| Archive for SLMC Second LifeŽ Music Community Forum |
| Silas Scarborough |
Index of Radio StationsHow about an index of SL radio stations that present SL jammers. As it stands, I'll send MP3 files to Cher and Circe but I don't send them anywhere else because I'm not going to sort through a zillion forum entries to find them. It wouldn't surprise me if others do the same so maybe it'd help everyone out if there were one place to look them up. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to present email addresses via the Web or the spam skanks will be all over them. |
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| Cher Harrington |
Great idea, Silas 
Perhaps include which ones take a percent of any sales generated and which ones are for profit? I can start the thread when I get home from rl work, unless someone would like to go first? And please be honest with your posting. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
Are there stations that make money with our tunes ?
or do i misunderstand this ? |
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| Silas Scarborough |
I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this | ||||||
| Soundcircel Flanagan |
i only knew Cher's Radio station.
i was contacted once by another ( can't remember the name though ) but that was a vague thing. If there are more stations, then i am happy to send my music. As long as they don't sell or anything ... |
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| ticious |
I'm not sure it's a lack of interest, it may be a lack of contributors and/or offereings? I'm only familiar with a three radio stations in SL that specifically feature SL muscians, those being IndieSpectrum (Fox Reinsch), SL Live Music Radio (Cher Harrington) and FCMC Radio (Reslez Steeplechase).
Does anyone know of any others that specifically feature SL musicians? |
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| Cher Harrington |
Indie has added commercials and Fox did tell me he is planning to sell the songs and take a cut of the profits. So I would say Indie Radio is a for-profit station.
MNP has just started a station which is open to any independent artist, SL or non SL musician. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
thanks Cher.
But could he do that without telling us ? i mean its hard to track who play's/sells what song. Personally i never check if someone play's my music, as long as they don't earn money im fine with it. |
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| Cher Harrington |
Yes, not to mention harrassing me and the venue owners who play SL Live because I haven't booked the artists of a certain manager who is very aggressive with promoting the station.
Reslez doesn't do that to me. Nor does Moody. We have all found our niche, but I think that this needs to come out in the open, since there are alot of posts for Indie Radio here on the forum. If it was all on the up and up I would let it be. |
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| Silas Scarborough |
I don't have a problem with someone making a profit on my jams on a radio station so long as some percentage of those profits are folded back in support of SL music. Others will have different opinions but I'm not looking for any money out of it. Another option would be to send some percentage to RFL but that wouldn't do anything to sustain music.
It's hardly even started and this for-profit stuff is obviously going to get ugly so how can that be headed off. How about some kind of SL performer's contract that says you can play my tuneage and it's fine if you do it for free but if you get any money on it then some percentage has to go to ...... (fill in the blank). As always, the problem is validation. Think about it, folks. This could be cool or could turn into a sandtrap. Shake some stuff out. The next problem beyond validation is that any proceeds would go to sustain music and wtf does that mean. Feed an SLMC-sponsored venue? Hmm...possible...the SLMC venue could pay performers to come in and the profits go full-circle. Radio gets a slice, venue gets a slice, and performer gets a slice. OK, back to validation. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
I know you are telling no lies here. And it allways wondered me how stupid some people can be. Harrassing Cher for this ? someone who is that supportive to ALL artists ?? |
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| Cher Harrington |
Well they want to sell them out of SL on say itunes.
Johnny99 Gumshoe has songs on SL Live Radio, but he has his own songs for sale on itunes. What he does with the money is his business. You all work so hard  It should be your money to do with as you wish, whether a charity or SLMC or buying new equpment.
I don't know, I don't sell music, I am not in this for a profit. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
i do have a problem with it. im not making money with my tunes, so why should i allow somebody else to do it ? |
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| ticious |
I find that very worrisome. And not real bright. I haven't been hassled at all to promote any musicians connected to IndieSpectrum. But that may be because when any manager approaches me about staging their musician, the first words outta my keyboard are "tips only". If other venues are being harassed, it might be interesting to know which are and which are not and what their pay policy is. If there's a relationship, some one may be looking to make money on all sides and aren't interested where there's a leg missing. If so, I can only *shrug* and say, not smart. If they're specifically harassing Cher (it's not specifically venues that promote SL Live Music Radio because that would include me, SL Live Music Radio plays during all off hours at both my venues), that's even more stupid.
