Jango, The Saga: IV Dan responds
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Speaking as the publisher of p2pnet, as well as one of its contributors, I really believe in passionate opinions.
Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, not to mention (ok I WILL mention) Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney have only one point of view.
Theirs.
They’re incapable of any kind of rational give or take.
‘Take’ is the only word they know.
I’ve been a strong critic of RealNetworks ever since it started up and I’ve said so many times. But I also believe in credit where credit is due, so kudos to the people behind Real for encouraging their Lacy Kemp to mix it with p2pnet readers.
And I’m glad to say the same to online radio payola company Jango. It has PR consultant Deane Graffeo working for it and she, too, had the intelligence not only to do a post on behalf of a client, but also to sign her name to it.
As I said to her in an email, “Many moons ago, when I was young and even more foolish than I am now, I worked in both PR and advertising and IMO, the way you’re going is the way to go.
“Keep it up. And if you ever feel like doing a post on PR and The People, you know where to find me. 
”
Nor does it end there. The people behind TekSavvy, MP3Rocket, FrostWire and AntiSpyware 2009 are a lot more than just advertisers. They’re genuine friends and supporters and I talk to them about things other than their products or services.
I couldn’t get along without them in more ways than one.
We all need to be able to talk to each other and if we can’t do that, we’re doomed to a lingering and painful death: ask the people who are running corporate movie and music cartels, Facebook, MySpace, and so on, into the dirt.
They just don’t understand we’re not dumb cash-cow ‘consumers’ anymore. We’re customers again. We have free choice and we know how to use it.
“I’d recommend that people didn’t sell their audience’s eyeballs to advertisers,” said Digital Productions‘ Crosbie Fitch in a Reader’s Write. His remark came in another post, but it also applies here.
“Sell your audience what they want to buy from you,” he said. “Don’t cannibalise a chunk of what value they do perceive in your work at disproportionate expense by devaluing it with advertising. The monetary return you make is a small fraction of the loss in value to your audience.”
Telling it like he sees it
But back to the main point.
Deana said I hadn’t offered Dan Kaufman, the guy who runs Jango, a chance to give his side of the story.
So I invited him to tell it like he sees it, and he did. So here’s Dan Kaufman on Jango »»»
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
Don’t go away. 
Jon Newton – p2pnet
March, 2009
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March 6th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I read the two articles today (part 2 and this one). Both have very different views.
The only thing I can truly add to this (as just a dumb reader and commenter) is if, Dan, is honest about what he is saying, then his business should do well.
If Jango doesn’t start charging people (the users) I think he made his business model that works for him, the artists that want his service, and the people. As long as there is honesty and openness in the process.
So I have to give kudos to both Dan and especially the PR person “Deane” who seem to have a keen eye on things.
I also have to agree with Fred. We have all been around the block and know how the business works (well not me personally). It’s always one cheap shot after another for the almighty buck with little or no regard to the little guy (or consumer/customer for that matter). The story is always the same.
But I have to say, with Dan and Deane being open (if honest), maybe they have pulled the balance (in my opinion) towards their favor.
It doesn’t take much to turn customers off. But so far I’m not turned off by what I read, yet.
Now having just looked at the site for the first time, I typed “Iron Maiden” and poof it playing and there are links for lyrics and stuff. Kinda neat.
My 1st impression is above average with your web site.
Now about that policy on your website that says…:
“Term. This Agreement shall remain in full force and effect while you use the Jango Services or are a Member. Jango.com may terminate your Membership at any time, without warning. Even after Membership is terminated, this Agreement will remain in effect, including sections 5-17.”
I don’t see no section 5 to 17. So its not clear what I’m agreeing to here. Maybe something for you guys to fix up in the near future?
I, like many informed consumers who read p2pnet, tend to read “terms and conditions” (unlike the mom & pop users). You have a tough sell with us type.
So openness in “terms/policy” is also favorable.
I may sign up after Jango fixes their terms/policies to be clear on what I am agreeing to. section 5 to 7 means nothing to me when I see no section 5-17.
Iron maiden just finished as I finish typing this… Some other band is playing now in the same style… not sure who.
