Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Photo: BMW

While BMW has outpaced its German rivals in getting apps into the dash, the brand is behind Detroit in the app space, particularly in spreading the love beyond Apple. Case in point: Owners of BMW models equipped with the BMW Apps options (and also Mini vehicles with Mini Connected) can now add Stitcher SmartRadio to the system’s handful of existing apps. This is more than a year and a half after Ford made Stitcher available for its Sync AppLink system and more than six months after GM added the app to certain Buick, GMC and Chevy infotainment systems.

As with those domestic brands, BMW’s Stitcher SmartRadio app allows drivers access to thousands of talk radio programs, live broadcasts and podcasts from around the world, including content from NPR, BBC, NBC and the Wall Street Journal. The app also includes Stitcher’s new Smart Station feature that recommends programs based on user’s personal preferences – similar to Pandora – and it’s operated via a BMW vehicle’s iDrive controller. “BMW Apps adopts the familiar BMW display and controls to ensure that all functions can be operated comfortably, simply, safely and intuitively while minimizing driver distraction,” BMW told Wired in an e-mail.

The free Stitcher app can be used in any BMW equipped with the $250 BMW Apps option (or again, with Mini Connected). But if you own a compatible BMW and don’t own an iPhone or iPad you can’t get access to Stitcher using BMW Apps – or any other ConnectedDrive-specific apps, including Facebook and Twitter integration. BMW recently announced that it will add Android compatibility for most of its ConnectedDrive features, although not until the middle of next year. Of course, there’s always Bluetooth streaming, although you lose the ability to use the car’s controls and instead have to fumble with the phone.

In the meantime, BMW is throwing a bone to its Android-toting drivers by giving them access to one ConnectedDrive feature. The free My BMW Remote app that allows controlling aspects of the car from afar can now be download from Google Play and used with compatible vehicles that have an active subscription to the BMW Assist telematics system. Features include the ability to remotely lock and unlock the doors, activate the horn and parking lights to help find a vehicle in a parking lot and adjust the climate controls and use a timer function to preheat or precool the car. The app will also show a car’s location on a map and guided the owner to it as long as it’s no more than a mile away, and can send points of interest found using a Google Local Search to the vehicle’s navigation system.

You’ve probably heard that the music industry is undergoing yet another digital upheaval.

Consumers are gaining access to all types of services from ad-supported Internet radio to on-demand subscriptions.

Some prominent artists, on the other hand, are still clinging to traditional models to sell their music. Jay-Z, Coldplay, the Black Keys, and a slew of indie artists and labels have publicly resisted the digital age dominated by the likes of Spotify.

And even the digital music startups themselves are scrapping over important details in their business models. Recently, SoundExchange president Michael Huppe and Pandora’s Tim Westergren were duking it out over royalty rates. Spotify and Rdio have said their responsibility ends after making payment to the labels–never mind what the artists are actually pulling down. MOG product lead Anu Kirk has acknowledged that it’s a bad time for artists. “It sucks,” he recently said. “It sucks right now that artists are getting paid so little money by subscription services, but it sucks that artists are getting paid so little money by everyone.”

As part of the ongoing conversation, Fast Company caught up with Slacker radio CEO Jim Cady to discuss where his company fits in. Slacker offers its users a blended model, a mix of ad-supported and subscription content that can either be streamed or cached depending on how much you’re willing to pay. The real crux of our conversation centered around whether Slacker and other similar streaming services had sustainable business models for the artists who supply these startups with content. Our challenge to you: Read on and see if you can find a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

FAST COMPANY: If an artist is making less than a penny per stream, is that a sustainable business model?

JIM CADY: Well, I think it really depends on who that artist is. I think it’s going to be different for each one of them depending on how popular they are, how many albums they can actually sell, or depending on live performances. In today’s world, a significant portion of the money an artist earns is from live performances. It’s not necessarily as much from recorded content as it used to be. I think it’s going to have to be a give and take in terms of what makes sense. We try to be sensitive to what the artist requirements are: We have some artists that end up only on the Internet radio tier, and some that don’t end up using on-demand. While I don’t think that’s necessarily satisfying the consumer, that may be what that artist wants to promote themselves. And we’re cool with that.