Yes, validation is going to be a problem and until we have some means to assure that, this will be a sandtrap. No matter how honestly you conduct yourself, anyone who takes a dislike to you (or who feels you're cutting into their biz) can take shots without worrying about proof. Any 'proof' you pull out, they can scoff at. This is why I'm against any kind of financial arrangement concerning the SLMC. And that includes an SLMC sponsored venue. I know where your heart is, Silas and as usual, I love ya for it, but I for one am not going to go there until I have some externally verifiable means of showing where every lindie comes from and where it goes to. But yes, as this stuff grows and evolves, there will be "stuff" shaking out and some of it won't smell nice. The folks on the up and up who work their asses off for little or no reward will just have to hang on and ride it out. I for one will be pulling for them all the way because it's the end of the ride where things are likely to turn out cool!!! |
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| CreativeMindz |
Well, seems like RL is knockin on the door. If u guys can't take the heat of competition, you're, most def, in the wrong Biz!
//Eric Coiffard |
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| Cher Harrington |
Its not the heat of competiion, since imitation is a form of flattery.
Plenty of venues, plenty of music, 60,000 in SL, trillions outside of SL, plenty to share. It's protecting the rights of others and their work. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
harrassing someone has nothing to do with being in the wrong bizz ? and sure i back Cher up, but mainly because i am a witness off this. Radio Stations are good for promotion, i have no problem if they tell me before i submit music that they have plans to sell. I do have a problem with it if this turns out afterwards. |
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| CreativeMindz |
'It's protecting the rights of others and their work.'
And that is a ongoing fight in RL which never seems to end! //Eric Coiffard |
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| ticious |
This is true, but that don't make it right and that don't mean it needs to be the same way here and in the future. There are lots of us starry eyed dreamers here who are hoping to build a better world. Yeah, we might lose, probably will but if we take the attitude that we're in the wrong biz, then for sure, all SL (and the metaverse) will ever be is a replication of RL. Why do we need that when we already have RL with all it's corruption? But all's cool because we also just might succeed  .
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| Silas Scarborough |
My rights are not protected when I've uploaded songs to a site under the impression that this was a free distribution only to find later that it has become a for-profit site. That's just wrong.
Whether my jams will ever single copy is irrelevant. In sum with the jams of others, they will sell advertising and I was never told this was the intention. I don't know if this is just forum hype or what but, if true, it crosses from unethical to criminal. Nevertheless, the combat is obvious already so perhaps there would be some benefit in making an index of the free distribution sites. Since none of them can have more than a thousand listeners, I don't see any competition at all. (You could do more with repeaters but at what expense) |
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| CreativeMindz |
Well, the SL radio stations is still in their early stages but as more quality artists arrives into SL the competition will grow. Following scenario is not that far away: 'Please, please, put my song on your rotation list, i promise You it will take off'
//Eric Coiffard |
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| ticious |
This is what makes open discussion forums like the SLMC (and others so we have multiple viewpoints) so important. For the time being, the most important thing any of us can do is share what we know about honest distribution sites and when we know of a scam, expose it. But we do need to be REAL careful on this second point. Not only could we do real harm to a well meaning person with misinformation and misunderstanding, we hurt our own credibility when this happens. Until we have good means of independent and verifiable validation, the best tool we have is reputation and credibility and the best way to protect that is through our own actions.
Is this true of radio stations? I know that in world, the most powerful streams for live events only support 1k listeners (and I'm not sure any have actually been stress tested to that benchmark), but all I have knowledge of are the streams available for rent. Cher, I know your listener stats last month were over 2k (I wanna say you broke 2.5k). Is that concurrent or total unique?
We can certainly hope that radio stations featuring SL musicians (and that is what we're talking about here, not internet radio) will take off to that extent. But we can also hope that, by the time this happens, the word "payola" will be so archaic that no one will even know what it means and everyone will find the concept shocking. |
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| Slim Warrior |
I sincerely hope this is NOT true.. 
