when setting up my “Jango” radio, I would like to play an emerging artist as often as I like, and not only one song once a day with 20 other songs in between…
This is nowhere clearly explained when registering for jango radio.

And how can the emerging artist know exactly that his/her song has been played for good and for his/her good money – what way of controlling that? It seems that songs are played randomly picked by a computer program.

Couldn’t find any legal information on your company, what is your exact registered business name, your business registration number, your head quarters? It all seems a bit foggy to me, sorry! But I love music and I hate the idea of emerging artists being squeezed out of their money when they need it most, in the early stages! By the way, when do emerging artists get paid their first royalties?

Looking forward to your detailed reply,
Musically,
Peggy

Hi, Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here… just a few notes on how Jango Airplay actually works and why we think this is a great way for emerging artists to get guaranteed plays to people who like their kind of music – and for users to discover emerging artists they would otherwise never have discovered.

- Guaranteed amount of plays.
Fred Wilhelms seems to think that when we receive an Airplay song, all we do is put it into our system as a “similar artist” and if it gets played it gets played. That’s not the case, we pro-actively play it the exact amount of times the emerging artist has paid for – along with a display ad encouraging our users to tell us what they think of this emerging artist’s song and to support the artist by becoming a fan, etc if they like it.

- Results reporting.
Fred seems to think there’s no insight into how the plays are delivered. That’s not the case – emerging artists can log in and see exactly how many plays they’ve had – and they can also decide in what time frame we should play them (1 week, 1 month, etc). When their plays are up, they receive a report with the full breakdown by age, gender and musical taste of the people that liked (and disliked) their
song. In addition, they can communicate directly with all the people that choose to become their fans on Jango.

- Exact artist targeting
We only play Airplay songs to people who like popular artists the artist has chosen. If he/she wants to be played next to Velvet Underground, we’ll only play the song to people who like Velvet Underground – and NOT next to “similar artists” to Velvet Underground as Fred is suggesting (ie no sandwiching in between Beach Boys and Rolling Stones), so the targeting is both precise and relevant.

- Size & targeting
Fred also seems to think that there will somehow not be enough opportunities to play an Airplay song, and that the plays will never be delivered. With six million monthly uniques and 400,000 visits to Jango every day, there’s a tremendous number of songs being played every day and plenty of opportunities to play an emerging artist, so Fred’s point that it will all be diluted and never delivered isn’t correct.

- Quality review
We review all songs to ensure that they are of certain quality, and that the “similar artists” chosen makes sense – ie no song will be played next to any randomly selected popular artists like both Billy Ray Cyrus and Chris Brown. And you’d be surprised at the artistic
quality of the songs we’re getting. Just because you’re not established doesn’t mean you’re bad – and artists serious enough about their career to spend money on promotion are generally much better than you’d think. The fact that our users have really liked the emerging artists we’ve played so far totally supports that.

- Listener control
First of all, our listeners want to discover new music. And with “Jango Airplay” we give them an opportunity to discover emerging artists they would never be able to find otherwise. Also, we only play an “airplay song” every 20 songs or so – and never more than once a day to any given user. And if they don’t like it, all they need to do is skip.

So far, our users have reacted very positively. On average, 10% of users give an airplay song positive ratings, write a comment or even become a fan of the artist!

- Royalties
We pay royalties for every song that’s played – Airplay or not – so any artist signed up with SoundExchange will get their cut of that.

I hope this clarifies. We’re convinced that Jango Airplay is good for emerging artists AND users. With our quality review, infrequency of airplay songs (compared to established artists) and listener control, this is a way to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents – for a music discovery service like Jango this is a MUCH better experience for everyone involved than the alternative – which is a 30 second audio ad for Lending Tree every other song.

Thanks,
Dan

Please tell Dan he’s free, and welcome, to join in the discussion with a comment post outlining his perspective on either or both stories [the other is here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18700 ] in full, and at any length.

Cheers!

I read both today’s and yesterday’s articles with great interest – and while I can certainly respect the different point of view – I’m struck by the assumptions and misinformation that appear throughout. But what I find most surprising is that at no time was Jango contacted for comment. The simple fact that information from the website was posted completely out of context and many assumptions were made without any regard for accuracy is pretty sad. Further to that – commentary from someone not-affiliated with the service is posted as follow up -there’s no debate here – where’s the balance? Dan Kaufman, Jango’s CEO is available, and would be most interested in speaking with you to address the potential issues and questions your articles raise. I encourage you to speak with him so your readers get a full picture and can decide for themselves. We look forward to hearing from you.