So far I like it.
My opinion as a first time user of Jango.
Just click on The Scorpions… hmm. Cool.
Anyone else try it?
User wise I’m impressed…
March 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
call me idealistic, but i personally am interested in seeing the artist get paid, not pay. i pirate because the MAFIAA screws the artists, and ONLY use things like TuneCore that effectively puts money in the artists pocket (and yes, i PAY for shit on TuneCore). how does this Jango do that? it sounds like this is just ‘marketing’ for the artists to EVENTUALLY get paid, by in effect paying for payola?
call me confused, but if the artist somehow gets paid, im listening….
stw
March 6th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Mr. Kaufman,
You don’t know how much I want to be wrong about Jango, but I have yet to see a business based on musicians paying to have their music performed that ever did musicians any good.
As to your response, here is my reply, point by point:
- Guaranteed amount of plays.
Actually, that’s not what I said at all, or what I “seem to think.” I did note that what stations they are played on depends on who they say they are similar to, and whether or not they are actually similar to that artist, or the other artists that Jango says that the original artist is similar to, seems to be a rather arbitrary choice. The fact that Jango can slot the paying artist in as often as Jango wants only tells me that Jango can slot the paying artist in as often as Jango wants. It doesn’t tell me a thing about how or when or why it gets that slot.
- Results reporting.
I couldn’t find information on tracking anywhere on the site, so I stand corrected on this point. It is good to know that the information is available, but the paying artist still has to take the accuracy of the reports pretty much on faith. As for the communication with fans, Facebook and MySpace provide the same capacity. For free.
- Exact artist targeting
I picked the Velvet Underground because the group is often cited by current groups as an influence. According to my Jango Velvet Underground station, Jango thinks the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys are similar to the Velvet Underground, apparently because they all started recording in the 60s. A paying artist who wants to be heard on the Velvet Underground station is, no matter how you slice and dice the time, heard in the context of Rolling Stones and Beach Boys records, whether or not the paying artist thinks his or her music is similar to theirs.
- Size & targeting
Your comment actually makes my point. With a “tremendous number of songs” being played every day, the impact of a $30 purchase of a 1,000 plays diminishes, especially when EVERYBODY who pays the same amount is entitled to the same amount of plays.
Your math doesn’t really prove out. If a paying artist wants 1,000 plays in a week (which you say can be accommodated) on a Velvet Underground station, and each of those plays is just 3 minutes long, that’s a total of 50 hours of play time, or, just about 1/12 of the total play time in that week for a single channel. If there are 11 other playing artists who ask for the same deal, there’s no time left for any Velvet Underground on that one Velvet Underground station. At this rate, it would only take about 50 Velvet Underground “sound alikes” to fill up a month of programming. The odds of hearing any particular “new” V.U.-like group grow longer and longer the more candidates there are.
I understand that you might be oversimplifying things for public consumption, but the way you have presented this doesn’t really make me confident you can deliver what you promise.
- Quality review
While I agree that there are a lot of good unknown artists out there, $30 is not really raising the stakes very high as far proving an artist is “serious.” That’s about what a case of Heineken costs, which hardly qualifies as a major career investment.
And if Jango’s quality control is the department telling you that the Beach Boys are similar to Velvet Underground, I’d look into that.
- Listener control
Your limitations on how often airplay songs are heard, and played to an individual listener per day would seem to cap the maximum number of airplay songs you can use. Based on those numbers. by my calculation, each of your listeners have to spend at least an hour listening to music on the site to hear a single “airplay” song if each song played is only 3 minutes long, and they have to stay on a single station for that entire hour in order to be sure to hear it. To hear a second Airplay song, you need to spend another uninterrupted hour on the same station.
Given these considerations, more important that your millions of unique hits or hundreds of thousands of daily visitors is the total length of time they stay, and the amount of time they spend listening to individual stations, isn’t it? If they are just hit and run listeners, that’s quite a bit different than those who plug you in for the long haul.
And if someone “skips” the Airplay song, does that count against the 1,000?