I do think that these types of services will actually–and it’s been proven already–have more music consumed overall. Then it becomes a question of how we shake out the model so it works.

Based on figures from MOG’s Anu Kirk, it’s estimated that Spotify has roughly a $0.004-per-play payout rate, and that Pandora pays just $0.001 per play. If you were an artist, would that be a sustainable model?

I guess it depends on how many plays you get. I don’t know. It’s different in each artist’s case. It’s about how much airtime they get. If they’re only played on terrestrial radio, they don’t get paid at all. It’s hard to pin down. I know that’s what you are trying to do, which is great, but it’s really hard to pin down how that works so early in the process of trying to figure out the economics should work. One thing to look at it: In general, as we migrate away from terrestrial radio to other forms of personal radio, we’re moving from a totally free model to a model to where they get paid something.

Based on the figures we just cited, it would take a million plays on a streaming Internet radio service for an artist to earn $1,000. Is that sustainable?

But again, you have to look at it with everything else involved.

Outside of merchandize, concerts, and 360 deals then. Just in terms of selling music, is that a sustainable model?

I don’t know. You can’t look at it independently. You’d have to look at it as a full 360 deal.

Perhaps it makes sense for major record labels and artists, which have the benefit of big promotion budgets and expensive 360 deals and large-scale concert tours. But what about indie artists who depend on selling their music to make a living? Is it sustainable?

Well, they have a choice. They can take it down.

In the case of indie artists then, is it not sustainable?

Again, I don’t think you can look at it in a vacuum on a per-play basis. I just don’t think that’s how it works. A lot of independent artists, who are concerned with the rate structure, have never been heard of before. Because they would’ve never been accessible before. They never would’ve gotten spin time on the radio. They never would’ve gotten other options to be heard.

I think it’s one of these things where you have a variety of pillars of how you can make money as an artist. I think if you were being completely dependent on one type of revenue stream, I think that’s problematic. I mean, we don’t build our business based on one revenue stream.

There has to be a multifaceted approach, and not just, “Hey, I’m on this service, and I don’t get paid enough.”

Image provided by ShutterStock

On Monday, we announced the winners of the 2011 Mashable Awards.

While some nominees are popular and have mainstream recognition (See: Facebook, iPad 2), others have significant followings but are not quite as well known.

While every Mashable Award winner and nominee should be unbelivably proud of their achievement, we’ve decided to highlight some of the our editors’ favorite lesser known digital projects and apps we’ve discovered from the Awards, both from those who were nominated, and those who won.

Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story

On stage during Facebook’s massive f8 developer conference this past September in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the world to frictionless sharing and the future of music. Freshly minted alliances with Spotify, Turntable.fm, Clear Channel, Rdio and many other services now feed the new “Music” dashboard that transforms friends into social DJ’s and music store clerks. In between their status updates, Facebook’s new frictionless sharing platform turns the news feed into a playlist that spotlights top songs, featured music services, and unknown gems creating a social soundtrack to everyone’s life. The result will naturally spark intrigue, dialogue, listening, and eventually new music purchases courtesy of Facebook’s inherent social effect.

Indeed, the launch of Facebook’s Open Graph represents a historical milestone for Facebook, social networking and for all media. People, relationships, content now seamlessly unite to advance online interactions, promote contextual connections, and amplify media to new audiences through highly visible and influential peer-to-peer engagement. In the process, traditional media earns an incredible boost in value and visibility while opening the doors to new monetization opportunities for artists, labels, and developers.

Mark Zuckerberg calls this “real-time serendipity” and he believes that the new music dashboard along with the company’s new Timeline will “transform” the media industry. This is Facebook’s iTunes moment.

Zuckerberg explained, “It’s amazing how much music you can discover through your friends,. I’m really excited about what this next wave of music companies is doing with Open Graph. They’re not trying to block, they’re trying to get you to listen more and discover through your friends.”

