Digital Music Net

Thank you San Francisco! Digital Music SF had its annual mixer in conjunction with Music2k and Billboard Nov. 16, on the eve of Billboard’s FutureSound conference. Whenever we come here the turnout is always amazing, and this time proved no different.
We had a packed room of nearly 200 total attendees, including representatives from Apple, Shazam, IRIS, Pandora, MOG, Official.fm, The Echo Nest, Sony Music Entertainment, IODA,  and many more. As usual, there were a few presenters with announcements to make. They included:
-           SF’s own Brian Zisk hyping the upcoming SFMusicTech conference, coming up Feb. 13.
-          Bill Wilson from DigitalMusic.org, music industry association NARM’s digital wing that is building a trade association for the digital music industry
-          IK Multimedia, showing off its new VocalLive app, which extends its guitar-based music platform to singers
But most of the night was just simple networking. App developers. Service providers. Music industry exec and artists. The digital music space is obviously a very healthy and exciting one, and attendees hung out far longer than the 7 – 9 scheduled timeframe. Thanks to all who turned out.
We’re eyeing New York as the location for our next meetup. Companies interested in turning these events into a customized platform for their own message, complete with targeted invites and pre/post event distribution, can always jump in as a sponsor. Contact Antony [at] antonybruno [dot] com for details. 

In advance of DigitalMusicNet's upcoming San Francisco mixer, we're proud to introduce former Billboard digital media editor Antony Bruno as the community's new organizer. Bruno recently left Billboard to pursue a career in consulting and advising, among other things working for the venerable music business trade association NARM's digitalmusic.org division.

With DigitalMusicNet, Bruno will help organize or popular mixers, bring in new participants to the group, secure sponsors for our events, and oversee all communications. He'll be attending the Digital Music SF event, taking place Wed. Nov. 16, on the eve of Billboard's FutureSound conference (details here). So those of you attending, be sure to say "hello."

(PS, for all you non-Chuck D fans, Antony is the one on the left).

Tuesday March 8th was our first Digital Music NY networking event in 2011. We were at a new space in Midtown East, El Rio Grande, discussing the exciting new ways music is going social. Three awesome companies, Qoof, Rockethub, and FanBridge gave short presentations about how their companies are providing artists with new ways to take their music social.

To start off the night, DMNY co-founder Eric de Fontenay (MusicDish) gave a quick summary of what happened in MIDEM early this year. The biggest takeaway he pointed out was that the festival is reflecting larger trends in the industry. While overall attendance, especially by major labels, was down; publishers, managers, and new attendees all showed strong increases. This is just another sign of the major shifts currently happening in the music industry right now.

After Eric's introduction, Ben from FanBridge was up first and gave a breakdown of how FanBridge is helping artists connect online. They offer a management suite for mobile, social, and e-mail messaging that allows you to organize your campaigns across each medium, manage your lists, and post messages to multiple sites with a single click. They also provide tools like the mobile fan collector, which allows bands to use an iPhone or iPod Touch to collect e-mail addresses at gigs, as well as analytics tools to help understand your audience's demographics.

Next up was Qoof, who powers an in-video content system. Essentially Qoof allows you to embed interactive elements into your videos. Want to put a button in your latest music video where your fans can check out your current tour dates - without the fans having to leave the video? That's Qoof. It will even work in videos uploaded to YouTube.

Last but not least, RocketHub presented their crowd-funding platform, which allows musicians, artists, and other organizations to raise money to fund projects they're passionate about. RocketHub also unveiled their latest addition - the LaunchPad Opportunity. Each opportunity is hand-picked by RocketHub, and artists can all submit their work for review. The best submissions are chosen and awarded the LaunchPad Opportunity. The first one is The Gibson Music Retreat, click here to find out more about it.

Lastly, the event was well attended by the members of the Manhattan Producers Alliance. We will be looking for ways to bring our two groups together in the future.

We hope everyone had a great time, and somehow managed to still be productive, during CMJ last week! We had a blast at our Musicians as Entrepreneurs discussion and networking event last Wednesday, and made some new friends at theWomen In Music Champagne Mixer last Friday. We were sponsors for the event along with NARM, RightsFlow, and Sound Exchange.

Our Musicians as Entrepreneurs event brought together three artists who are exploring new ways to generate income as a musician, outside of the traditional sales of recorded music, tee shirts, and live performances. Maya Solovey came up with "Maya's Culinary Concerts," where she will come to your home, office, or anyplace with a kitchen to both cook you a wonderful meal and play a show for you and your guests. Niall Connolly raised money using crowd-funding platform RocketHub to help finance various projects for his band. Tomas Doncker spoke about his recent tour in China, and the challenges of international touring and financial sponsorship. Each of the three gave a short Q&A about their individual project before rocking the stage at Gonzalez Y Gonzalez.
Women In Music put photos from their Champagne Mixer up on their Facebook page. Make sure you "Like" them over there so you get their updates in your news feed!