Bought 4000 plays at Jango.com

[Johnny-Boy]

2 problems I see with Jango. First, a "fan" is someone who "likes" your song. That's hardly a fan imo. Don't want to sound harsh, but most of them probably don't even remember you today. Second problem is the airplay. With radio, when you get airplay, hundreds or even thousands or poeple are listening at the same time. With Jango... There is only one person listening... duh

Now it makes sense how they can cover 4000 plays. That equates to 4000 listeners - one at a time. Is that correct?

John

[[Animals2]]

2 problems I see with Jango. First, a "fan" is someone who "likes" your song. That's hardly a fan imo. Don't want to sound harsh, but most of them probably don't even remember you today.

 

 

I totally agree with this. If I email these people 10 minutes after they become a fan im guessing not many will remember who we are. Some will and I'll try to figure that out. I'll send emails as soon as i can after someone becomes a fan and see how many peopel reply.

 

 

Second problem is the airplay. With radio, when you get airplay, hundreds or even thousands or poeple are listening at the same time. With Jango... There is only one person listening... duh

 

 

 

Yeah theres no way they could broadcast everybody's songs one at a time to a bunch of listeners. It would take months/years to get through plays. But if they could, it certainly wouldn't be $100 for 4000 plays.

[[Animals2]]

Now it makes sense how they can cover 4000 plays. That equates to 4000 listeners - one at a time. Is that correct? John

You were expecting our songs to be played 4000 times, amongst popular established artists, to millions of people for $100?

[[Animals2]]

Here is an email i sent to someone who just became a "fan"

Hi sgarcia,
Thanks for becoming a fan. We really appreciate the support. Do you mind if I ask which song you heard?

Thanks,


Should I say something different? Ask something else? Im sure they wont remember the song, but Im trying to ask something that will engage them in a convo. Thoughts?

Mac

[Johnny-Boy]

You were expecting our songs to be played 4000 times, amongst popular established artists, to millions of people for $100?

Sure I was! I expect to get plenty of bang for my bucks.

John:cool:

[BlueStrat]

true dat...but still, a c-note to reach 7 million listeners is actually not a bad deal, assuming the scheduling is realistic. If all the plays are between midnight and 5 AM, not so much...this would easily fall under 'promotional expenses', rather than 'pay to play'.

Just because the website has 7 million claimed listeners, doesn't mean the music will ever reach 7 million listeners, or 700 for that matter. The problem with internet distribution isn't the distribution, it's getting people to listen.

[[Animals2]]

Just because the website has 7 million claimed listeners, doesn't mean the music will ever reach 7 million listeners, or 700 for that matter. The problem with internet distribution isn't the distribution, it's getting people to listen.

 

 

Well if I paid for 4000 listens then it will reach 4000 listeners. Whether they are actually listening or not, who knows.

 

Here stats as of today:

 

Your all time activity: 714 plays (705 paid), 27 total likes, 24 fans, 5 views

 

Still at around 4% of the number of people who "listen" become a fan. I would say the 5 views is a key stat. These are people I can assume heard the song and liked it enough to actually look at our profile.

 

Of our 24 fans I have sent an email to probably 5 of them trying to engage in some sort of conversation and have not had 1 response.

[[Animals2]]

After the first week here are the stats:

Your all time activity: 1580 plays (1539 paid), 53 total likes, 45 fans, 13 views


the difference between play and paid plays (41) is people who liked the song they heard enough to view our profile and listen to another song.

[[Animals2]]

update:

Your all time activity: 3344 plays (3275 paid), 108 total likes, 77 fans, 26 views

[daddymack]

Okay, so now that you are 3/4 of the way through the plays, the big question is: what did this do for the band?

 

See, even if people listen, even if they pay for downloads, are there enough of them to recoup your initial outlay?

Will they be waiting to buy your next release?

Will they follow you on Facebook/MySpace/Twitter...sing your praises to everyone they meet?

 

BlueStrat touched on something I have maintained all along, but I'm a bit more jaded about it. The real issue is the passivity and anonymity of the web. If I am on a website already, and I notice something that says the Joe Blow Band's new release for free...I may click it...but what are the odds I would spend the thirteen seconds to search for the Joe Blow Band? Nil, Zippo, Nada, Nope...and therein lies the real crux of why the internet is a weak sales/marketing tool for unknown bands...it requires a level of responsiveness and action from the target...and that is just not going to happen 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % of the time.

[[Animals2]]

Okay, so now that you are 3/4 of the way through the plays, the big question is: what did this do for the band? See, even if people listen, even if they pay for downloads, are there enough of them to recoup your initial outlay? Will they be waiting to buy your next release? Will they follow you on Facebook/MySpace/Twitter...sing your praises to everyone they meet? BlueStrat touched on something I have maintained all along, but I'm a bit more jaded about it. The real issue is the passivity and anonymity of the web. If I am on a website already, and I notice something that says the Joe Blow Band's new release for free...I may click it...but what are the odds I would spend the thirteen seconds to search for the Joe Blow Band? Nil, Zippo, Nada, Nope...and therein lies the real crux of why the internet is a weak sales/marketing tool for unknown bands...it requires a level of responsiveness and action from the target...and that is just not going to happen 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % of the time.

 

 

I knew from the begining this wasn't going to get us on yo mtv raps or anything. I just thought it was kinda cool and the stats and demographics are interesting.