He continued, “You discover a huge amount of new music this way. Listening can spread really quickly through the graph.”

At f8, Mark invited Spotify Chief Executive Daniel Ek to the stage to discuss the significance of the new Spotify integration in Facebook, “Spotify users who connect on Facebook listen to more music on a weekly basis than its customers who don’t use Facebook. They’re also more than twice as likely to pay for music.”

Ek went on to compare music sharing on Facebook to the way people shared music on Napster 10 years ago. The difference now is that Ek believes that that the music industry is finally ready to embrace streaming and sharing to trigger purchases. Just wait until users can create, play, and share playlists without leaving Facebook.

As I shared with the Los Angeles Times, Facebook is putting the ‘me’ in social media. It is becoming the epicenter not only of the experiences that people share but the experiences that they will share. People will create their own media networks that influence the behavior of others.

That evening following f8, Facebook founding president and Napster co-founder Sean Parker hosted a lavish but intimate gala for Spotify and 300 influencers in tech and music. Parker is a noteworthy investor in Spotify with speculation that he may have invested as much as $15 million in the popular startup. That evening however, was merely a small demonstration of the authority Facebook, Spotify and Parker wield today.

To celebrate music and the future of social media, Sean Parker did what Sean Parker does best, create a spectacle to attract attention and spark controversy and conversation. Organized in a mere 48 hours, Parker and team converted an empty San Francisco warehouse into a magnificent display of artistry, style, and opulence that would make even the most exclusive lounge or club gawk with admiration.  I can only raise a toast to event planner Stanlee Gatti and marvel at his work. (Pictures of the event are here).

Although reminiscent of the over-the-top  parties forever tied to the implosion of Web 1.0, this event shared nothing with the dotcom events of the past. This really was about a celebration of music, technology, years of struggle and innovation, all neatly packaged with a sense of progress and accomplishment.

To kick things off, Parker invited Spotify’s Ek to the stage to discuss the state and future of social music.

Parker expressed support for streaming music services such as Spotify naturally and believes that these services represent the death of piracy and a rebirth of music sales. Parker compared the social and digital trends of shared music today to his earlier work with Napster, “This is actually very similar to what I dreamt of 10 years ago. We never really wanted to create a service to destroy the record business or hurt artists in any way. The goal was really to create a more frictionless system. We really believed we would succeed in striking deals with the record labels. Solving the piracy problem can’t happen unless you build a service that’s more convenient than piracy. In a sense Spotify actually competes with piracy.”

In an interview with Billboard, Parker shared his vision for the future of music and Spotify in particular, “Ad-supported, free streaming is the gateway drug to subscriptions and purchases, and what Spotify ultimately sells is portability, and convenience. Streams are not the model. Spotify is about trying to get you to make an investment as a consumer.”

Following the discussion, Parker pulled the curtain back to reveal one last surprise of the evening…performances by superstars Jane’s Addiction, The Killers, Snoop Dogg, and Kascade.

“I owe a great debt to Justin Timberlake,” Parker said before turning the stage over to The Killers. “All of the recording artists here might not have shown up if they knew I was a nerd. Maybe they saw the Facebook movie and thought I was one of them.”

The Music Revolution Continues to Play On

I remember the early days of peer-to-peer file sharing and why I was drawn to it. See, I am a fan of music. I search for it. listen to it. I create it. I share it. There was a time when buying $20 CDs to listen to my favorite artists seemed like my only option. At that price however, I was limited in my music experimentation and exploration. My musical tastes were growing “safer” and becoming predictable because I was restricted by cost, so I went with what I knew. Like many, I found myself taking to P2P networks to download new sings and albums to once again expand my musical horizons. For those I truly enjoyed, I would go out of my way to buy either CDs or official digital downloads. Over the years, Pandora, iTunes, Last.fm, and many web-based musical services and networks opened my eyes, ears and wallet to new artists. My tastes and appreciation for music were never more alive.

