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Don't worry, be appy
By Music Ally, Published in Sandbox
Labels and artists have been experimenting with apps ever since Apple launched its App Store in the summer of 2008, with varying degrees of success. However, all the trends point to the fact that apps will only get more deeply embedded in the relationship between artists and their fans in the coming months and years.
More than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, with Google’s Android Market, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace all growing fast too. This issue, we take a look at three key app trends you need to know about.
First, though, a breakdown of the music apps ecosystem. Most artists and labels have chosen to work with one of several app platforms rather than develop in-house. Mobile Roadie has been the first big success story in this space, originally helping people make iPhone apps, before expanding to Android and BlackBerry.
It counts Madonna, Beatles/Love, Taylor Swift, Take That, Robbie Williams as just a few in a long list of high profile clients, along with non-music names like the Miami Dolphins and Bill Cosby. The platform is now marketed to sporting teams, event organisers, celebrities and restaurants, among other sectors.
Mobile Roadie faces competition though from newer startups like Steam Republic, with its Mobile Backstage apps. These have a specific focus on creating connected communities around artists - social networks on steroids for mobiles - with Enter Shikari, You Me At Six and Lykke Li all using the company’s technology.
At the lower end of the scale, there are DIY app platforms like BandApp and Get- Ctrl looking to make apps affordable for unsigned and independent bands, following in the footsteps of the pre-MySpace iLike. These kinds of services are also being provided by bigger digital distributors and marketing companies too. In October last year, ReverbNation bought DIY apps startup Sound Around, to roll its offering into its own platform. The Orchard has also been creating apps for bands for some time.
Some labels have their own creative divisions as well to make their own apps. Universal Music Group has a sub-publishing brand called U-Apps, while PIAS Mobile uses some of the third-party platforms while also building its own apps - the best known so far being the Plastic Beach iPhone app for Gorillaz.
So, to the main trends, starting with...
Mobile and online communities
Thus far, apps and websites for artists have tended to be separate entities, even when both have community aspects. Atlantic Records’ new app and site for Lykke Li claims to be the first attempt to truly synchronise these mobile and web followings, working with Steam Republic on the project.
It’s simple – do something on the web members backstage area and it synchronises with the app. Post a blog or media on the web and it appears on the mobile app, check in at a gig on the app and it shows on the web platform. Upload a photo from the gig and it appears on the web members area straight away.
It’s a big deal because Steam Republic’s Mobile Backstage app platform has been completely integrated with the Warner/ Atlantic backend – the two platforms have developed a common programming language to enable a campaign which is seamlessly integrated and specifically pointed towards mobile users.
Why do it? Apart from the fact that smartphones are clearly a growth area, Atlantic’s digital coordinator, Nikke Osterback, explains that “mobile is the best place to catch people’s attention when it comes to social media or member communities on the web. We want to capitalise on the small moments like waiting for the bus or sitting in a café.”
It’s not just about building a social community, either. At the moment the store links to iTunes but Atlantic is planning a fully optimized store page.
It will be integrated with the Warner store page and then have a path to the mobile platform. The label could use push notifications on mobile handsets to push people straight to store within the app, and take advantage of these ‘quiet’ moments even more with merch promotions.
The Lykke Li app covers all Apple app enabled devices including the iPhone, and more than 500 java-enabled handsets, with Blackberry and Android versions to follow later this spring.
In the first week of its launch there were 1600 users on mobile and 1458 web only members, and there were over 6000 member logins in the first 7 days (web and mobile). Atlantic plans a number of initiatives in the coming months to drive engagement across mobile and web during the promotional campaign for Li’s Wounded Rhymes album.
There will be exclusive content previewing on the members area this month, and more so moving forward. An effort will be made to capitalise on Lykke Li’s global gigs using the mobile community as a catalyst for D2C interaction and driving traffic to the site.
A related mini-trend is gamification - the idea of wrapping game-like elements and loyalty rewards around... well, pretty much anything, including music apps. Startups like FanTrail are making this a key part of their DIY platforms, with Erykah Badu and The Roots both launching apps that award fans points - on a ‘Lovemeter’ - for sharing articles, buying music and checking in at concerts. The rewards include voice messages that are more personal for fans with higher scores.