 

We will have around 100 people who have declared themselves "fans". We will try to figure out some way to engage these people and get them involved. Sure it's not likely, but why not try?

[daddymack]

Well, there it is, though...you have ~paid $1 per potential buyer.

From the business standpoint, maybe workable if it translates into future sales or improved marketing.

Did you make any $ off of downloads to defray that?

Did you get any written feedback on your material?

Did your Myspace/website/Facebook/etc. traffic increase?

[mathewsnow]

I mean, you have to spend money to make money. Jango's monthly traffic isn't too bad according to compete.com:

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/jango.com+pandora.com+last.fm/

[daddymack]

yes, but the hard part is translating their traffic into $ in your pocket...I still contend that the internet is far too passive a medium to generate adequate sales as a third party without the ability to launch a huge advertising campaign on other media as well.

[mathewsnow]

yes, but the hard part is translating their traffic into $ in your pocket...I still contend that the internet is far too passive a medium to generate adequate sales as a third party without the ability to launch a huge advertising campaign on other media as well.

Yeah, I do agree. Nothing can really compete with an old-fashioned mass media campaign (end-cap placement in stores; interviews; music video; magazine reviews; tour) funded by a label. The web is just a small, but growing piece of the machine and learning to leverage it correctly is still in many ways a crap shoot.

But still, I don't view a $100 dollar experiment as a total waste...it carries some learning value at the very least, and after reading about the experience here, I personally don't think I'd use Jango.

But on the flip-side, what alternatives are there for real exposure? There was a band I used to like called Guster who sold more than 10,000 copies of their first two records through word-of-mouth and constant touring--playing more than 250 shows a year. Sure, you might get lucky and come up with a clever idea for a video but there's no guarantee that it will go viral and yield millions of hits...or that those millions of hits will result in sales or a larger, more lucrative opportunity.

One of my idols - Joseph Campbell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell) implores us to simply follow our bliss without fear, and doing so will open more doors than we ever could have imagined. I hope he's right...but I'm still not quitting my day job.

[Scafeets]

I just visited Jango and I gotta say: It's an interesting concept for developing a fan base. One of the options it to target your paid plays by location, age and gender. Obviously, selecting your home town, target market, or tour locations makes great sense.

I don't know how many listeners they really have, and this might be severely restricted when you refine your audience by location. But if they have the ears, this a'int bad.

I'm not so sure this model works for mass exposure, for all the reasons already discussed here. But for the purposes of consumer feedback and fan base development, it seems like a logical tool.

I do wonder about how refined the music selection is when they serve it up to the listener. When I first went on, I selected "classic rock" and the first song up was from DJ Khaled feat. Lil Wayne (WTF??!!) followed by Springsteen. I then went to "alternative" -- of which they have many flavors -- and got Green Day.

Let us know what hapopens next, and good luck!

[Kramerguy]

My understanding was that Jango considered a play a play, in the loosest sense of the word; meaning when your song comes up on someone's play list, and they hit the "skip" button even if it only plays for .33 of a second, it counts as a play. A paid play may be that the user did, or didn't skip your next song.

 

Naysayers claim that they will group your songs close together to get that stat, thus beefing up your stats (for your pleasure), but with no real measurable success in terms of real sales or fans.

 

4000 plays / equaling 200 hours for internet radio seems unbelievable, and when it sounds too good to be real....

[SBF3000]

I could see how this would be an ok deal, I wonder if LASTFM has anything like this, I have not heard of a lot of bands that play in their cue, bought some MP3s that way

[[Animals2]]

Here are the final stats:

Your all time activity: 4095 plays (4000 paid), 132 total likes, 93 fans, 34 views

It's obviously hard to tell what to believe with the reports, but to me an important thing we learned was which songs these people liked the most (and it definitely wasn't what we thought were our "most popular" songs.)

We are going to try to come up with a way to engage the 93 people who became fans and I will update here if anything "works"

[mathewsnow]

Looking forward to an update!

[LondonSi]

I tried Jango for a while, and bought a few thousand plays. I was 'lucky' enough to be gifted 5,000 plays by coming in the Top 5 Artists one week, which was quite an accolade.

 

My experience is this:

 

- You can get a large number of fans very quickly

 

- I have no idea what constitutes a fan or a play, and it seems there's really no way of finding out. I think there are tenuous links to be being a fan.

 

- Of the fans I had email for (several hundred) I emailed them saying sign up to my Facebook page and mail me back and I would send a free CD. Not a single person did either.

 

- It's organic plays that seem to be really interesting there, not paid ones. When I was a featured artist I got around 100 organic plays per day for around 5 days before it slipped off again... which tells you of the alleged 7m people signed up and receiving the weekly email, 500 clicked through to listen to the top featured artist that week...I personally think the two figures don't add up.

 

- I will use up the remaining 4,000 credits I have, then I won't return here I don't think...I don't think there's anything in it beyond paying to receiving an ego boost!

[Blackwatch]

I don't think there's anything in it beyond paying to receiving an ego boost!

 

 

 

Cheaper than a Hooker.....

 

But not quite the same release.......

[LondonSi]

Cheaper than a Hooker..... But not quite the same release.......

unless you know one who goes for 200 hours for $100. if you do, best of luck to you.

[jvelte23]

Killer! I'm going to check this out!

[IslandKeys]

Well they aren't lying about their amount of visitors. Looks like a lot of them are from the Philippines
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jango.com#

$100 is a good deal for that amount of playtime, even in off hours.