One of Music Geek Services’ newest clients is Rhett Miller (of the Old ’97′s). We just signed Rhett up to Topspin as he launched a PledgeMusic campaign for his next studio solo album project to be released on his own label. We wanted to make sure that during the pledge campaign we were taking advantage of all opportunities to drive traffic to the PledgeMusic project page.

So, when you use the email4media widget to sign-up for Rhett’s mailing list on his web site:

…and you confirm your sign-up, we use the Download Anywhere customization features to display a message from Rhett about his PledgeMusic campaign and deliver the fan to the actual project page on the PledgeMusic web site. You can also choose to share the news on your Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Thanks,
Chandler
Music Geek Services

If you are using the email for media widgets just for mailing list sign-ups without offering a track for download you can still utilize the Download Anywhere. The download page will just be a landing page of sorts after the fan clicks the “Confirm” button in the email.

The new customizable settings they have recently added are the ability to insert an image into the modal window, set the size of the modal window, control the text of the close link, and even put a background image under the overlay. It isn’t clear, yet, if you can use the modal box image with a download button — at least I couldn’t get it to work with both. As the image covers up where the download button would normally appear.

However, I currently have a client that is currently using the e4m widget just for mailing list sign-ups so I gave the new settings a shot. Here’s a screen shot of the result…

Music Geek Services has been working with Dropcards for over two years. They were a big success at the Sloan merch table on the North American tours over the past two years. They allowed Sloan to sell their digital-only EP at the shows. They were often bundled with buttons, stickers, or a poster and sold for $5. This allowed a fan to take something physical away from the show even though the EP was a digital-only release.

Now Topspin has partnered directly with Dropcards so that you can generate redemption codes within Topspin, connect to your Topspin account inside Dropcards, and allow your fans to redeem the download or merchandise through the Topspin platform. It is an exciting integration that is sure to become a popular feature of both services.

Best of all, you can sign-up for a free account with Dropcards to learn more before you ever get around to ordering the physical cards.

Here’s the promo video that Topspin included in their recent blog post announcing this service to their users:

Watch the webcast via the archive.


News & Announcements

Product Development

Partnership and Facebook Integration with Root Music
Gives you the ability to put a Topspin store inside a Root Music Facebook Band Page. Rolled out this week. If you notice any bugs, please email Bob.

Page Gate Technical Specs
Parker wrote up a “how-to” and posted it in the forums.

Expression Engine Topspin Module
Has been submitted by Oniracom and is being reviewed by Topspin. Keep your eyes peeled on the Topspin blog for news as to its upcoming release.

Topspin is Hiring
Topspin is looking to hire the following positions:
Software Engineer (RAILS and BDD-nerd)
Software Engineer
User Experience Designer and Creative Director
Director of Marketing (SEO, SEM, DSP Expert Required)
Fan Support Specialist

Artist Spotlights and Features

Artist Facebook Pages That Integrates Root Music Band Page and Topspin
Pixies
Beastie Boys
Matisyahu


Topspin Community Q&A

Q: How does one style the purchase flow white
A: This is done when you are creating the buy button in the Topspin app.

Q: Who developed the Drupal/Topspin integration?
A: 80 Elements

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.



Music Geekery
Back in 2005 Chicago-based musician, Devin Davis, released his debut album “Lonely People of the World, Unite!”. The story was that Devin recorded most of this album in his basement apartment. The well-crafted pop songs bring to mind Brendan Benson, The Raconteurs, Sloan, and even Elliott Smith. I even hear some Neil Young influence, at least in the guitar tones and the shaky tenor vocals. I discovered the album in the summer of 2005 and I played it a lot. The album kicks off with “Iron Woman” that will certainly have you singing along before the end of the first chorus, trust me.

I saw Devin open up for Smoosh at Schubas and was impressed with how well he pulled off these carefully crafted and orchestrated songs in a solo setting. In April 2006 I had the honor of mixing sound, and recording, another Devin Davis solo show at the private venue Hotel S n’ S in Chicago. It was part of a Jeff Tweedy charity benefit house concert weekend. Amidst a large crowd in a packed, dark basement of a condo in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, armed only with his acoustic guitar, Devin had the crowd singing along to these awesome songs. I still pull that recording out, every once in a while, and give it a spin.