Slimmie |
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| ticious |
Fox is registered here. I'm sure he'll come and clear up any misunderstanding there may be. | ||||||
| the Professor |
I wrote to FoxI wrote fox email and asked him to clarify the situation to the forum. |
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| Cher Harrington |
Ticious - its unique listeners, Sitearm posts them weekly. Last week was:
07-15 - 07-21 (WEEK 35) 2365 unique listeners US - 48%, UK - 8%, Germany - 7%, Netherlands - 6%, Canada - 5%, Australia, France, Italy - 3% Each; Japan, Spain, Poland - 2% Each; Brazil, Denmark, Mexico, Portugal, Latvia, Sweden, Belgium - 1% Each Posted here: http://www.slliveradio.com/listener_stats.htm Slim: Yes I have chat history from Fox and from one of his promoters to back up my claim. |
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| ticious |
Cher, your rep is long standing and unquestioned, and no one would argue with that or ask you for chat logs (at least, I sure wouldn't). But I do hope Fox will come and clarify his position or that there's some kind of misunderstanding or that perhaps the agent was acting outside the bounds of their instructions. What Fox said he was trying to do would be good for SL music, but not if there's deception, harassment or any kind of strong arming involved. | ||||||
| Silas Scarborough |
Hmm...I'm surprised no-one has thought of how to do this! Using the mechanism I envision, it would be endlessly extensible with no limit to the number of listeners. Think meta-jam. If Cher's radio station has one listener out of the thousand that is actually a meta-jam session on another instance of Shoutcast, that listener instance could re-transmit on a different stream to another thousand listeners. It's all digital so there should be no compromise to audio quality. Extend stratospheric and assume ALL of the listeners at the first level distribution from Cher's stream are meta-jam repeaters and you'll be up to a million listeners with only one layer of infrastructure and minimal propagation delay. There is an unrevealed cost to this: streaming software compresses the audio when it is transmitted. If you go down multiple levels of repeaters and consequently multiple levels of compression, you'll probably end up with audio vegemite. However, we've all heard meta-jams at much more than a single layer of repeaters so consider the arithmetic: Maximum listeners: 1000 - Single stream 1000*1000 - to one layer of repeaters 1000*1000*1000 - to two layers of repeaters Two thousand instances of meta-jam result in a billion listeners (a thousand million in the UK). This is much more hierarchical than true P2P but the willingness of people to participate in a network that is giving something away shouldn't be underestimated. Take a look at Limewire and the like. Now that is REAL social networking. |
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| Fox_Reinsch |
Rumors againThe only reason I have spent over $L100,000 on IndieSpectrum radio, not counting my tier fees, is the thanks I get from the musicians, venue owners and the listeners.It would be nice if I could figure out a way to at least pay the expenses like venue owners get in the form of tips to the venue but so far I have not had one L$ donated to help me. Originally I thought that the station would be listened to by people outside the live music community in SL and across the WWW, but it hasn't. I seems since it is an Internet radio station that people outside SL would find on a web search it and listen to it, thus promoting the musicians in SL. It is odd that hasn't happened and it is odd that I get many more people to my web page than I do listening to the stream. Recently a musician I know that seems to be good at promoting their work online suggested I promote it more on the web than in SL, which I am trying to do. It is next to impossible to get people with businesses in SL to help me promote live music. So far the only businesses helping are live music venues and people already into the SL music scene. If could get thousands of people outside SL to the web page I would like to help sell the music for the musicians, but at this point it would be a wasted effort to set up a web page that could do that. Presently I only link to all the musicians' web pages so that people can buy their music on their web pages or the links from their pages. In the last couple of weeks I have decided to offer SL business owners that if they help me promote live music in SL to send me banner ad or a spoken ads. So far the response is good but it takes one-on-one communication to make that happen. It looks like I would a better chance of breaking deferring expenses by having live music events at my sim than by running the station. I am glad that I get a thanks now and then for what I am doing as hearing these rumors is very discouraging. Fox |
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| Silas Scarborough |
Fox, I suspect the part that confuses people is businesses 'helping you' and it's not clear what that means. So long as everyone is forthcoming about what's going on, it should all come out ok. I suspect your lack of clarity comes from trying to figure out how to create a sustainable product but there ain't no shame in that. | ||||||
| Fox_Reinsch |
Helping IndieSpectrum promote live music in SLIt looks as like I didn't read the beginning of this thread. The part about harrasment.My idea of helping me promote live music with IndieSpectrum is just hoping that people will tell people about it. Listen to it. Play my stream. Put up my signs and music player vendors. I am always "harrasing" people to do that. If nobody wants to then I give up. Fox |
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| Fox_Reinsch |
Here is a notecard I sent it my friends in world:Just for the record...............It appears that I am being accused on SLMC by someone that runs another SL music station of making money with IndieSpectrum Radio. The fact is that I have spent a great deal of time and money on it but I don't consider it a business; I do it for fun. I run by myself just for fun but to help out musicians in SL and hopefully get a sense of satisfaction from doing it. SL is for fun but RL I work as a audio engineer. No income from IndieSpectrum, literally not one Linden dollor, NOT ONE, much to my dismay! I have made some money selling land and things I create but only in my dreams will my SL radio station ever make money. It seems that most people promoting live music in SL do it for fun but I guess some take it too seriously and have to make waves for other people that they see as threats to "their business". I have also been accused of strong arming or harrassing venue owners to play certain artists in exchange for something, that accusation does not stand. I havent gotten any venue to play any artist since I have had ISR. I can tell you that if I know an artist trying to get started in SL I would try to help them in every way I could and I would never expect anything in return except hope they would appreciate my efforts. If anyone wishes to help me promote music in SL by telling people about ISR they get banner ads and free voice spots on ISR. I have to say that this kind of shit on the SLMC forum from people with financial interests that veiw me as competition is very discouraging. To me it is all about the music and helping it make SL a better place. If it wasn't for all the great people I meet here that make up for the few nasty people that can't get their facts straight I would probably give up on the whole SL thing. ****Music makes SL a better place**** Fox |
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| LaPiscean |
ISR and the PublicI have known Fox since he started in SL with his idea of an all Sl artist radio station. I own the AMP in Moon Park and have had a varity of Artist play there. As far as i know Fox has never charged anybody for the talent that listed with him. The artist themselves bring they tip jar to the stage and sometimes we had donations to amp as we are non profit. He has worked hard to bring the Inet Radio to SL or i should say has worked hard to bring SL artist to the web. I for one would welcome Fox and any other radio station to do a weekly radio show from the amp. We Provide everything you need No Charge.Lap |
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| Cher Harrington |
If we can't clear the air here and be honest, then why call this a forum.
