a fresh piece of news; we’ve just signed an agreement with GEMA. Meaning if you state your membership we direct - automatically - applicable copyright royalties to GEMA.
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The start of the summer has been really busy at the office and the planning of our next big update is going well. I don't want to give in too much details yet, but it is going to be huge!
A lot will change from the user interface point of view, the biggest change being the overall look. We are going to re-structure the profiles so that whether you are an artist, a record label owner or a music fan, you will have the same tools to create your own pages. We are also going to introduce some pretty cool ways to customize the profiles.
I'll reveal more on my next post, but until then, please comment on how you would improve the service. At this point your feedback really can make a difference!
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I (Kimmo Kärkkäinen, CEO of Equal Dreams) think now it is good time to start sharing our thoughts more. After we published Equal Dreams marketplace in August 2008 we have been very fortunate to get great and instructive feedback from our customers. The journey from founding the company back in May 2007 to this date has been a great adventure as I have been able to meet so many interesting people – artists, entrepreneurs, people in record labels and charity organizations, investors (by the way if you are interested in funding give me a call :)) to mention a few.
In this blog we will write our honest thoughts about music business, development ideas (maybe not all, we want to offer you some surprises too) and interesting topical issues. With the word “we” I refer to our whole team which is 9 persons at the moment. In practice, however, we have agreed that me, Sampsa Ropponen (Business development) and Timo Virtanen (Web designer) will write to this blog and others will work.
Lately we have been busy and enthusiastic in designing and developing a new version of Equal Dreams. We call it Equal Dreams 2.0. Our goal is to offer you extremely nice user experience whether you are selling or buying music. Timo will talk more about this (stay tuned!).
Before ending the first post, I’d like to state basic principles in which we at Equal Dreams believe in:
- The best and most successful things come out from CO-OPERATION
- Co-operation works when members value each other and everyone gets fair REWARD
Now I got it: Equal Dreams - a place for co-operation
(sounds familiar somehow, hmmm... )
Your feedback is always appreciated. Tell us how you feel about our service and what could be improved.
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