Do yourself a favor and seek out this album. You can stream tracks on his web site and some of them are up on YouTube. If you like what you hear, please seek out this album and buy it. There is no current information on his web site, wiki page, or anywhere else that I can find as to what happened to his planned 2007 album or what he’s up to currently. If I find out, I’ll let you know.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-Certified Marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.

Watch the webcast via the archive.


News & Announcements

Product Development

New Streaming Players Launched This Week
New players have fill-frame setting. May need to adjust your existing installation of these HTML5 players if you adjusted your size settings to preserve aspect ration. In the near future you can set the aspect ratio when you are creating the player in the publishing interface. Another upcoming piece that will be added is more customizability (skinning/styling). The skinning stuff will be launched the week of 6/6, hopefully. Then the following week there will be deeper XML customization (targeting the player controls).

Partnership and Tech Integration with Root Music
Will be announced and launched on Monday 6/6.

iFrame Embed Codes vs. Flash Embed Codes
While some users love the old Flash embed codes, the web is really not Flash-friendly, especially on mobile devices. Of course, MySpace doesn’t like iFrames. But Topspin is siding with the web masses (including the YouTube way) and moving away from Flash embed codes.

Artist Spotlights and Features

Randy Travis Custom Gating Stream Behind e4m
Chris Carlson wrote a blog post about the recent Randy Travis use of an e4m gating a full album stream.

Kevin Smith SmodCast
Bob mentioned some cool things being done by filmmaker Kevin Smith on his podcast SmodCast web site. They are starting with really basic, but great deal. What is worth watching is that each week things are going to change with that offer using some creative ways of using Topspin.

Topspin Community Q&A

Q: We’re still not able to get a widget on our Facebook fanpage.
A: Check out this thread in the Topspin Community forums

Q: International billing (Brazil???), how is that going?
A: Still something they need to move forward, but no new information or progress as of now.

Q: How about changing the time to ship [for products]?
A: You can only do that, right now, via the pre-order functionality. Under normal circumstances you shouldn’t sell when you can’t ship right away. But, Topspin understands there are certain circumstances where this is unavoidable. Put the question in the Community Forums as there are other concerns surrounding this that need to be discussed before this can be considered further.

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.

Webcast Archives
Each week Topspin archives these webcasts on their site. You can check them out here.


Music Geekery
The webcast opened with a sampling of the classic album Desolation Boulevard by Sweet. Ian and Bob discussed that they were essentially a ‘Backstreet Boys’ of their day in the U.K., a pre-fab band produced to sound like Bowie and T-Rex. I, personally, don’t think it was that contrived and that Sweet were unfairly painted as ‘bubblegum’ or compared to The Monkees due to the pairing with the songwriting team of Chapman-Chinn, who often brought in session musicians.

The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was released one year after the U.K. version, and was actually a combination of tracks from Sweet’s prior release Sweet Fanny Adams. One side contained all Chapman-Chinn songs, the other side was all Sweet originals. Another interesting bit of information – the version of “Fox On The Run” included on the U.S. L.P. was the 7″ variation which was much different than the original (U.K. album) version. The original version didn’t have the synth parts we’ve come to know and love and definitely has a rawer sound. The U.K. album also included a cover of The Who’s “My Generation“.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-Certified Marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Attwater, Twenty Ten Music, Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.

Friday May 27, 2011 11a PT
Broadcasting from a secret remote Topspin location
Ian Rogers (C.E.O.), Andrew Mains (V.P., Artist and Label Relations and Services), and Jason Spitz (Director, Marketing). With special guest Alessandro Cortini (SONOIO).

Watch the webcast via the archive.

News & Announcements

International Fulfillment

Topspin used to have the option to have a different fulfiller in each continent. While this was good for shipments, it was not in terms customer service or inventory management. It was just plain confusing for fans.

