July 27, 2010 at 15:28Internet for musicians and exclusive lovers: an overview of the possibilities
Nowadays, everyone has taken the fashion of shouting that they provide some kind of exclusive opportunity. As a result, everything is the other way around: it has become very difficult to navigate in a huge number of music sites, especially when it’s not about those portals where you can download tracks for free. For musicians by vocation, such as ours (a widely known in narrow circles :) group, - do not consider offers to unwind, post your tracks or home-made videos. And all this is free, amusing us with the hope that someone will see the creations, check out and sign the millionth contract. Not less - offers to listen to the unique work of the same as we, little-known ensembles and talents, nuggets. That's just how to understand these mont blanc sweet promises, how to find what really helps you,
To answer these questions, we had to shovel the vastness of the World Wide Web and recommend both resources that are already popular or simply interesting, in our opinion. Below is a subjective review of sites that provide music authors and connoisseurs with opportunities to search for new music, promote their own creativity, as well as tools for monetization and search for producers. The review includes both Russian-language and international portals of the musical sphere of the World Wide Web.
1) Last.fm.Perhaps the most famous Internet project on musical subjects, the main service of which is to collect information about the music that the user listens to and catalog it in individual and general charts. A typical function of a site is its recommendatory nature: based on an analysis of the listening statistics, users of the site individually select and demonstrate music tracks recommended by the site for listening, popular among listeners with similar tastes; personal pages of participants with similar tastes, as well as recordings of music often listened to by the user in the forum or personal blogs directly on Last.fm. A distinctive feature of the portal is such a convenient service as geo-targeting: When selecting announcements of upcoming concerts for users, not only musical predilections, but also the geographic location of the listener are taken into account. However, over the past few years, a change in the service policy towards monetization has led to a reduction in the amount of free functionality, in particular, instead of the “full track” function, it became possible to listen to only 30-second previews.
2) MySpace.com.This site, being a popular international social network and the largest blog platform, provides users with the opportunity to create communities of interest, personal profiles, blogging, posting photos, video and music content. Profiles on the site allow users to upload their own discography of music tracks to the portal, provided that they have the rights to these works: his personal works, issued permissions for placement, etc. Users can also use the service for the sale of tracks - Snocap, which has gained popularity among the MySpace audience. One of the drawbacks of the portal is, oddly enough, the ability to independently design pages - the output is a motley and chaotic accumulation of pages of musical groups with limited personal settings: the order of songs, showing comments, number of friends displayed. In addition, one can highlight the general limited statistics on MySpace: the number of times a song was played, the number of profile views, the number of video views. All. Without details. So the quality of the information provided, unless, of course, your goal is to analyze the popularity of creativity, does not reach good grades.
3) RealMusic.ru. Music hosting for both famous artists and unknown musicians, where everyone can create their own profile with a photo gallery, place music in MP3 format. RealMusic hosting has no restrictions on the number of files to be uploaded, which ultimately led to the formation of a huge database of musicians. In addition to the fact that the site can download mp3 music for free and legally, users have the opportunity to leave an opinion on the tracks in the form of comments. In addition, the site provides detailed statistics by day: for example, which track was listened to how many times, how many days were downloaded, information that is quite useful, especially for beginner musicians. Among the shortcomings of the service, too many music groups can be distinguished; it is not easy to find really high-quality music. Besides, the site does not position itself as a production center, does not engage in the "promotion" of musical projects and the sale of musical works. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music.
4) LoudCloud.fm is a platform for bringing together novice and professional musicians, their fans and producers. On the site you can listen and comment on songs, albums, groups, melodies, invite artists to visit, find new friends, watch videos of your favorite groups and much more. However, it is still not possible to download music from albums on the site, only in the form of separate tracks. It is also unclear how the artists meet with producers and recording studios, what mechanisms allow musicians to raise their level of popularity and become noticed. Acquaintance with new music also occurs from ads placed by users directly on the site and offering to listen, evaluate and donate any amount of money to the team you like.
5)EggTop.com. The most interesting, in our opinion, young project. The portal has the character of a recommendation service, is a social network and positions itself as the first online producer for talented people. Today, this is the first project that implements a mechanism for the paid assessment of author’s content, which today is needed by millions of creative people. Users are divided into Authors, Experts and Guests, in accordance with the role they are assigned certain features. The site provides the Authors with the possibility of virtual automatic promotion and popularization of copyrighted content by sending tracks for voting, and Experts making money online through music evaluation. There is a system of exchange of opinions about the tracks, as well as the possibility of targeting - dividing into target segments of the interviewed audience. In addition, one of the features of the project is that it has a Russian-language version, which is very important for many Russian users, but at the same time it is designed for an international audience. An upcoming release of additional services was also announced - online concerts, as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-). as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-). as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-).