- Royalties
Saying that any registered Airplay artist will get a cut of performance royalties is simply misleading without pointing out it will take a major investment by the paying artist, and that the returns will be minimal, at best.
By my estimation, those 1,000 plays will generate about $1.50 in performance royalties (at a per-play royalty of $0.0015). As SoundExchange doesn’t pay out royalties until a registered artist has at least $10 in accumulated royalties, an artist would have to pay Jango for at least 8,334 plays in order to actually receive any performance royalties based on Jango Airplay. At the most favorable rates quoted by Jango in the press release, an artist would have to pay $200 ($100 for 5,000 plays and $100 for the next 4,000) to get to the point where he or she might get a $10.50 check from SoundExchange. This takes into consideration SoundExchange having annual expenses running about 25% of royalty revenue. By law, SoundExchange gets to take those expenses off the top before calculating payments. And that’s if Jango is actually submitted detailed play information to SoundExchange covering every use on every individual station, and if SoundExchange can actually handle that information. Neither of those are a given.
This math was easy. Not being straightforward about this just makes it more difficult to believe anything else you say.
While your response does provide some clarification on technical points, you really don’t address the basic premise of my comment; if Jango is successful at drawing a large number of paying artists to its playlist, the sheer competition among them for the available listeners will greatly diminish the impact any individual’s music will have on those listeners, and this will give your paying artists a whole lot less bang for their thirty bucks. It’s a great service if you are the only artist paying for it. It’s probably still very good if you are among the first couple hundred artists. After that, the returns rapidly approach the vanishing point, especially if you think your sound is like what a lot of other paying artists think they are also like.
With Jango’s self-imposed use limitations on Airplay songs, if a paying artist wanted 1,000 plays in a week, he will need 1,000 unique listener visits to his chosen “sounds like” artists in that week, with those listeners each spending one uninterrupted hour (at 3 minutes a song) within that week to make sure he reaches that level of saturation, or 1,000 hours of total listening time. That’s a lot, and that’s attainable only if there is no other Airplay song in competition with his. If there’s one challenger, he’s going to have to double the number of individual listener hours in order for his song to reach someone. After that, the potential returns on that $30 start to approach the vanishing point.
It all comes down to the numbers. The odds that Jango will actually be a breakthrough platform for one artist increase with every artist who sends them $30. At the same time, the odds that you will be that one artist decrease with every other artist who sends them $30. If you can’t limit the competition, the competition will simply overwhelm you. Jango encourages everyone to dream the dream, and charges for it, while not being forthright about the chances that the dream will come true, or that the chances decrease with every artist Jango signs up.
History tells us that artists who pay to have their music heard rarely succeed. I think artists should consider Jango a raffle ticket. The more people who buy those raffle tickets, the smaller the chance you’ve got the winning one. It might pay off, but it isn’t likely to, and I wouldn’t spend next month’s rent money on it. I hope you can prove me wrong. If you do, I will be the first to admit it.
I wish you and Jango all the luck in the world, Dan. I hope you help artists find the audience their music deserves. I just suspect that the more successful you get in signing up artists, the less successful you will be in making them successful because the impact of Jango will be diluted.
March 6th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Fred,
It’s Dan Kaufman, not Dan Glickman, but I can see how easily one can confuse the two.
March 6th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
^^ Fixed.
Cheers!
March 6th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
@ Dredd:
That may not have been a fair comparison.
: )
March 6th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Perhaps … time will tell.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Apologies to both Dans, and thanks, Jon.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:29 am
“so any artist signed up with SoundExchange will get their cut of that.”
So … ah, I take it Dan doesn’t actually read P2pnet, or he’d realize how stupid that comment is.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
“…or he’d realize how stupid that comment is.”
Maybe the comment wasn’t “stupid”.
There’s bound to be a shitload of people in these kinds of businesses who are under the (false) impression that SoundExchange is working “as designed”, and that it’s a good thing. Not everybody is aware of what’s happening with that, and you can’t “fault” those who don’t just because they didn’t catch the stuff posted here.
Spin, propaganda, and “positive promotion” all take massive public information efforts to correct.
Now that Dan is following p2pnet to some degree, that scenario may change.