For the future, Topspin is setting up centralized control of worldwide fulfillment. So Topspin handles the customer service and the inventory management, but contracts with warehouses where appropriate. Being used by Paul McCartney now. This solution lives within the fulfillment business, not the software app. But also can be controlled by your own fulfillment vendor, provided they manage the multiple shipping locations properly. Bottom line is it is not going to be handled within the software.

Guest Topspin Employee – Andrew Mains

Andrew is Vice-President, Artist and Label Relations and Services. Oversees the professional services department of Topspin. Prior to Topspin, Andrew worked at Interscope for nine years in many areas, including “new media” efforts.

Product Development

Topspin/Facebook Store Launched This Week
It was a total ground-up re-write. The whole purchase flow stays within Facebook. For Topspin users it is really simple to set-up. If you watch the video within the app, and you already have your Topspin Spinshop configured, you can set it up in less than 5 minutes w/in Facebook. More details about the Topspin Facebook Store can be found via this blog post.

New Streaming Players Launched This Week
Much more streamlined and a lot better looking. The sharing buttons are in a better location. The call-to-action button is bigger, and in a better location. They are HTML5, not solely Flash-based. So they work on “i” devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). Skinning functionality is coming in the next few weeks. When the video or audio plays, it provides a clean look without the buttons or controls. More details on the updated streaming player and other features released at the same time are detailed in this blog post by Jason Spitz.

Fan/Email Section Revisions, Progress?
Still currently being worked on, no target completion dates, yet.

Artist Spotlights and Features

Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole
Mountain Apple Company and their artist, the late Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole were featured in the first edition of the Topspin Artist Spotlight blog post.

Special Artist Guest: SONOIO
Alessandro Cortini who works under the moniker, SONOIO, stopped by the Topspin office and was interviewed by Ian. He has a new album, out now. Ian and Alessandro were discussing the bounds of the “album” package should really be what is comfortable for the artist, not what is dictated by the industry. This was a topic recently discussed by Bob Lefsetz. Be it 4 songs, 8 songs, or 15 songs, or more. He sells more digital tracks from his own web site than he does via iTunes.

Topspin Community Q&A

Q: Is there a way to add a free offer to the Topspin Facebook tab, without adding it to the Spinshop store?
A: No, there is not. But you can create a separate tab. For more info, check out this post in the Topspin Community Forum.

Q: How about setting up Topspin to recommend other services, like audio engineers.
A: Really out-of-scope for the Topspin platform. But a great idea, in general.

Q: How do you set-up gated fan-club access for external features, like Tiny Chat?
A: Ask in the Forums. Also, Bob Moz mentioned they’ll try to work on a detailed guide on how to do it.

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.

Webcast Archives
Each week Topspin archives these webcasts on their site. You can check them out here.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-Certified Marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.

Friday May 6, 2011 11a PT
Broadcasting from Topspin HQ in Santa Monica, CA
Ian Rogers (C.E.O.), w/ Brad Barrish (Sales/Artist Relations), Jason Spitz (Director of Marketing) and a special guest appearance by Parker Todd Brooks (Pro Services).

Watch the webcast via the archive.

News & Announcements

Product Development

Without their resident platform cheerleader, Bob Moz, there were wasn’t much discussion on the new features we are all waiting for except that things are getting closer for the new streaming player (5/23), the new Facebook store (very, very soon), the new email functionality (making fast progress).

RCRD DEALS – a RCRDLBL and Topspin Partnership

RCRDLBL and Topspin have partnered together and created a weekly music deals web site/service called RCRD DEALS. It is related to the email opt-in at the end of the purchase flow for music-related deals (which can be turned off by the artist if you don’t want your fans to be presented with it). Not surprisingly, a lot of people sign-up for this Topspin mailing list and Topspin has been trying to figure out how to put this list to use. Yesterday was the first time Topspin sent out a message to that list. Topspin only plans to send out to that list when they have a really, really, great deal on a great product, at the most weekly. The deal this week is a Band of Horses deal for $49.00. This site could be “dangerous” for the bank account as the pricing seems unbelievable for some really well put together premium packages and products.

