Additionally, the terrestrial radio payola model doesn’t apply here. The structure of the two are so entirely different that the threat of total control via payola is very unlikely.

In the light of what Mr. Kaufmann has outlined, I would say the site stands a good chance of avoiding the “Payola” label, in the sense that “larger investers” can’t just “buy away” another artist’s “exposure”.

The one difference between this and Radio is that there are no actual “airwaves” being “monopolized” by the “current tune”. Everyone is free to listen to what they want, which gives the effect of exponentially more “available airtime” for all songs.

And, if the artists really can monitor and control both how their “investments” are being used (how many plays left, etc.) and how the people are reacting to the music, it sounds like a pretty fair arrangement.

One feature I’m a little grey on, however, is the “similar artist” tag.
Since “similarity” in music is mostly an arbitrary observation made by each individual, how or why should anyone else be permitted to “place themselves” in any kind of list “next to” any other artist? Would this not result in a shitload of complaints that everyone’s playlists are being “spammed” by artists they never asked to list, or simply don’t agree are “similar”?

Please pull my rambling posts so that Mr. Kaufman’s comments can be respected as the first post, and intelligent commentary can follow.

Thanks.

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

stw

I know you know. I was but jesting – couldn’t resist. heh – Cheers!

Sorry. This was meant to be a post, not an advert for Jango. Humble apologies

Cheers!