You DO ask for donations, and you HAVE come to the venues that play SL Live and conducted a 30 minute discussion on "yours is the first station, play mine instead." I HAVE been approached by a promoter of yours and told that since i don't book their artists, they choose to work against me by assisting you. And I DO have chat history about selling the artists songs. It just makes me wonder why you are pushing so hard for this. If it is to HELP live music, then how you approach it certainly isnt working. Rethink your tactics.
Circe, Moody, Res, any of the other SL artist stations, don't use these methods to have their stations heard. I certainly don't. Honesty is the best policy. There are thousands of venues in SL, hundreds of musicians and thousands of Internet radio stations. Find your niche in a respectful manner. |
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| Distilled1 |
not getting into the rant ... in fact didn't read it... I run my Indie station, and I play "ANY" SL artist that will give me the "PLEASE DO" ok to do so, my station is run from http://dmusic.com 24/7 this is a DMusic radio stream, something that is different here than the 61 and many other music sites , is that "COVERS" are paid for by a blanket license.
the stream from 12pm to 12am is not mine but the other 12 hours are (I run 128k stereo the other DJ {at this time} runs 96 and only plays DMuisc artist. The catch? Non-Profit, 70% of the artist must be DMusic.com artist (so DAMNIT GO UPLOAD!!!! itws FREE!!! and the OLDEST OMD on the web really OLD!!!! heres the stream http://nyc01.egihosting.com:6922 Stop by say hi (I'm Distilled1 there as well, if you come over and post anything even a user account please let me know 
and anyone is more than welcome to play this stream, like I said non profit, the only thing you hear is music (maybe a live DJ *YUP LIVE!!!) and some >1 min. bumpers about dmusic.com radio )
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| Distilled1 |
ok read the entire thing .. .I think or believe LOL ....... * I bet I need to get them to all and will just let me know, as well if you can stream my covers from live stuff (I have a few that I have performance rights for ... and a few that are free to use) let me know 
I think... I have music on all of the stations, I only send CC licensed music,. but heres the catch, make a profit from mine (and no donations, tips etc. to the station to me anyway, is not profit) and I do have a Music/copywriter lawyer will fight, for me ... anyway if I sell my music or my bands (that I do have played on Cher's station YAY ) and someone else trys god help yo0u selling mine without my sig or Electronic sig ig your in the states ...
on that note I will say this, like Silas I do and my bands music (witch I hold all ., yes ALL copyrights to) and am more than willing to let anything get played, or covered or re done or what ever as long as its CC share alike and I or WE have proper credit... all most musicians ask... Yeah? I think, 'cause if anyone thinks getting a Deal is going to set you for life , Hate to break your bubble but it will more likely put you in the poor house if ya not recording some hot 12 song #1 songs hip hop Album or a damn good Country Writer/performer your just signing into slavery! ... ok damn now I am Ranting... sorry... damn Capitol SUCKS!!!
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| ticious |
/off topic on
Fox, can you do us a favor and take the slurl out of your profile? What's meant to go there is a name, like Yongdong or Chicago or Where I Lay My Head, not a slurl. It's not clickable anyway and it's really messing up the alignment of the threads you've posted in .
