Mixx To The Max

There’s a new Mixx in town.

It’s called Mixx Maker, a new application launched January 3rd that gives FaceBook members the ability to assemble and distribute "mix tapes" to their social network neighbors.

The blueprint for Mixx Maker is simple enough. FaceBook users upload the songs they want to include in their "mixx," assemble the mixx and then send it to other FaceBook users. Those receiving the mixx can then hear the songs streamed from the mixx designer’s account via FaceBook’s friends feature.

"When you make a mix tape you usually have a theme or something you would like to say," Jeremy Lim, marketing manager for Mixx Maker masterminds Project Opus Technologies, told Pollstar. "When you log on to FaceBook you would go to the page where Mixx Maker is … Then it asks you ‘I want music that …’

"So if you want a mixx for driving you would say, ‘I want music that I can drive to.’ … You can add comments like, ‘I think this is a song you can drive to because it’s really high energy,’ or ‘It’s a great song for the highway,’ something along those lines."

And it’s that simple. Upon completing the mixx you then send it to your FaceBook buddies, who can listen to your clever arrangement of songs to their hearts’ content.

But you’re not actually sending songs. Instead, each Mixx Maker mixx is a playlist and the actual songs stay in the mixx creator’s FaceBook domicile. Mixx recipients can listen as much as they want, but they can’t download the songs.

"The legal and licensing thing was a huge hurdle for us," Lim said. "We looked at precedent in this area. The big thing about FaceBook is that it’s a "closed garden" sort of thing. The only people who can really connect to you are people you know. People to whom you say, ‘Yes. I endorse this engagement.’

"So it’s limited to people who are friends. No one else but your friends can hear your mixxes, hear your music. Our precedent for that is bringing people into a living room. Or iTunes. ITunes has a functionality where anybody on the same computer network as you can hear all the music on your computer … Users can never, ever download the original songs that were uploaded. Once they’re on the server, they can only be streamed to. They can never be acquired. Never be copied."

If this sounds like Mixaloo, the company that gives Netizens an easy and legal way to distribute mix tapes, there are some similarities in that both companies enable users to create mixes and distribute those mixes to friends. But the differences between Mixx Maker and Mixaloo are major.

The most notable distinction between the two products is that Mixaloo users must draw from a pre-determined library the company has licensed. Then, recipients of Mixaloo mixes can only listen to a small portion of the song. If they want to hear the entire tune, they have to buy it.

But Mixaloo mixes can be sent to anyone, anywhere, while Mixx Maker’s mixes reside within the FaceBook social networking environment. Furthermore, unlike Mixaloo creations, which are pretty much carved in stone by the creator, Mixx Maker enables recipients to add to the "mixx."

Then there’s the e-commerce differences between Mixx Maker and Mixaloo. Mixaloo mix recipients can purchase the songs in an all-or-nothing deal, meaning that they can’t cherry-pick the songs from a Mixaloo mix, but must purchase the entire mix.

And Mixx Maker?

"We are working toward integrating Amazon MP3. When people upload songs we capture the title of the song, the artist and the album the song is on. So we’re going to be able to say to Amazon, ‘Hey! Here’s this information. Give us back a link so people can buy the song.’"

By combining viral marketing aspects with Mixx Maker’s natural ability to introduce people to new music, you have yet another example of how music might be marketed in the coming years. People tend to respond more favorably to new tunes when those songs are recommended by friends rather than through mass media and hype.

"In Mixx Maker, you and your friends create communal soundtracks for anything in your lives – like days at the beach, that road trip coming up in July, or your intimate bedroom encounters," Lim said. "As ‘High Fidelity’ put it, it’s about using someone else’s poetry to tell your story."

 

Adventures In Downloading

You’d have to be living on the same island as the Oceanic flight 815 castaways on the TV series "Lost" not to have heard about Radiohead’s download adventure. Having recently split with EMI, the band offered name-your-own-price downloads for their new album In Rainbows. And, if you didn’t want to pay for it, entering a big fat zero in the order form got you the downloads as well.

Although Radiohead hasn’t released its download numbers, Nielsen SoundScan figures for the album’s CD release three months after the download promotion began are positive. Fans bought 122,000 In Rainbows CDs, propelling the album to No. 1 on the Nielsen SoundScan charts.

Of course, 122,000 is a perfectly respectable figure for any band, but how does it compare to Radiohead’s past efforts? In CD form In Rainbows’ first week of sales wasn’t nearly as high as the 300,000 copies of the band’s 2003 album Hail To The Thief, which eventually sold about 1 million copies. But was the lower sales figure for In Rainbows due to the download campaign, the time of year or a combination of both?

Perhaps a little bit of both.

It doesn’t take much of a stretch to imagine that some people who downloaded the Radiohead album for free only did because they could. It was a chance for free music, and some of the people who took Radiohead up on that offer are probably the same people you see cruising supermarkets on Saturday mornings scooping up the free food samples. Their motto is, "If it’s free, it’s for me."

But chances are the real Radiohead fans, despite what they might have paid for the online In Rainbows, probably purchased the CD when it landed on store shelves. For them, Radiohead isn’t just a great band, it’s a way of life.

Of course, Radiohead is a band name known throughout the world, and name recognition definitely helps sell music. Which makes you wonder what would happen if an artist or band that isn’t quite as well known as Radiohead was to try a similar promotion.

An artist like Saul Williams, for example.

The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust is a Saul Williams album. However, Trent Reznor worked closely with Williams on the album, and when it came to trying a different way to market the effort, it was Reznor’s name that made the media sit up and take notice.

There were two download options for Niggy Tardust, pay for it or get it free. For $5 music consumers had their choice of formats – 192 Kbps MP3, 320 Kbps MP3 and FLAC lossless audio, while the freebies were encoded only at 192 Kbps.

And the result?

During the first week of January, Reznor told CNET’s News.com that 80 percent had chosen the free option, and called that result "disheartening."

But is it a disappointment? It’s conceivable that a lot of those free downloaders may have been hearing Williams for the first time. Since one of the arguments in favor of file-sharing is that it helps music fans discover new music, it would appear that many people might have "discovered" Saul Williams through the free download option. That may not be money in the bank for Williams and Reznor, but it might lead to bigger sales in the future.

Along with discovering new music, the proponents of free music on the Net are often quick to cite Radiohead’s In Rainbows promotion and point to other big name acts, such as The Rolling Stones or U2, as bands that don’t need labels to sell their music.

That’s probably true. Free downloads can work to an act’s advantage and result in more concert tickets sold as well as increasing a fan base. However, it’s the labels, both major and indie, that have the promotional machinery in place to take new and up-and-coming bands and artists to the next level.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the labels evolve into something whose only purpose in life is to nurture a band or artist until the act grows so big that it no longer needs a record label?