6) MOG - a social network, blog platform where users who listen to music mainly from their personal computers, or from smartphones, can create their personal pages, indicating musical interests and the history of listening to tracks. Unlike Last.fm, the service allows you to upload playlists from the user's music collection to a page in MOG, and then it tracks what music the user listens to on his computer. Other advantages of the portal are the presence of music-oriented blogs on the site, detailed tags by genre, as well as integration with iTunes and Amazon to facilitate the purchase of music albums.
7) MusoCity. A musical social network based on the concept of connecting and interacting fans, musicians, artists, event organizers and retailers. After registration, the user can start searching for people with similar musical interests, new music artists. The service is also built on the principle of geo-targeting: users can find and communicate with people living nearby, create musical groups, as well as select events in which you can participate.
8) iJigg- A music community that allows users to leave opinions about tracks and share songs. The site assumes that user activity is aimed at voting for musical content and, thus, users themselves can influence the popularity of certain compositions. Musicians can also upload their tracks to the site and share them with the community in order to find new fans, for this purpose it is supposed to choose an account of either Listener or Artist, which, in turn, will expand user capabilities. For example, Listeners can download mp3s of their favorite artists for free, while Artists can upload their music. However, the ability to download music for free is no longer unique to most users, there is no exchange of opinions,
9) Flotones - a music social network with the monetization function for artists and their fans. The main idea of the site is the interaction between musicians and music lovers. Among the distinguishing features of this site, one can single out the possibility of promoting and distributing copyrighted content using mobile phones, using ringtones and screensavers. After registering and adding content, users can promote their mobile content on the site; Integration with MySpace also allows you to increase the popularity of copyrighted content on this site, in the profile of the artist, group.
10) Midomi- Another social network to facilitate the search for new music for Internet users, the advantage of which is the ability to search for a track using a special service: the user can simply sing or say an excerpt from the song. All that might be needed is a microphone. Thus, a search is made for music of interest, as well as people sharing user tastes. In addition, the site allows you to listen and vote for singers, view photos, send messages, chat, and buy music. The promotion of musicians on the site is not supposed, there are no statistics for performers to assess the popularity of their work.
11) Sellaband project conceptat the first time of its existence, it was estimated very controversially, but in the end it turned out to be a rather popular and visited service, which at the moment is very well developed. The idea of the site is financial support from fans and listeners of their favorite musical artists, so that users become a kind of "producer" for their favorite authors, giving the latter a chance to earn money to record an album. According to the concept of the site, investors receive a small share of the profit, and the performers have the opportunity to record their music as well as receive up to half of the advertising revenue from downloading their music.
12) Jamendois a music platform and community with the following features: music is distributed under various licenses, it is possible to download music albums. The site has a built-in recommendation system, tags and reviews that allow you to discover new musical talents, as well as in the previous case, the system of voluntary donations to musicians through PayPal works, while some of the revenue goes to content authors - up to 50% of advertising and almost 100% of donations from visitors to the Jamendo site.
13) Reverbnation- A social network designed to help users find new music, and performers - fans and music events to participate. The platform provides a widget that allows participants to post content on web pages and popularize it on the network. A feature of the site is the Band Equity service, which measures popularity based on 4 indicators, namely: accessibility, impact, number of points and novelty. Based on these indicators, performers are listed in the top 100 of each musical genre.
14) Haystack- Another social network dedicated to music and allowing participants to search the site and create playlists, and also makes it easier for fans and musicians to find each other, share music, videos, photos and view new content. The service is also advisory in nature, since it takes into account tastes based on information from user profiles that can be downloaded, for example, from YouTube. Artists can register themselves or as a music group.
15) iLike- A community based on the selection of music users, based on their preferences, people search for musical interests. In addition, the service is designed to help "streamline" the musical preferences of users, find new groups and artists recommended by friends. Listening statistics on the site provide information on which music is most popular among the user's friends right now, and also shows how its tastes are compatible with friends' preferences. In addition, the service sends recommendations to the user directly in iTunes.