Thanks!! /off topic off |
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| CreativeMindz |
'It seems that most people promoting live music in SL do it for fun but I guess some take it too seriously and have to make waves for other people that they see as threats to "their business"´
Yepz, that is so true, i have encountered that fact since i started my JSP Island project in SL. It's really hard to find a way to assure RL artists that SL is a great platform for reaching out with their music to a wider audience. However, I still point them to this SLMC Forum, but, they just laugh when they read it. Talk about a great Rep for this Forum. WTG Mods! //Eric Coiffard |
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| Cher Harrington |
Ticious -
You can move part of this to the Rant room, lol. One harrassment, okay, two, nah not so good and isn't it three strikes you are out? But when I heard about selling music for profit, I had to speak up. I do send people to the forum for reference - most recently, a DJ from Dublin who was having trouble with Nicecast. She was able to resolve her issue by using the information on the forum. I am also sending a new to SL artist who needs assistance with hooking up his mixer, etc. Thank you for letting me clear the air and thank you to all for making this forum a wonderful reference. Cher |
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| EvaMoon |
I'm a little confused by this. How exactly is Fox selling music for a profit? I just went to the website and the buy links all go to artist's sites.
Are there inworld options to buy songs from the player? Why should I object if a vendor is selling my songs and takes a percentage of what I get? This is normal practice. iTunes does it. MyPod does it - it's a cost of doing business and most artists feel it's worth 10-15% to have greater reach. If he's taking tips to support the station, I don't see that as an infringement of my rights any more than a venue soliciting tips at my shows. If he's selling songs and pocketing all the money, that's another story. Is that what he is accused of? There seems to be strong feeling against managers or resellers making fees, but some might see it as reasonable recompense for value received. Eva (confused) Moon |
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| Silas Scarborough |
It's not quite the same thing as ads on a radio station don't generate any lindens for the performer. So long as there is agreement to that effect, there's no problem but that agreement doesn't exist and that's where things got sticky. I wasn't referring to anyone specifically and we'd be better off discussing it in concept rather than with regard to any individual.
Unless someone is running a radio station as a hobby, the ads will be required. In my view, they're harmless as all of it promotes SL to an external listener. However, the ads can be hugely destructive if they're regarded as more than they are. For example, if you agree to run an ad for a business once a month for $1000L, you'll need a LOT of ads before you've got anything that will divvy down to anything meaningful in performer payback and still provide enough to support the station. You all are going to love this but it seems to me that the funds should come from the artist as that is the individual who will benefit from it through distribution of his/her work to a wider audience. That's what payola was all about. |
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| EvaMoon |
You may not be referring to someone specific but I was responding to Cher.
If a radio station sells ads, I don't expect to see any part of that as a performer on the playlist. If the radio station is operating as a music retailer as well, I expect to see income from that. I also expect that I will have to pay for the benefit of distribution to a wider audience. That's what the percentage is all about. I don't know what the deal is that Cher is upset about and I'm trying to understand it. If Fox is selling mp3's and keeping all the income, that's definitely wrong. I haven't seen any indication that he's selling mp3's at all. The buy links all go directly to the artist's sites. If he WERE to sell mp3's directly through the station, I would expect to have an agreement on terms. I do NOT think it's evil for people besides the original artist to make some money on the deal. |
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| Silas Scarborough |
The deal is over what was known when the tunes were submitted and what is known now. There was no mention of advertising revenue when the songs were uploaded so the possibility of income, whether one decides to pursue it or not, was never factored into anyone's decision to upload.