The Music Biz Weekly Podcast – Interview with Ian Rogers

Episode eight of The Music Biz Weekly, a weekly podcast co-hosted by Michael Brandvold (@michaelsb) and Brian Thompson (@thornybleeder), featured Ian as a guest in a very lively 40 minute long show. “We had an amazing discussion with Ian on social media, music marketing, and of course the Topspin direct-to-fan marketing platform.” said Brian, about the episode.

I listened to it and it was a great discussion giving a lot of details about Topspin as well as examples of artists using Topspin at all levels. Also a bit of a discussion on making the time to connect with your customers and prospective customers in a personal way. It can win customers for life when you make yourself available to them.

Special Guest: Brad Barrish (West Coast Sales/Artist Relations)

Weekly Demos

This week Ian introduced us to Brad Barrish who works in sales and artist relations, mostly on the West Coast. Brad has been with Topspin for about 2 years and is the staff person who does the weekly WebEx demos. Brad’s weekly demos are done live and are limited to up to 25 attendees, which allows for an interactive discussion after Brad finishes the scripted part of the demo. It is open to anyone and is a great way to learn about the service, to learn how other artists are using Topspin, and get your question answered by someone with deep knowledge of the platform.

Brad’s primarily responsible for getting new business going, focused on the West Coast. Ian asked what’s the biggest challenge for bands to understand direct-to-consumer, Brad said the biggest challenge is getting their head around how the platform works. Getting them to understand that is not magic. That it takes time — especially to do the email acquisition and awareness up-front.

Forecasting Before Selling via Topspin

Ian and Brad discussed a great tool they use to forecast campaigns they do with artists. Topspin came up with a spreadsheet, which is available to anyone, that takes all the variables such as costs and pricing and figures out what the projected margins. It also helps with estimating potential sales based on social reach and size of email list. Typically the biggest impact is having a larger and up-to-date email list. Forecasting Before Selling via Topspin

Membership (VIP) Product

They also discussed the membership features of the Topspin platform. Artists of all sizes can use these features. Big, big artists like Linkin Park, but also smaller artists like Jim Noir. A misconception is that fan clubs are only for major artists. The truth is that there are a lot of things you can do even at the smaller artist level. Brad is very interested in working with smaller artists to explore the membership features and encourages smaller bands that are interested in exploring this to reach out to Topspin. The feature lets you “gate” products and chat behind the membership, allowing an artist to super-serve their biggest fans. Artists at all levels can take advantage of this by just getting creative with connecting with their more active and avid fans. You can bundle the membership with anything. It can be free of charge with the purchase of an album or other piece of merchandise.

Ticketing

Ian and Brad discussed what artists are doing with Topspin ticketing. Brad said that artists find it very appealing to be able to bundle merchandise with the tickets and that they can offer tickets for lower fees than conventional sources. Brad reminded everyone that you can still work with Topspin ticketing even if your shows are done via another major ticketing agency. The data collected via ticketing is very valuable to the artist. The iPhone/iPad app is free. The showed a great example from Matisyahu. Topspin ticketing is self-service so you can use it to sell tickets to small shows, even living room concerts. You can even have Topspin pay promoters directly.

Topspin just released a new step-by-step how-to video on how to create tickets in Topspin.

Topspin Community Q&A

Q: Facebook store?
A: Still working on the FB store, more updates coming soon

Q: Do you guys handle every aspect of handling the money from taking ticket money to issuing refunds?
A: Yes, our customer service dept can handle doing refunds according to our refund policy and Terms of Service.

Q: Question about the new streaming player. It only shows two tracks with the scroll bar. Can it be tweaked so you can see all of the tracks listed, like the old player?
A: Not yet, but the revised version of this player is targeted to go live on Monday May 23. Not sure if that specific feature will be part of that week’s release, yet.

Q: PayPal?
A: Yes, Topspin does PayPal in most circumstances.

Q: How do you pay promoters in foreign currencies?
A: If you are selling tickets/merchandise in foreign currency and Topspin drops the cash into a bank account in that currency, then they pay from that account. This avoids the conversion fees that you’d pay in both directions.

Q: News on accepting Brazilian currency?
A: No news, yet. But it is definitely on the list.

