A few Music 2.0 ideas
Bill at IndieHQ gives up an idea for a Music 2.0-style business. I have a few of my own. In the spirit of “ideas are worthless without great execution,” feel free to implement these and become fabulously wealthy.
Feel free to chime in with your own ideas. Just be sure to give me a free lifetime account.
Long Tail PR – there’s a real need for credible, focused, short-lived public relations for artists. This service would pair you up with a PR specialist that — and this is key — actually knows what she’s doing. For a nominal fee, she’d work on getting press for your release in a tightly focused area — say, just your city and surrounding areas in which you’d most likely to tour — for two weeks.
You would not be a priority client, but you’d at least have the advantage of having a real person with real media relationships on your side, and that’s much better than one of those crappy DIY “wire” services that amount to opt-in spam cannons.
Band matchmaker – you’re an artist looking for a gig. They’re a band looking for an opening act. Rather than trolling Craigslist and MySpace, you both sign up for a web service that pairs you up with similar-sounding acts, based on your availability. This is an area where Eventful could rock, because it could also combine your demands into one. You might have only ten fans waiting for you to visit Lawrence KS, but if by teaming up with Artist X and Artist Y you could draw 70 people, wouldn’t you want to know?
Smart Todo List + Lazy Contact Manager – these aren’t specific to music, but would be insanely useful. The whole point is to remove the stress of forgetting to do simple yet easy-to-overlook tasks.
The “smart to-do list” would basically use macros so I’d never forget to advance a show again. So if I were to enter the following:
Play gig at Conor Byrne Pub 09/10
..the following tasks would be scheduled in the calendar automatically:
Advance gig at Conor Byrne Pub 08/10 Press release for Conor Byrne Pub 08/31 Post flyers for Conor Byrne Pub 08/31 Mailing list reminder: Conor Byrne Pub 09/08 Play gig at Conor Byrne Pub 09/10 Send thank-you note 09/12 Update mailing list: 09/12
The “lazy contact manager” periodically scans your sent email and prompts you to keep in touch with people:
This could be a standalone application or a plug-in; either way it would help keep potentially valuable relationships from rotting away in your Outbox.
It’s pretty amazing that with all the crazy GTD stuff out there, I haven’t been able to find either of these features. I’ve taken half-hearted stabs at building these myself, but hey — I’d rather write songs.
Previously: Show at Crossroads tonight