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June 29, 2007

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.

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And LazyWeb: Gig To-Do Macros + Gig Matcher did speak thusly:

[...] use in the independent music community to get more meaningful artist promotion work done. I like Scott’s idea of automating gig swaps — the kinds of things that used to be organized by booking agents and by clever managers [...]
And Kat did speak thusly:

There’s a Mac program for freelancers called Studiometry that does incremental to do lists, but I’m not sure what platform you’re on or if Studiometry would be overkill for what you want. I thought I’d mention it, though…

I currently use a free Mac program called iGTD that is awesome and at the rate it’s updated, you could probably submit a feature request and see it implemented relatively soon.
And scottandrew did speak thusly:

I’ve seen iGTD and it’s pretty cool, but I don’t have a Mac (well, I do have a G3 iBook, but it’s not worth using).

All I’m really looking for is a to-do app that lets me schedule sub-tasks *relative* to a parent task’s date, and then save that configuration as a reusable template.

I did whip something together with PHP that takes my tour calendar and inserts all the necessary subtasks around each show date, then exports it as an iCal feed to Google Calendar. This works okay, but I don’t get SMS/email reminders because GCal only allows those for the main “personal” calendar. Argh, stymied again!
And victor did speak thusly:

we haven’t been in touch in 5 months?? I suck.
And Jorge did speak thusly:

Awesome idea! I got there from the iGTD forum and then realized I had already visited your website, but can’t track who sent me here (Wired maybe?). As a fellow musician/programmer, I’m enjoying the songs - and the site!

I’m off to buy some of your stuff…
And A way to keep track and in touch at remy sharp’s b:log did speak thusly:

[...] feeds, I came across Merlin Mann’s “I could totally use this” and then the source lazy contact manager - I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to write, albeit roughly - and I would also find it [...]
And Remy Sharp did speak thusly:

Okay - I came across this post via 43folders.com - and I figured I could have a crack at the Lazy Contact Manager.

Sadly I don’t know any Objective-C to build a ‘proper’ plugin, but I have made a dashboard widget that puts people you’ve not been in touch with at the top.

You do need to have a couple of Perl modules installed, but I’ve explained it here: http://remysharp.com/2007/07/03/a-way-to-keep-track-and-in-touch/

Let me know what you think.
And Ben Walker did speak thusly:

I’m working on an idea for a sort of band matchmaker. It goes a little further by helping bands to organise and promote their own gigs, so as not to get screwed by promoters.

It’s geared towards the local scenes here in the UK, but could be expanded to a sort of grassroots gigswap app. Hmm…
And Newecho did speak thusly:

Check out http://www.37signals.com. Specifically Backpackit for smart todo list, and HighriseHQ for contact management.
And scottandrew did speak thusly:

@newecho: I’ve used Backpack for awhile, it doesn’t have smart to-dos (or I’d still be using it).

Ditto for Highrise. I haven’t found a contact manager that has the feature I outlined.

I’d be tickled if the 37Signals guys would add these features ’cause I’d return there in a heartbeat.
And gig guide barrow did speak thusly:

iGTD is spot on for me, everything used to be so muddled up before i dont know how i managed.
And Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero! > wordpress > archives > 2007 > 08 > lazy contact manager did speak thusly:

[...] idea for a lazy contact manager a few months ago drew some interesting comments. Since then, Remy Sharp ran with the idea and [...]