Q: I’ve been researching Topspin for a while and you guys are great, but I’ve heard sometimes it takes a while for merchandise to ship out, how do you guys deal with frustrated customers?
A: It should not take longer than next day if the merchandise is in stock. Topspin’s fulfillment house ships within 24 hours. If you are handling fulfillment, then they’ll redirect the customer to you for response. However, Topspin has probably the largest customer service (fan services) department in the business and is prepared to properly handle and resolve these issues to the customer’s satisfaction.

Q: Is it possible that TOPSPIN might connect with Flavors.me, the web aggregator? (i.e. Bandcamp and SoundCloud are currently integrated services)
A: No definitive plans yet. But Topspin has been speaking to Flavors.me.

Q: I have an artist who is getting lots of YouTube love for her single, what is the best way to grab those fans using her Topspin account? I have a link to her Topspin integrated VIRB site with an email for media widget on it, any other ideas?
A: This is a timely question since Topspin ran into this very issue with the Beastie Boys this past week. They weren’t sure on what they best way to move people from YouTube over to the artists site/pre-sale/store.

Q: So do we have to design our products, or can you guys do something like district lines where you take it through the development and production process?
A: [Topspin] does not develop or produce your products. But we help you sell them, and we have partnerships with companies [like PAID Inc. or Veoba] who can design & produce merchandise for you.

Q: What is the commitment with TopSpin like? Can you cancel at anytime or is it a binding thing or…? is it exclusive as well?
A: You can cancel any time you want. Not exclusive. If you cancel your account, we keep your data for 90 days if you want to reinstate it.

Q: Do you support school bands?
A: We’d be open to working with school bands. Have them check out our website and email us if they want to discuss.

Q: My legal team will only let me work with companies that are registered. Do you guys have a CA business license or what?
A: We are totally legit and on the up and up.

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.

Upcoming Music-Related Conferences and Events

• Music Hack Day San Francisco – Topspin is hoping to help build a buy button that is controlled by the artist and not tied to a specific platform. That could live on a blog, in streaming radio players, YouTube, etc. Topspin plans to build it as an independent project and work with others in the music tech community in a collaborative effort.
• NARM 2011 Convention – May 9-12 – Los Angeles, CA – Bob, Jason and Andrew Mains will be there this year. Jason will be part of the panel “Product Managers: Get Naked – Part 1 – Getting Back To Marketing Fundamentals in the Music Industry” from 3-5pm on Wednesday May 11. Andrew Mains, Topspin’s VP Artist and Label Relations and Services, also appears on that panel for “Part 3: What Gets Measured, Get Managed”
• Great Escape – Brighton, UK – Ian plans to be there with Topspin co-founder Shamal Ranasinghe, Co-founder of Topspin.

Webcast Archives
Each week Topspin archives these webcasts on their site. You can check them out here.

Music Geekery
The Clash – This week Ian shared the “London Calling” 12″ which featured the dub version of “Armagideon Time” which I never knew existed. London Calling was a huge album for my brother and I during our formative geeking out over music junior high-school years. I still listen to the whole album at least a few times a month. My favorite from that album, beyond the obvious “London Calling”, is “Death or Glory“. I never got a chance to see The Clash or even Joe Strummer live. But I did catch Big Audio Dynamite once, but it was the mid 90′s and they were playing a street festival in Chicago (NortHalsted Market Days), not their best show. Which is a great reason to remind you to go out and see live music whenever you can.

Jon Black – Before the webcast started I spotted the Topspin’s Weekly Free Music Friday blog post that Jason Spitz puts out, which has graciously featured some Music Geek Services clients such as Sloan and artists on The Movings Label. An artist that was featured in this week’s post that I have seen in the Topspin community was Jon Black. He’s giving away a digital 45 which sounds wonderful. I’m listening to it right now as I finish editing this blog post. Go listen and download the songs from Jon Black right away.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-certified marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.

Friday April 29, 2011 11a PT
Broadcasting from Topspin HQ in Santa Monica, CA
Ian Rogers (C.E.O.), w/ Bob Moczydlowsky (VP of Product Marketing) and Jason Spitz (Director of Marketing)

Watch the webcast via the archive.