There are varying degrees of emotion regarding the evolution into ad-supported stations but this looks like the reverse of what usually happens here. Usually people talk too much on any given subject but in this case the problem was that people didn't talk enough. Fox should have been more forthcoming but I don't think he's guilty of anything more than clumsiness as he tries to figure out how to drive a sustainable system. I still maintain the strongest move is to focus on what should be done with radio stations from now on rather than what mistakes have been made to this point. Quite apart from anything else, they're not radio stations. Usually they're playlist repeaters and, to my knowledge, there's no intro to any song so it's not likely anyone will know whose song is playing unless they've heard it somewhere else already. It would be a tremendous expense for Fox, Cher, Circe, or any of the public service SL music stations to provide the intros so push it out a little more. Who's doing it already? Yep, there are live DJs from one end of SL to the other. Now if SL jammers were to buddy up with these DJs then maybe some symbiosis could happen. DJs know something that the SL music stations never got: if you're going to draw a crowd then your music must be focused. For example, maybe I could cut a deal with Natasha Lekrone, the Metal Goddess, to get a few of my tracks into her DJ show. A more extreme example would be if you talked a DJ into doing a feature show one night in which you provide the material and the DJ provides the insightful blab. Who pays whom in this example will be interesting. I'm not suggesting abandoning the SL music stations but I do suggest some tuning on their part. If a station is operating from a random playlist then it should be possible for one of Cylindrian's tunes to come up and be immediately followed by mine. That wouldn't make any sense anywhere outside of an apparently drug-addled White House. Really it comes to focus: what exactly is the SL music station trying to do? |
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| Fox_Reinsch |
Maybe we can turn this around and be constructive.I think having to defend what I am doing is pathetic, so maybe we can turn this around and be constructive.My big question is how do we promote live music in SL? Is a SL radio station even a viable option? Originally I got the idea to start ISR while helping Kori Travanti promote herself in SL. It was so much work for her to do a concert, only to have 50 people show up at the venue. In RL radio stations are the prime vehicle to promote music so I thought why not a SL radio station, so I started IndieSpectrum last November. Since SL has about 50K logins I thought it would be easy to get 1% of them to listen to music that was from SL not RL.........WAS I WRONG! I see that Cher's "tactics" don't seem to be working for her station with only 3-5 listeners reported on her Shoutcast server when I have checked often during prime time. My thought was people in SL would like listening to SL musicians and most people getting their first place didn't know how to set the stream on their land so I would make it easy to play my stream by giving away radios. I thought if I made them look cool and also had them scripted to announce live events people would gobble them up and put them in their homes. What I didn't realize was it isn't easy to give away free radios. It has proven impossible for me to get hardly anyone with a sim to put my free music player vendor out. I thought all the musicians who I played would help to but turns out half my musician friends forget to put out their tip jar much less my music player vendor. I have given away hundreds of them on SLeXchange but can't seem to get many store owners to put out my vendors. Even though I hate the idea of commercials on my station I decided to make it a cross promotion deal with any store, mall or music venue that if they put out my vendors and/or played my stream I would go to the effort of giving them not only banner ads on my web page but also spoken ads on the stream. I even got a crazy friend of mine to try and help but apparently all she did was get Cher to think "my promoter" was using strong arm tactics. I still believe if I could find a way to get my free full copy transfer vendors at high traffic, non music related businesses I could draw people in SL into the live music scene. Any ideas? As far as making money that is out of the question until I have 500 listeners and 20,000 people a month visiting the web page. In my dreams. Originally before starting ISR I spoke with several musicians about selling their music for them on a web page and they unanimously thought it was a great idea because I would only need a 5 or 10% commission unlike iTune's and Amazon's 50 - 60% commission. The work involved in setting that up is mind boggling and I wouldn't even consider it unless I had huge numbers. Are there any musicians that wouldn't like me to sell 100 song downloads a month for them at 99 cents if I took a dime and all they had to do is give me permission??? Do you think wanting to be "listener supported", which I think is much cooler than running pay commercials, is so bad? Turns out that isn't going to work untill I have big numbers either, so far not one $L! Lately I decided to start hosting concerts at the IndieSpectrum studio waterfront. Maybe I will get some venue tips but mostly I hope the musicians get the tips. BTW if you really want to see what I am up to visit http://www.indiespecturm.com everything is there in full color and not only that but you can tune in my stream and listen to some great original music from SL artists. Oh one other thing: Cher I would love to put a banner ad and link to SLive if you would do the same on your web page. ****Music makes SL a better place***** Hope to hear lots of positive suggestions! Fox |
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| Ursula Cinquetti |
I don't really understand those kinds of numbers, I guess, but Blaze has SL Live on at his store 24/7, so if shoppers have their sound on, they are "listeners," yes? And often they ask me who is singing, so I pull out the SL Live sign out of inventory if I don't know who it is off hand and show them. |
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| Silas Scarborough |
Re: Maybe we can turn this around and be constructive.
This was a positive suggestion. The rest was useless defensiveness so I deleted it. Everyone needs to be looking for positive solutions, bro. |
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| Fox_Reinsch |
Where is your positive feedback?Hey Silas, I am looking for help here, I don't have the answers..........How do we promote live music outside the music community? Should we make radios that play all the SL music stations? As a group should we get Linden Labs to help us? I see you sell your music on iTunes and CD baby wouldn't you like it if a SL radio station could make you a real $100 a month at only a 5 or 10% commision? Should I be putting ads somewhere or putting camping chairs out. I don't know what works, I am trying everything. How about some suggestions. Fox |
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| Cher Harrington |
There are many threads in this forum with you asking the same thing, over and over again.