APIs and bespoke platforms
Before we bang on about APIs, a definition, courtesy of Wikipedia. “An application programming interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that a software program can follow to access and make use of the services and resources provided by another particular software program that implements that API. It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers.”
APIs are all the rage in the Web 2.0 and apps worlds: for example, some music apps have used Foursquare’s API to let fans check in to gig venues from their apps, while plenty are using Facebook’s APIs to include social features. Mobile Roadie is also touting its own API-based service to people making artist apps, so they can use its platform as the foundation for their apps, then drop their own code on top to create unique applications.
It’s an important thing, since Apple made menacing noises last year about rejecting apps using a template-based approach - something Mobile Roadie boss Michael Schneider says has killed the business models of some of the DIY app platforms that were rivals to his company in the earlier days of the App Store.
Charles Fitzgerald, head of mobile at PIAS, explains how important it is to differentiate an artist offering in terms of PR. There are a load of artist apps out there, but many look the same and do the same things. Creating something exciting and different has the added bonus of a viral and PR buzz.
API partnerships are adding to these possibilities. The open API is the most flexible type, but Mobile Roadie also provides a number of bespoke API partnerships whose services can be plugged in to apps to add functionality. Partners include Ustream (think concert streaming), Soundcloud and Songkick.
At SXSW last week Mobile Roadie used its open API in a partnership with Fader Magazine to augment its Fader Fort live events. Fans could scan QR codes to see info about artists playing at that moment, and enter a daily contest (with prizes from Converse, New Era, Rdio, and TDK). The QR codes unlocked other special content from acts like a video, image or song.
Mobile Roadie’s VP of European sales Tony Pardo explains that the possibilities with QR codes for artists using Mobile Roadie are deeper than this: “Whenever you upload or connect a video or image or song, our platform generates a QR code. So you can hide content. Lock an entire section. It’s good for subscription holders, for premium access to the video section for example.”
HTML5 and web apps
The third music apps trend that we think is important is HTML5 and the mobile web, as an alternative - or more often something complementary - to native applications distributed through app stores. Most modern smartphone browsers are HTML5 compatible, which makes it possible for ‘mobile web apps’ to be launched that look and behave more like a native application.
That means no need for approval by Apple, Google or the other app store owners, and also a more affordable way of hitting lots of handsets without having to port an app to each one. For now, companies like Mobile Roadie and Steam Republic are focused on native apps though, leaving a gap for new startups to emerge.
One is Songpier, which makes mobile web apps for the music industry. When people visit them on a mobile browser, they’re invited to bookmark it, which on iPhone adds an icon to the user’s homescreen to provide direct access. In other words, it feels like a native app. Songpier’s technology includes music streaming, images, news, events and merchandise.
There’s a sparky debate within the mobile industry about whether native or web apps will ‘win’ in the long term. The truth is that they’ll co-exist for some time yet. Web apps lack the ability to store much content offline, for example - they require connectivity, whereas native apps can come preloaded with video and music to save on a fan’s data usage.
Apple is also currently under fire for not allowing web apps bookmarked on iPhone homescreens to use the new ‘Nitro’ JavaScript engine which speeds up surfing in its Safari browser, with suggestions that this is a deliberate attempt to keep native apps pre-eminence in the iOS world.
Mobile Roadie’s Pardon points to other advantages for native apps though. “We can make use of all the features and functionality of phones. For example cameras – you can take pictures of an event and post them. The GPS locator – an artist can see fans located on a google map. Fans can see other fans. You can only do this with native applications. Push notifications – you can only do with a native app. We can even geo target a push notification to within a 1.6 kilometre radius of a venue.”
There are three advantages to making a web app though. Firstly, development costs are cheaper.
Secondly, compatibility is cross-platform without many barriers. If it’s a modern smartphone, the majority of which have HTML5 enabled browsers, then the web app will be viewable on it. All the artist has to do is send a URL to the fan’s handset. Artists don’t need to publish different versions of the app for different smartphone operating systems.
Thirdly, all of this means that developers can offer these apps cheaply, and can entertain various types of flexible freemium models. The knock on is that good looking apps with basic features on a par with established native applications could become very accessible to the long tail, helping push the mobile app further into the artist/fan ecosystem.
More information:
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