16) SonificPositions itself as a music promotion service. The site’s interface consists of two main parts: the first allows performers to place free music widgets with author’s music on the site and untwist tracks among the audience; on the other hand, participants can listen to this music for free, wherever they put it: on a blog, profile on a social network or on another site. One of the main disadvantages is the impossibility of free direct download of music.
17) Blip.fm- appeared in the Internet service not so long ago, working according to the following principle: participants subscribe to listen to interesting streams and add each other as friends; there is an opportunity to encourage DJs for your favorite posts, increasing rating points. Among the features of the site, one can highlight the opportunity not only to leave a mini-post, but also to provide the message with a musical composition. Thus, each blip.fm participant does not seem to be a blogger, but a DJ of his own music stream, which pleases friends with musical addictions and wit.
18) Radio 2.0from Mercora, being a social network, offers the possibility of integrated listening to music based on both contextual music-oriented advertising and on a personal listening list from a personal computer. The latter is implemented by scanning the users hard drive for legally downloaded tracks, then participants can show their music library to the whole world. One of the features is that each radio station has different broadcast channels and each artist has a chance to demonstrate their tracks in the form of a playlist on a global scale.
19) More friendly than a website, more interactive than a blog, Buzznet platform, which is a community, allows users to share their favorite content, including music, based on their own interests. Currently unites more than 6 million users. Unlike other networks focused on the links between user pages, profiles, project participants communicate in communities created around certain thematic events, ideas, interests, mainly musical ones. The popularity of a given community is determined by the amount of “noise” it receives. Each track, photo, video can receive a certain amount of “noise” from other participants, in turn, the community leaders and leaders participating in the voting are displayed on the site in tops.
20) Mp3ritm.com- the portal, which positions itself as a recommendation service in the world of music, is Russian-speaking and provides participants with the opportunity to share their favorite music with visitors to the site, unless, of course, it is already uploaded by other participants, evaluate audio tracks posted by other participants, download music for free. The service does not involve the promotion of unknown groups, but helps users navigate the world of music, and also displays the top songs in the rotation of their own radio.
And finally, I would like to wish the authors, beginning and not so, to be more active in promoting their work, to look for more opportunities, and to value their “spark”. Do not forget about copyright protection for your works - the costs will be reimbursed handsomely. Go to your heights, experiment, become famous, and never forget to help the same beginners as you once were. See you live!
To answer these questions, we had to shovel the vastness of the World Wide Web and recommend both resources that are already popular or simply interesting, in our opinion. Below is a subjective review of sites that provide music authors and connoisseurs with opportunities to search for new music, promote their own creativity, as well as tools for monetization and search for producers. The review includes both Russian-language and international portals of the musical sphere of the World Wide Web.
1) Last.fm.Perhaps the most famous Internet project on musical subjects, the main service of which is to collect information about the music that the user listens to and catalog it in individual and general charts. A typical function of a site is its recommendatory nature: based on an analysis of the listening statistics, users of the site individually select and demonstrate music tracks recommended by the site for listening, popular among listeners with similar tastes; personal pages of participants with similar tastes, as well as recordings of music often listened to by the user in the forum or personal blogs directly on Last.fm. A distinctive feature of the portal is such a convenient service as geo-targeting: When selecting announcements of upcoming concerts for users, not only musical predilections, but also the geographic location of the listener are taken into account. However, over the past few years, a change in the service policy towards monetization has led to a reduction in the amount of free functionality, in particular, instead of the “full track” function, it became possible to listen to only 30-second previews.
2) MySpace.com.This site, being a popular international social network and the largest blog platform, provides users with the opportunity to create communities of interest, personal profiles, blogging, posting photos, video and music content. Profiles on the site allow users to upload their own discography of music tracks to the portal, provided that they have the rights to these works: his personal works, issued permissions for placement, etc. Users can also use the service for the sale of tracks - Snocap, which has gained popularity among the MySpace audience. One of the drawbacks of the portal is, oddly enough, the ability to independently design pages - the output is a motley and chaotic accumulation of pages of musical groups with limited personal settings: the order of songs, showing comments, number of friends displayed. In addition, one can highlight the general limited statistics on MySpace: the number of times a song was played, the number of profile views, the number of video views. All. Without details. So the quality of the information provided, unless, of course, your goal is to analyze the popularity of creativity, does not reach good grades.