Everyone has made suggestions. You are even using the ones I gave you. If spamming repeatedly on this forum, using strong arm tatics with vendors, venue owners and other stations aren't working for you, maybe you should try something else. There are no less than SEVEN threads started by you in this Radio Stations in SL. Look through past threads, such as the one above, and take time to reflect. |
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| RayW |
You know ... just as a thought ... when I travel around SL, I do NOT have my media on ... mainly because I usually don't typically like other people's choice of music (at least, in the past) ... and I'm now in the habbit of leaving it off unless I'm "home" and want to listen to my own choice in music.
So, you could be playing any SL radio in all the malls in SL and I would NOT be listening. I hate signs. But, I might put up signs in my mall and art colony indicating that SL radio is playing there, so "Turn your radio ON". In fact, that might be good for the art colony, since there are 5 parcels and I could play different stations on each parcel. |
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| Silas Scarborough |
I'm not going to get into the cowboys and indians aspect of this. I don't know who the good/bad guys are and, frankly, it's not important to me. What is important to me is that we need to get past it.
One thing I know for sure is that one-off individual solutions are not going to work. We've tried that. Cher has been at it for years, as has Circe, and Fox is relatively new to it. Some progress has been made but no-one is enjoying fame and fortune as a result of it. As Ray said, many people aren't even listening to radio. Why, because they don't like the content. My suggestion on this still stands as I run Slow Radio at the Ballroom because I know it will present a consistent stream of treacle-sweet romantic stuff. I have no idea what I'll get if I tune in an SL music station but I'm pretty sure it won't be that. If it's just a flow of SL performers, there won't be any focus at all. Maybe I'm all wet but I don't think you can solve the problem unless you're clear on what it is. This question also still stands: what specifically are you trying to accomplish with these radio stations? |
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| ticious |
Based on what I've read in other forums, what people have told me they do, and on what I do myself, it's not SOME folks who turn their player off, it's MOST folks. Jumping from store, walking from parcel to parcel, you never know what you're gonna get hit with. When I"m not on my own parcel or a venue parcel, I'm listening to mp3s. Often, at friends' houses, I'm listening to mp3s.
Until I read Ursula's post above, every time I had ever visited Blaze (the store, not the venue) I was already listening to an mp3. I had no idea SL Live Music Radio was playing there (and I was a regular shopper at Blaze even before I heard of SL music). If there are signs, I probably walked right past them into the store before they rezzed. Now, if I'd have thought about it at all, it wouldn't have been real hard for me to guess that Blaze would be playing Cher's station. But I'm gonna guess that most folks coming to Blaze are more like me than they are like the people who asked Ursula who was singing. What am I saying here? I'm saying that I don't think malls or big stores are the best avenue for this promotion. People are focused on shopping when they go to these places and they're mostly gonna walk right past all those kiosks on their way to the lingerie section. The best places for promotion are the place where people PLAY!! No, I don't mean music venues (that's kinda like carrying coals to Newcastle), I mean where they play games, ride horses, take walks, admire the art, do battle, have sex, navigate mazes, etc., etc., etc.. |
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
I am a Dj sometimes as well,
i allways play SL music. If i can download free songs ( on 61 for instance ) then i play them. |
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| Ursula Cinquetti |
Probably not, but if two or three or more customers are asking me each day, it can't hurt. |
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| RayW |
Sadly, I agree with Silas. However, it does have its usefulness... if people know about it. It's a great way to promote SL music ... without the commercial big guys flooding the Indies out. I think it would be super-grand if every song had a short intro so you knew who you where listening to and maybe want to catch one of their sets (although many are recognizable if you've been to one of their sets ).
Financially, RL radio stations at least make money off of their advertising. And, Public Radio gets listener and Grant support. So, what's the model and goal here? Another thing Silas's comment brings to mind is that I usually tune into stations based on their content ... like a discussion or maybe I like to hear the ramblings of the DJs between songs. If a radio station is only playing artist submissions, maybe it's like a form of Indie Muzak. It just depends on "what specifically are you trying to accomplish." I know there are other things going on here. But, forgetting all that, these are interesting questions. And, the artists should know what the missions of the stations are and decide if they want their music played there or not. Lastly ... thank you, all of you, who provide broadcast of SL music so that it's at least available to be heard (regardless of whether anyone is REALLY listening )
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
i dont get it ?
/me is confussed we have SL radio stations that play OUR music. and we wonder what is the use ??? On other topics we talk about we need to promote SL music more, and here we have stations that are promoting us ? They might not mention our names, they might not give details. But people hear it..... Are Members here using those stations ? Are venues putting them in when there is no life music ? Do you listen yourself ? I dont care about finance or goals or plans. I listen, i put it in when im done DJ-ing or after Life Shows. The rest is not my problem..... |
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| ticious |
I completely agree with you, Ursula. My only point was that playing SL Live Music Radio at a store or mall may not be the most effective places in terms of increasing listenership. But that said, I sure didn't mean it wasn't a good idea or that there's any harm in it!!! Just some other kinds of places might be more effective.
