The Business Of Beauty, Gaming And Music

The UCD Quinn School of Business are running three evening talks from next week looking at the business of beauty, gaming and music, giving transitition year, fifth year and leaving cert students “a real insight” into viable career options in the three industries.

These are more than just a talk. They are real business people sharing their vast experience in today’s exciting world of business and the possibilities that can arise from a degree in business.

The Business of Beauty talk will be given by L’Oreal’s Eoghan O’Sullvan and Sarah Keating next Tuesday at UCD from 6:30pm to 10pm.

With a focus on specific ventures, Eoghan and Sarah will highlight the commercial, marketing, finance, supply chain management and human resource aspects to their business while you enjoy funky canapés, mocktails and goody bags on offer at the event

The Business of Gaming talk will run on Thursday October 9th with XBOX Ireland’s Orla Sheridan and Microsoft Game Studio’s Michel Buch Andersen taking to the floor to provide an insight to the current gaming marketplace, “retail distribution channels, profitability models” and more, something being pushed (by the looks of things) towards those studying business, economics or accounting.

However, the one that got my attention is the Business of Music talk being given by Universal’s Freddie Middleton (Marketing Director) and Gill Dooley (Digital Campaign Manager), the talk taking place on Thursday October 23rd. The Business of Music should offer an insight to the role of a record company in the music industry, from a traditional background through to digital media distribution. You think they’ll get a debate going on where record companies are going and how they’ll continue in 5, 10, 20 years?

Students going to the talks also have a chance to win a shadow-day at either Universal Music, L’Oreal or Xbox Ireland. Why weren’t they doing this kind of thing when I was in transition year? Were these events even open to third-level students in recent years?

If you are a second-level student with an interesting in any of the above, then head along. I know I would be anyway if the door was open to me.

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Bandcamp Launched & It Looks Interesting

Bandcamp Screencast from Ethan Diamond on Vimeo.

Cheers to Will Knott for the nudge on this one but it looks like BandCamp.mu has gotten underway and could provide a nice outlet for bands looking to distribute music online and further enhance their fan base.

On the front of things from watching the screencast (above) it all seems pretty straightforward - add you profile, add your tracks, add some cover art and away you go. Grant API access to your PayPal account and you can start selling tracks direct from Bandcamp on a very Radiohead-esque “name your price” basis.

I’ve signed up to give the service a try and see what it does for my own music (something I keep meaning to publish online and get away from the older demos clouding the MySpace) and those of other bands we have involved with KilkennyMusic.com.

In their own words about what they do…

We’re not yet another site wanting to host your tracks alongside the trailer for High School Musical 4: I’m Pregnant. Instead, we power a site that’s truly yours, and hang out in the background handling all the technical issues you dread (and several you’ve probably never even considered). We keep your music streaming and downloading quickly and reliably, whether it’s 3am on a Sunday, or the hour your new record drops and Pitchfork gives it a scathingly positive review. We make your tracks available in every format under the sun, so the audiophilic nerderati can have their FLAC and eat mp3 v2. We adorn your songs with all the right metadata, so they sail into iTunes with artwork, album, band and track names intact. We mutter the various incantations necessary to keep your site top-ranked in Google, so when your fans search for your hits, they find your music long before they find bonkersforlyrics.com or iMyFace. We give your fans easy ways to share your music with their friends, and we give you gorgeous tools that reveal exactly how your music is spreading, so you can fan the fire.

The signup process (for me) has been delayed as I don’t have AIFF or WAV dumps of the music. Unlike MySpace, Bebo, NumberOneMusic etc where MP3s are the in thing, Bandcamp looks for the highest quality (loss-less) audio file you’ve got available and they’ll take care of the conversions to a variety of MP3 formats (192k and above), FLAC etc. The user or fan of your music can then decided how high a quality track they want to take, what format they want it delivered in and how much they’re willing to pay for it.

The stats behind Bandcamp let you see where the visitors are coming from, who’s linking to and using your music online, what are your most popular tracks, how have they been played (complete, partial, skipped), everything you’ve wanted to know about who’s been listening to your tunes.

Once I sort out a WAV dump of some of the session files I have gathering dust here I’ll give it a full run through, but for now, it looks rather promising indeed.

Update:Andy Baio (Waxy.org) has an interview with Ethan here.

Playlist Mix 36 Released

They Playlist Mix podcast series returned two weeks ago after a light summer break and I’ve just released the 36th Playlist Mix this evening, a little earlier than usual.

I’m doing well of late in the battle to set a definite finishing time work-wise during the day so I can free up more time in the evenings. More time in the evenings means earlier podcasts, earlier to bed and less of a fight with myself on a Wednesday morning before phoning into the PodCamp Ireland podcast show.

It was PodCamp Ireland last year in Kilkenny that gave me the much needed kick to put the Playlist Mix on course and since last October I’ve managed to release 32 podcasts. I’d be looking at close to 50 had it not been for the serious lack of any evening-time in the summer thanks to producing and acting in two back-to-back performances from May to August with this devious bunch.

As always on the podcast there’s six tracks from six different acts with music this week coming from Vesta Varro, Planet Rewind, This Is Fiction, Annie Golliath, Satellite State and Ro Tierney who I had as a guest at the One Take Sessions in Kilkenny last year.

I’ll be catching Vesta Varro in action in Kilkenny this weekend but until then, enjoy the podcast. Comments always appreciated

The podcast has also been longlisted / nominated for Best Podcast at the 2008 Irish Web Awards, another fine night in store for the Irish web community this October 11th in Dublin.

Playlist Mix Podcast #36 - Download @ 27mb

MySpace, Record Labels Team Up For MySpace Music

The much rumoured and often spoken about ‘MySpace Music’ service has come to light, as I read this morning that MySpace have officially announced their new ‘MySpace Music’ service, a partnership between News Corporation and “three out of the four top record labels”.

The service is looking to become a one-stop shop for everything music; DRM free downloads and music sales, ticket sales for gigs and tours, band merchandise, ringtones - everything and anything goes.

It is a good move for the record industry and a great play for MySpace whose existing music service is used by millions of bands worldwide (I’m even in there) as a platform for showcasing music, listing gigs and connecting with fans.

Couple with that the ability to sell your tracks, merchandise and tickets directly through MySpace and you really have a powerful promotional tool for aspiring and established artists.

That said, with the deal seemingly focusing around the participation of three major record labels (EMI were holding out as of Friday), I would hope the the tools established by the service would be available to the smaller bands and those unaffiliated with record labels.

While the record labels look for ways to dig into online sales and catch up with the rest of the world, independent artists have been steaming ahead, safe in the knowledge that you don’t need a record label in order to release music. I’ve worked with enough bands over the last few years to see first hand you don’t need a record label to succeed and gone are the days of needing millions of dollars, pounds or Euro in order to record, launch and promote a single, EP or album.

Thomas Hesse, the President of Global Digital Business at Sony BMG Music Entertainment said in Thursday’s article on CNET that they are simply “aligning our efforts to reach fans through every conceivable platform”.

I haven’t seen any indication of what percentage of the market they’re trying to grab, likely away from Apple’s iTunes service, but here’s to hoping they don’t forget about the independent artists and make their new resources available for everyone.