News & Announcements

Heads Down Week for Topspin Development Team

Bob Moz commented that the new embeddable store offers feature was launched this week, new streaming player development progress continues, there has been cool progress on the new email functionality, and the new Facebook/Topspin Store is still undergoing debugging and quality assurance testing. Overall, it has been a heads down and get some work done week for the Topspin Platform Development team.

A cool thing to look forward to on the new features of the email functionality of the Topspin platform – the ability to have what I call ‘smart triggers‘. Where you can set things up so that people who, for example, purchased tickets to a show in Chicago will get a follow-up email in two weeks time. I can see that being used to either send them some detailed information on where to enter the venue, maybe send them a free track to thank them, timed right before the show, or maybe give them details about a planned meet and greet.

Platform Pricing Updates

Bob reminded us of the Label (bulk) Pricing for accounts was launched last week. Also, he mentioned that there was now monthly Enterprise account pricing ($99.99/mos), which used to just be available for annual ($999/yr) pricing.

Rethink Music Conference in Boston

Ian attended the Rethink Music Conference put on by Berklee College of Music and MIDEM. Ian recalled very prescient comments made by Thomas Hesse, Sony Music Entertainment’s Global Digital Business, US Sales, and Corporate Strategy. In Hesse’s comments you could hear [Sony's] strategy and in recalling Hesse’s comments during the presentation Ian said you could “hear what people were selling [Hesse] and what [Hesse] was ‘buying’”. Ian, paraphrasing Hesse, said “I think we are going to have both a subscription service and a buy it and put it in a locker service”. Hesse also made reference to a subscription service, powered by social networking. Ian guesses that this may mean Spotify + Facebook and Ian sensed that it is real. Ian hoped to blog about it when he has time.

Ian did not exactly specify if Hesse made this point on his panel, but the panel on which Hesse made his presentation was called “Working Together to Create a Bigger Pie Instead of Fighting For Slices of a Shrinking Pie“. Hesse provided the ‘label’ perspective on that panel and made a Ted-style presentation. I tried to find that specific panel in the Rethink Music video archive, but that one appears to be missing.

However, here are some other cool videos from the conference:

• Short interview with Topspin C.E.O. Ian Rogers
• Short Interview with Topspin co-founder and Chairman Peter Gotcher
• The Technology, Data and Music Panel – Featuring Ian Rogers as well as Eric Garland, founder of Big Champagne

Topspin Community Q&A

Q: Any new developments on the upcoming week?
A: Streaming player is (hopefully) due out Mon 5/9 and Facebook debugging is continuing, so no concrete launch date on that.

Q: I have had a request from a blog to be able to disable sharing/embedding for an exclusive placement with a Connect-For-Media widget any way to do this?
A: Can’t on a Connect-For-Media (C4M) widget, but you can on an Email-For-Media widget.

Q: Is it possible to have a e-mail blast setup weekly based on RSS for my blog?
A: Not currently possible, but Ian wouldn’t recommend it, either. He recommends more of a FeedBurner approach. Make sure it is opt-in. Maybe do it newsletter style when there is news to share.

Q: We are creating a t-shirt and we would like to donate a portion of it to a certain cause. Does Topspin have the ability to do this for a physical shirt for sale at the merch booth?
A: Topspin does plan to do more with charitable donations, but no further details at this point. But as for the merch booth, not really possible to do unless you had an iPad or computer at the merch booth and send the items via Topspin later. For the donation portion you would either need to account for that yourself or maybe do ‘split accounting’. Right now, there would also be some issues with tax.

Q; The people that bought items don’t show up in my (fan) email list.
A: By design, there is a wall between fans and purchasers. Buying an item does NOT automatically sign people up to your fan/marketing email list just because they bought a product. They must actually opt-in during the purchase flow.

Q: We were curious if we could hang a tag on the shirt that the fan could redeem for an album download?
A: Yes, create redemption codes. Download a CSV. Print out the codes on the tags. Then use those tags to pin/hang on your merch.

