Digital music sales tripled to nearly $1.1 billion, up from $400 million a year ago, but this sharp increase is not enough to compensate for the decline of physical CD purchases. Meanwhile, independent filmmakers, music artists, record labels and music publishers now account for more than a third of the entire U.S. music and film market, and that segment is even higher overseas. One way the music industry can break the cycle of its six-year decline in overall sales is to showcase a much broader independent segment. An incredible market opportunity exists for a service that can provide an efficient, convenient and scaleable platform combining sales and promotion capabilities to generate revenue for independent media creators through direct-to-market transactions and storefront extensibility.
Our Response
Speakerheart enables artists to upload their own albums and tracks, convert their songs to ringtones, set their prices and sell it all side-by-side in custom storefronts. Next, artists can take the Speaker (preview function) and Heart (bookmark function) with them across the Web via promotional tools called Shelves to allow consumers to browse wherever HTML is accepted (think MySpaceT, BloggerT, artist pages and more).
Speakerheart features:
Intuitive Self-Uploading Toolset — Artists upload their music, create customized track samples and ringtones
Get Revenue — Earn money and get detailed sales reports
Start Charting — All sales are reported to SoundScan automatically
Interoperability — Offer Mac- and PC-compatible, high-quality MP3s
Viral Marketing Tools — Artist and fans take their music with them across the Web via promotional tools called "Shelves" so they can add a digital download component to their MySpace page, artist website, etc., multiplying artist exposure
Keep Your Money — Artist earns 75 cents on the dollar for their music, while retaining all rights
Comprehensive Reporting — Track their sales and page views
PayPal Integration — Turn their sales into cash through the simplicity and security of PayPal