3) RealMusic.ru. Music hosting for both famous artists and unknown musicians, where everyone can create their own profile with a photo gallery, place music in MP3 format. RealMusic hosting has no restrictions on the number of files to be uploaded, which ultimately led to the formation of a huge database of musicians. In addition to the fact that the site can download mp3 music for free and legally, users have the opportunity to leave an opinion on the tracks in the form of comments. In addition, the site provides detailed statistics by day: for example, which track was listened to how many times, how many days were downloaded, information that is quite useful, especially for beginner musicians. Among the shortcomings of the service, too many music groups can be distinguished; it is not easy to find really high-quality music. Besides, the site does not position itself as a production center, does not engage in the "promotion" of musical projects and the sale of musical works. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music. The purpose of the site is to give musicians additional opportunities to express themselves through the Internet. In order to promote and popularize musicians, RealMusic holds contests involving various interested organizations, such as studios and production centers. As a result, however, this does not guarantee at all that you will be noticed due to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the portal. In addition, the site is designed for a Russian-speaking audience, which narrows the possibility of being noticed by world lovers of new music.
4) LoudCloud.fm is a platform for bringing together novice and professional musicians, their fans and producers. On the site you can listen and comment on songs, albums, groups, melodies, invite artists to visit, find new friends, watch videos of your favorite groups and much more. However, it is still not possible to download music from albums on the site, only in the form of separate tracks. It is also unclear how the artists meet with producers and recording studios, what mechanisms allow musicians to raise their level of popularity and become noticed. Acquaintance with new music also occurs from ads placed by users directly on the site and offering to listen, evaluate and donate any amount of money to the team you like.
5)EggTop.com. The most interesting, in our opinion, young project. The portal has the character of a recommendation service, is a social network and positions itself as the first online producer for talented people. Today, this is the first project that implements a mechanism for the paid assessment of author’s content, which today is needed by millions of creative people. Users are divided into Authors, Experts and Guests, in accordance with the role they are assigned certain features. The site provides the Authors with the possibility of virtual automatic promotion and popularization of copyrighted content by sending tracks for voting, and Experts making money online through music evaluation. There is a system of exchange of opinions about the tracks, as well as the possibility of targeting - dividing into target segments of the interviewed audience. In addition, one of the features of the project is that it has a Russian-language version, which is very important for many Russian users, but at the same time it is designed for an international audience. An upcoming release of additional services was also announced - online concerts, as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-). as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-). as well as EggTop.FM radio and EggTop.MN online magazine. By implementing the mechanism of online registration of copyright, EggTop becomes one of the few "created specifically for users" projects, unlike many others, "created for monetization." Although, undoubtedly, the creators of the portal also did not forget their benefit ;-).
6) MOG - a social network, blog platform where users who listen to music mainly from their personal computers, or from smartphones, can create their personal pages, indicating musical interests and the history of listening to tracks. Unlike Last.fm, the service allows you to upload playlists from the user's music collection to a page in MOG, and then it tracks what music the user listens to on his computer. Other advantages of the portal are the presence of music-oriented blogs on the site, detailed tags by genre, as well as integration with iTunes and Amazon to facilitate the purchase of music albums.
7) MusoCity. A musical social network based on the concept of connecting and interacting fans, musicians, artists, event organizers and retailers. After registration, the user can start searching for people with similar musical interests, new music artists. The service is also built on the principle of geo-targeting: users can find and communicate with people living nearby, create musical groups, as well as select events in which you can participate.
8) iJigg- A music community that allows users to leave opinions about tracks and share songs. The site assumes that user activity is aimed at voting for musical content and, thus, users themselves can influence the popularity of certain compositions. Musicians can also upload their tracks to the site and share them with the community in order to find new fans, for this purpose it is supposed to choose an account of either Listener or Artist, which, in turn, will expand user capabilities. For example, Listeners can download mp3s of their favorite artists for free, while Artists can upload their music. However, the ability to download music for free is no longer unique to most users, there is no exchange of opinions,
9) Flotones - a music social network with the monetization function for artists and their fans. The main idea of the site is the interaction between musicians and music lovers. Among the distinguishing features of this site, one can single out the possibility of promoting and distributing copyrighted content using mobile phones, using ringtones and screensavers. After registering and adding content, users can promote their mobile content on the site; Integration with MySpace also allows you to increase the popularity of copyrighted content on this site, in the profile of the artist, group.
10) Midomi- Another social network to facilitate the search for new music for Internet users, the advantage of which is the ability to search for a track using a special service: the user can simply sing or say an excerpt from the song. All that might be needed is a microphone. Thus, a search is made for music of interest, as well as people sharing user tastes. In addition, the site allows you to listen and vote for singers, view photos, send messages, chat, and buy music. The promotion of musicians on the site is not supposed, there are no statistics for performers to assess the popularity of their work.