Q: Can we get an update on the potential roadmap for the app for the coming weeks/months?
A: Topspin new email functionality, new data analytics, changes to ways they are dealing with currency. While the Q2 Roadmap is all locked down, beyond that Bob and Ian did not want to get too comprehensive in their explanation for fear of giving away their road map, too early, to their competition. They also did not want to be too specific on ‘ship dates’. Having worked for a software start-up this is because you never know what Q.A. testing will surface. So their approach makes sense to me. Topspin did say that if you had a specific question that you could email them directly.

Q: What about save-able cross-sell options? Pulling from a drop-down menu would be easier than filling out 3 fields for each buy button.
A: Bob is going to answer this directly via email to the questioner.

Q: I’ve seen text-to-donate options from charities. Any idea [how] to do text-to-purchase?
A: Not currently, haven’t sorted it out yet. PIAS [Europe] has done some really cool stuff with payments and merch via mobile.

Q: Any idea why some artists Topspin Facebook stores aren’t showing items in them?
A: Not aware of any bugs in existing Facebook stores. So, please send a support request via Artist Support for troubleshooting.

Q: I’m still showing an issue w/ the new single track players. Images aren’t showing. It works when I hack back to the flash player but doesn’t show images on the html5
A: Report the bug via Artist Support, but hopefully the new players will help completely resolve this issue.

Q: Square (or other similar type of location smartphone card reader service) integration?
A: Topspin is experimenting, but providers of those services aren’t quite ready in terms of an open API for that type of integration. Powerful potential, but not anything concrete on the table at this point.

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.

Upcoming Music-Related Conferences and Events

• Muse Expo – Los Angeles – 5/1-4/2011
• NARM 2011 Convention – May 9-12 – Los Angeles, CA – Bob, Jason and Andrew Mains will be there this year. Jason will be part of the panel “Product Managers: Get Naked – Part 1 – Getting Back To Marketing Fundamentals in the Music Industry” from 3-5pm on Wednesday May 11. Andrew Mains, Topspin’s VP Artist and Label Relations and Services, also appears on that panel for “Part 3: What Gets Measured, Get Managed”
• Great Escape – Brighton, UK – Ian plans to be there with Topspin co-founder Shamal Ranasinghe, Co-founder of Topspin.

Webcast Archives
Each week Topspin archives these webcasts on their site. You can check them out here.

Music Geekery

Love for the Feelies, Remembering Meeting Tommy Keene, Memories of Jay Bennett

Sorry, need to music geek out for a moment, it is only fair, right? Bob mentioned that he has been listening to The Feelies while traveling. Specifically the 2nd track from Good Earth, which would be “The High Road“. Apt choice, Bob. I loved the Feelies and it has been way too long since I heard someone mention actually listening to them recently. So Bob’s cool quotient just went up a few notches, in my book. I saw The Feelies, with my brother Jay, live in late 1987 at the (original) 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. Where I was able to chat with Tommy Keene who was in the audience that night and told him that my brother and I had covered “Places That Are Gone” in our short-lived band, The Hour. Watch that Tommy Keene video and you will spot Mr. Jay Bennet (R.I.P.), post Titanic Love Affair (sort of) and pre-Wilco.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-certified marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.

Since I’ve been watching each week and taking notes as news items are announced and the usual Q&A takes place, it made sense to share my notes and thoughts with the Topspin community to give a user’s perspective on what transpires each week during the webcast. So here’s the first post based on this past Friday’s webcast with Ian and Jason Spitz.

Friday April 22, 2011 11a PT
Broadcasting from Topspin HQ in Santa Monica, CA
Ian Rogers (C.E.O.) w/Jason Spitz (Director of Marketing)

Watch the webcast via the archive.

News & Announcements

Major Updates to Streaming Player Coming Soon

Ian discussed a recent Topspin blog post written by one of Topspin’s newest development team members, Greg Ipp. Greg’s post went into great detail about the background of the old Flash-based streaming player and the new i-device compatible streaming player. The user community has been slightly frustrated about the new streaming player’s lack of configurability. It was great to hear, from Greg and Topspin, that this is being addressed and Ian mentioned things are “really close”, targeting a release in early May. Future updates beyond this next release may include “full skin-ability”. Ian encouraged users to comment, either on Greg’s blog post or in the Topspin Community Forums, if they had any further questions or comments. (After you read the blog post, check out Tricil. He’s the artist featured in all the player images. Power Topspin user, active community member, and all-around cool guy.)

