Ubetoo - Revenue share platform for unsigned artists.

I'm not sure I can keep up with all these great Swedish music startups. First Spotify, then Soundcloud (technically based in Berlin but populated with lots of Swedish expats), and now Ubetoo.

Ubetoo is a platform which allows unsigned artists to upload music and audio and receive up to 90% of ad revenue from commercials run alongside the content. Whilst YouTube does have a scheme similar to this, it is only open to a smattering of loyal and attention worthy content producers.


This also gets over the criticism of social networking sites exploiting artists for attention but not sharing their enormous ad revenue. At the EconMusic Digital Music Conference back in September, Billy Bragg singled out MySpace and Bebo as two of the most guilty parties.

In order to qualify for the 90% ad revenue share, content producers have to sign up to Stagepool, which is an audition and casting service based in Stockholm and Cologne. Last month the artist with the highest pay out was The Vetter Factory with 158, 23 euros. Not too shabby.


The site also includes a number of widgets to embed channels and content on other social networking sites. However, I'm not too sure these sites would be too happy at Ubetoo piggybacking them to derive significant significant ad revenue.

Open Education

There was a great supplement in The Guardian yesterday, entitled Digital Student.

One article which particularly stood out was on Apple's Itunes U service, allowing for universities to upload lectures for free for users to download. This is something the likes of Stanford and Harvard have been down with for a while now but it was only a couple of months ago that Oxford and Cambridge got on the case too.

Services like Itunes U allow a unique marketing opportunity for globally recognized institutions to build brand equity by spreading their content to every corner of the globe.

Personally, I am a huge fan The Open University's OpenLearn facility. Over the last couple of months I've enrolled in a few maths modules to bring my numeracy skills up to scratch. The platform provides a plethora of subjects and modules for users to sign up to, totally free. It's fascinating to look at the other members enrolled in each module and see how their membership is made up from people mostly outside of the UK. I've also dipped my toe into an Introduction To Computer Science course at Harvard, which can be accessed here.

The future of education is clicks and mortar.

In the current financial climate it is logical to assume that tech investments will be made in startups that have some kind of social benefit. Channel 4's stake in School Of Everything is just one example of this.

Habitat - The First Virtual World?

Great link forwarded to me from Ben Atkins. It seems futurism was alive and well in 1986.



For more information on Habitat point your browser
here

Spotify Applications

As Spotify are doling out more and more invitations to people in my personal network I thought I'd write a little piece of the different applications that are currently available for the music service.

If any readers know of anymore please comment.

Spotify DJ
Brodcast Spotify DJ sets from your computer. Not sure how this one compares to blip.fm

Scrobblify
Scrobble the tracks you play on Spotify via Last.FM/Audioscrobbler

Spotlist
Share and search Spotify playlists.

Spotify Plugins
A work in progress API to create third party Spotify applications.

Spotified
Playlist widget for Facebook, blogs etc. This appears to be down at the moment.

Tack!Tack!Tack! in Sweden this Week

Three new club nights in Sweden and keynotes. The dates will encompass a series of lectures and concerts.

Tack!Tack!Tack! London UK's filter for Swedish music are celebrating their third anniversary by embarking on a tour of Sweden.

Clubs

Thursday
20 Nov 2008


T!T!T! DJs @ Rockcity, Hultsfred (SWE)

Friday
21 Nov 2008


Lacrosse + Hari and Aino) @ V-Dala Nation, Uppsala (SWE)

Saturday
22 Nov 2008


HouseClap @ Debaser, Stockholm

DJ Sets at co-promoted club nights with a selection of T!T!T! booked live acts happen each night.




Keynotes

Thursday
20 Nov 2008

Lecture 1 @ GYRO, Hultsfred



Thursday
20 Nov 2008


T!T!T! Lecture 2 @ University, Hultsfred

Friday
21 Nov 2008


T!T!T! Lecture 3 @ Boomtown, Borlange

Lectures at Music Management Institutes GYRO in Hultsfred and BoomTown in Borlange happen by day

The keynote lectures will present a roadmap of the Swedish music ecosystem, alongside takeaways for how to leverage social media tools to reach an international audience of tastemakers and superfans.

In London? Come along to Last.fm Christmas party in December when T!T!T! play...

Does Fan Labour Exploit or Empower Internet Users?

Nancy Baym, author of Online Fandom and Communications Professor at the University of Kansas has published a new paper, entitled Fan Labor: Exploitation or Empowerment?, researching whether Web 2.0 exploits or empower fans.

The paper uses the Swedish independent music scene as a case study. I was priviliged, as one half of Tack!Tack!Tack!, to be one of those interviewed.

The paper can be read here

The article was picked up by Techdirt here last week, and by Nic Brisbourne's The Equity Kicker, amongst other online news sources.

A big week for music based internet startups

This week both Spotify and Soundcloud come out of beta mode, and open up to the the public at large.

Spotify announced their launch last night with the following video.


Spotify – the story from Spotify on Vimeo.



SoundCloud is due to launch on friday. I may as well chuck in their video for good measure too


SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.


Without beating around the bush, both of these are killer applications (both serving very different needs) and point to the future of music websites acting as utilities, with a plethora of content stored centrally as opposed to being on a user's computer.