11) Sellaband project conceptat the first time of its existence, it was estimated very controversially, but in the end it turned out to be a rather popular and visited service, which at the moment is very well developed. The idea of the site is financial support from fans and listeners of their favorite musical artists, so that users become a kind of "producer" for their favorite authors, giving the latter a chance to earn money to record an album. According to the concept of the site, investors receive a small share of the profit, and the performers have the opportunity to record their music as well as receive up to half of the advertising revenue from downloading their music.
12) Jamendois a music platform and community with the following features: music is distributed under various licenses, it is possible to download music albums. The site has a built-in recommendation system, tags and reviews that allow you to discover new musical talents, as well as in the previous case, the system of voluntary donations to musicians through PayPal works, while some of the revenue goes to content authors - up to 50% of advertising and almost 100% of donations from visitors to the Jamendo site.
13) Reverbnation- A social network designed to help users find new music, and performers - fans and music events to participate. The platform provides a widget that allows participants to post content on web pages and popularize it on the network. A feature of the site is the Band Equity service, which measures popularity based on 4 indicators, namely: accessibility, impact, number of points and novelty. Based on these indicators, performers are listed in the top 100 of each musical genre.
14) Haystack- Another social network dedicated to music and allowing participants to search the site and create playlists, and also makes it easier for fans and musicians to find each other, share music, videos, photos and view new content. The service is also advisory in nature, since it takes into account tastes based on information from user profiles that can be downloaded, for example, from YouTube. Artists can register themselves or as a music group.
15) iLike- A community based on the selection of music users, based on their preferences, people search for musical interests. In addition, the service is designed to help "streamline" the musical preferences of users, find new groups and artists recommended by friends. Listening statistics on the site provide information on which music is most popular among the user's friends right now, and also shows how its tastes are compatible with friends' preferences. In addition, the service sends recommendations to the user directly in iTunes.
16) SonificPositions itself as a music promotion service. The site’s interface consists of two main parts: the first allows performers to place free music widgets with author’s music on the site and untwist tracks among the audience; on the other hand, participants can listen to this music for free, wherever they put it: on a blog, profile on a social network or on another site. One of the main disadvantages is the impossibility of free direct download of music.
17) Blip.fm- appeared in the Internet service not so long ago, working according to the following principle: participants subscribe to listen to interesting streams and add each other as friends; there is an opportunity to encourage DJs for your favorite posts, increasing rating points. Among the features of the site, one can highlight the opportunity not only to leave a mini-post, but also to provide the message with a musical composition. Thus, each blip.fm participant does not seem to be a blogger, but a DJ of his own music stream, which pleases friends with musical addictions and wit.
18) Radio 2.0from Mercora, being a social network, offers the possibility of integrated listening to music based on both contextual music-oriented advertising and on a personal listening list from a personal computer. The latter is implemented by scanning the users hard drive for legally downloaded tracks, then participants can show their music library to the whole world. One of the features is that each radio station has different broadcast channels and each artist has a chance to demonstrate their tracks in the form of a playlist on a global scale.
19) More friendly than a website, more interactive than a blog, Buzznet platform, which is a community, allows users to share their favorite content, including music, based on their own interests. Currently unites more than 6 million users. Unlike other networks focused on the links between user pages, profiles, project participants communicate in communities created around certain thematic events, ideas, interests, mainly musical ones. The popularity of a given community is determined by the amount of “noise” it receives. Each track, photo, video can receive a certain amount of “noise” from other participants, in turn, the community leaders and leaders participating in the voting are displayed on the site in tops.
20) Mp3ritm.com- the portal, which positions itself as a recommendation service in the world of music, is Russian-speaking and provides participants with the opportunity to share their favorite music with visitors to the site, unless, of course, it is already uploaded by other participants, evaluate audio tracks posted by other participants, download music for free. The service does not involve the promotion of unknown groups, but helps users navigate the world of music, and also displays the top songs in the rotation of their own radio.
And finally, I would like to wish the authors, beginning and not so, to be more active in promoting their work, to look for more opportunities, and to value their “spark”. Do not forget about copyright protection for your works - the costs will be reimbursed handsomely. Go to your heights, experiment, become famous, and never forget to help the same beginners as you once were. See you live!