Upcoming Feature: Spinshop Store Offer Items to Be Embeddable

Ian discussed an upcoming feature that will enable Topspin users to “grab code” from elements within their Spinshop store and embed those elements anywhere on the web. So you could grab a single offer or the entire page of offers and embed it into a page on your web site, a page on a label’s web site, even on a tab/page in Facebook. Your fans/consumers or people blogging about your band can even grab the code an embed it in their sites, essentially extending the reach of an artist’s store beyond just what they specifically do themselves – similar to what one can do with Amazon products.

Label (Bulk) Pricing

During the webcast Topspin announced that they had just launched label (bulk) pricing. You can now buy Topspin Plus or Enterprise in 10 blocks. For labels, management companies, or Topspin marketing services companies this enables you to buy the accounts in bulk and either pass along the savings directly to your customers or even mark them up, still providing enough of a discount over regular Topspin pricing, capitalizing on your position of directing multiple Topspin account purchases. The pricing was very attractive, with 10 Topspin Plus accounts for $1,500 (vs. ~$5,000 when purchased separately) or 10 Topspin Enterprise accounts for $2,500 (vs. ~$10,000). The codes never expire, so even smaller labels or firms could buy the 10-pack in advance even if they only needed to use some of them immediately. Knowing they never expire, at worst you could use a left over code to renew an expiring account for an artist. $150 vs. $500, or $250 vs. $1,000 — sounds like a great deal to me.

Topspin Community Q&A

Q: Is there a video streaming player private to Topspin, not public like YouTube?
A: Ian responded that while only Topspin platform users can create the players, but they are fully embeddable/share-able around the web by your fans.

Q: Can I have an offer with a line of text, in the Topspin store, without an image?
A: No, currently all offers must have a related image. But you would need to grab the buy button, grab that code, turn that code into a line of text and then put it where you want it to go.

Q: Can you embed the Spinshop offer “grab a code” embed and use it on Facebook?
A: Parker Todd Brooks (Topspin, Artist Services) looked into this and was able to demonstrate it during the webcast as possible within Facebook.

Q: What is the latest status with the email functionality revamp?
A: Going really well. The developers are actively working on it and will take a little bit of time to get right, but good stuff is coming.

Submit Your Questions for Next Week’s Webcast

Topspin encourages us to submit questions, in advance, whether or not you can attend the web cast, live. You can submit your questions via this Topspin Community Forum Topic.

Artists Using Topspin / New Releases

• Beastie Boys
• DJ Quik
• Widespread Panic – (great live HD video)
• Gomez – (great offer page created by fellow Chicagoans, Eyes and Ears Entertainment)
• Malajube – Yes, that’s right, cassettes are still a viable merch item!

Upcoming Music-Related Conferences and Events

• Rethink Music – Boston – 4/25-27/2001 – Ian plans to represent Topspin at this conference being put on by MIDEM and Berklee – , if you are going look him up.
• Muse Expo – Los Angeles – 5/1-4/2011
• Great Escape – Brighton, UK – Ian plans to be there with Topspin co-founder Shamal Ranasinghe, Co-founder of Topspin.

Webcast Archives
Each week Topspin archives these webcasts on their site. You can check them out here.

Music Geek Services is an artist services company based in Chicago and Nashville. Headed by brothers Jay and Chandler Coyle, Music Geek Services is a Topspin-certified marketer that specializes in helping artists achieve deeper connections with their fans through digital media. We provide a full suite of artist services including web development and design, Topspin platform consulting and execution, social media consulting, project management, and full-service artist management.

We have worked with Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, The Zambonis, The Odds, The Movings Label, Walter & Wendell, Dick Prall, Mike Evin, Dolly Varden, Steve Dawson, The Carter Administration, Broken: a Musical, and Callann Lane.