University Star

THE GIST

Cindy Royal, mass communications assistant professor and Jonathan Carroll of Gowalla music, talked about how musicians and fans mutually benefit from location-based social networking.

EXCERPTS

All genres are down in sales overall (except rap which had a minuscule increase).

Vinyl interestingly had an increase of 14 percent in sales.

Concert ticket sales down 26 percent and attendance down 12 percent.

More than 50 percent of music revenue comes from touring.

For example:
Lady Gaga had 23 million out of 30 million total come from her tours and Justin Bieber had 13.7 million out of 22 million total come from his tours.

However, the numbers could be deceiving.
"Maybe the economy has an effect on it and people are saying, ‘I can't spend $150 to see Coldplay, but there's so many aye for people to see free music.’"

Digital natives (ages 12 to 15) have significantly different habits than millenials (aged 16 to 24) because they have never lived in a world that wasn't infused to the core wit technology, have never known a time without cell phones. For them it's about the experience, they want to interact.

Carroll - "Digital natives are not concerned at all with how they obtain music. There is no concern for the object itself, whether it is vinyl, CD or mp3, what is of importance is the full experience."

Location based social networks are relatively new (Gowalla and Foursquare started in 2007). The GPS in the second iPhone happened then Android and then Blackberry, allow for satellite to pin point exactly where people are.

Before it was pretty pointless to have the 'What are you doing?' because it was 'Well, I'm at a computer."

What's in it for the fans?
Photos, comments, free downloads, merchandise discounts

What's in it for the bands?
Loyal fans, word of mouth, increased show attendance, enthusiasm

"What the upper-echelon on musicians and smaller acts are going to get put of this are totally different."

"This South by Southwest, I met four who didn't know who Gowalla or Foursquare was so that's mass adoption, but there are almost no bands on these services so the potential is huge

Jimmy Eat World and Weezer both use Gowalla sound and could to give their fans incentives like free downloads, and as a result they got millions of aggregated Facebook views.

"It's almost like your digital concert ticket stub that you want to remember, I went there."

Carroll - "Facebook hasn't done any artist integration (except once) and I don't think they will because they are so focused on platform."

About the Black Eyed Peas marking their favorite places in
"I'm sure will.i.am would not lie to us because he made that amazing Obama video so he speaks only the truth, right."

How should bands get started?

Royal - "Make a personal account and use it, it make sound silly to us, but you have to up use it to understand it."
Then make one for your band (or as a fan, help a band).

Carroll - "We are wanting to people to connect with people, people to connect with experience."

He suggests asking ahead of time to him so you can get a badge or stamp that looks like your album artwork.

Royal - "API is the new mp3, the future of music is in developing."

Carroll - "Want more bands to get on location based services."

Carroll - "There is separation of place and event now, and both can be trending and that is something that sort of makes us scratch our heads sometimes."

He said Gowalla is looking to somehow streamline the process. Most companies have both place and event, but that could change.