To answer your question, Sound, SL Live Music Radio plays on all my parcels, including both venues, when there's no show going on and I have Fox's radio kiosks at all my public builds, which includes both my venues, my little store at the College of Second Knowledge and the new music intro center I'll be opening soon. It may be carrying coals to Newcastle, but hell, that don't make it a bad thing and it's what I can do !
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| Soundcircel Flanagan |
exactly Tish
but i know a lot are not doing this....... makes you think huh.... |
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| Cher Harrington |
Let's not forget the vision:
Ham Rambler (PickSL Dublin Services): "Through Dublin in Second Life and PicksSL, I have worked tirelessly with the Live Music Community to raise their profile. Hosting SL Live Radio is my way of meeting a commitment I made to the Musicians at SLCC to promote their music and artistry within and outside Second Life." |
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| Silas Scarborough |
No-one's got a concern with vision but I'm seeing questions on the implementation. I've pounded on theme stations a lot and others have their own thoughts.
I don't believe that presenting a radio station with live SL jammers will work. I know I can't use it at the Ballroom because it's not what people want. The music that I enjoy at times and most visitors there seem to enjoy is pop romance stuff. I would love to be presenting live jammers there on the radio stream but I need a consistent theme and I suspect that others would be receptive to that as well. For example, Kim is fantastic but I couldn't even use all of her stuff there as she presents a wide array of tunes and I could mostly only use the mushy ones at the Ballroom. I hope you're seeing what I mean, that this has nothing to do with acoustic versus electric but rather in content. A nice combination with Kim's sweet-sounding ones might be Picker Apogee as that could flow quite well and much of his stuff has a sweet romantic vibe to it. The flow is what I'm talking about and it's the reason I've been reluctant to send many of my tunes to the stations. They wouldn't even remotely fit with most of what goes on in SL and I can't see how it could be anything but jangly for a listener to go from sweet acoustic jams straight to me bouncing a guitar off the wall. I know that doing it in gigs as I've cleared many a sim by following an acoustic act. The people leave. I guess you're probably running your stations off iTunes so you could easily set up themed shows with playlists. You wouldn't need multiple streams as you could have Jazz afternoon, piano jams, late rock show, etc., etc. All you'd need would be to switch the playlist once in a while. |
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| Fox_Reinsch |
How about this?What if LL put this on the login screen?"Did you know you can listen to artists that peform live in SL from you desk at work in RL when your not in-world?" They could link it to a secondlife.com page that lists the SL radio stations. This would not only promote live music in SL it would promote Linden Labs and SL. How do we get to their marketing department to make that happen? ****Music makes SL a better place***** Fox |
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| Silas Scarborough |
Fox, sorry to say it but LL doesn't care, bro. We've got to make this happen. You might get a plug on the login page once in a while and Ticious has worked for that in the past but it's hard to do and it's rare. | ||||||
| ticious |
Actually, that's been done. We had a MOD in the rotation for a while regarding live music. The person Slim talked to about it last time to make that happen was Jesse Linden. At that time (last fall), he was assigned as the primary liason for live music in SL. He's a member of this forum but I dunno if he's staying current on the threads here or not. He hasn't posted in months and as far as I know he hasn't been involved with any LL sponsored or initiated music activities, so my guess would be not.
As for promoting a Message Of the Day directing people to non-LL sponsored radio stations, I'm not sure LL's marketing department would want them to point you anywhere but SecondLife.com or Second Life itself, whether from work or no (they'd prolly love to see folk IN Second Life from their offices and yes, plenty do). Add to that the question of which resident sponsored radio station they would point to and the cries of "no fair" that would come up from any SL based radio stations that don't feature SL Live musicians and that's definitely not something they're going to want to step into. The MOD that we had in rotation before was actually composed by Jesse and was totally generic . . . it did not even hint at one resident's interests vs. another, it simply said there's Live Music in Second Life and use in world Search to find it. But it would be cool to have the Live Music in SL message of the day cycle around again. |
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| Cher Harrington |
Well, if word gets out from the venue owners or others about strong-arm tactics being used to get your message across, I don't know thats the type of thing that they would sanction. | ||||||
| ticious |
My guess is that they aren't even gonna ask about tactics or reputations but that LL will just plain stay out of it period. And rightly so. |