A funny thing happened over the years however. While music P2P file sharing was alive and clicking, my budget for musical endeavors was on the rise because of it. CDs, downloads, concerts, merchandise, you name it, I was buying it.  As I was introduced to new music at no cost, I would eventually buy the tracks or albums I truly enjoyed. And then as a true music fan, I would inevitably indulge in all that enlivened it through other sensory experiences.

The revolution in music continues to evolve now fueled by the fervor of the social web combined with the vision of today’s entrepreneurs. New digital and social services continue to pave the long and winding road that will one day create harmony between innovators and the music industry with consumers and artists also benefiting from the ongoing collaboration. Whether its streaming music services powered by digital algorithms such as Pandora or Last.fm or those powered by the human algorithm such as Spotify or Turntable.fm, social is inspiring a new genre of music discovery, sharing, entertainment, and commerce linked by real-time serendipity and influence.

How is frictionless sharing changing how you experience music?

Guest post by Chris Beck of 26DotTwo

You allocate increasing amounts of budget, time and resources with social media to connect one on one. What about the other 90% of your budgets? What learnings can be cross-pollinated to increase your impact?

The focus in social is on the 5th P (people); communities, niche groups, and influencers. Traditional media consists of the 4Ps; product, price, promotion, and place. Consider integrating the 5th P into traditional; not just a ‘Follow us on Twitter’ or ‘LIKE us on Facebook,’ but deeper learnings that can create significant impact.

Here are 6 social insights you can and should start applying to traditional…

TARGETING

Chances are your social campaigns are highly geo and contextually targeted. What about your traditional? Does it mirror your segmented user targets? Or is it a commoditized plan reaching broad demographic groups, using essentially the same creative?

Highly targeted ads create much higher consumer connection. You can see this clearly with social. A hyper targeted campaign on Facebook will generate upwards of 0.1% CTR’s with 60+% Fan Click Through Rate (FCTR). A broadly targeted demographic campaign may only generate a 0.2-0.3% CTR and 25-30% FCTR. Thinking the same way about traditional can dramatically increase your impact and ROI.

How are you customizing your outdoor and place based messaging? Do you use wild postings in urban areas and day-parted messaging with digital out-of-home? We do. In fact, we even use different messaging for men’s and women’s locker rooms. Do you have broad demographic targets for your radio and TV, or separate campaigns and music beds for your different segmented groups? The more traditional is customized, the greater your ROI will be.

CREATIVE OPTIMIZATION

Is your creative approach focused on the big idea? Or are you using a series of smaller ideas designed to resonate in specific markets and within specific niche groups? Typically the same traditional creative may be running in all markets for several weeks. However, traditional can learn lessons from social’s top creative, where top performing social ads may only perform for 36 to 72 hours before needing to be optimized. In the case of the Facebook Ad Server, it will save you from creative burn out because it will just stop serving your ad. However, your traditional could keep running and running…

LISTENING

Are you listening to conversations and then attempting to tap into them to promote the next deal period or sale? Looking at consumer insights for the 4th of July, it became clear that BBQ recipes and cupcakes were the most searched for items historically. Thus, we integrated these topics of interest into our creative to better join in the conversation and fulfill actual wants and needs.

MEDIA MEASUREMENT

Most of the media analytics applied to traditional are decades old and primarily mechanisms of commoditizing a buy to broad demographic groups. Effective social campaigns are focused on reach and frequency.

GRPs and IMPs mean nothing in terms of actual reach and frequency; 100 GRPs can be a 50 reach and 2 frequency or a 10 reach with a 10 frequency. They also do nothing to indicate the environment that the message is being showcased in. Are you looking at GRPs and CPPs or reach and frequency with different consumer segments? If not, you could be entirely over-reaching logical frequency levels with one group and entirely under-reaching another.

ENGAGEMENT

Think about the amount of time devoted to strategizing your 1 or 2 daily Facebook posts. Think about the analysis of the timing and content of when your tweets are most amplified. Could your traditional use the same analysis to better engage? The first step in the process is an understanding of how the consumer is actually consuming media and what other media is being used simultaneously.

Pandora Web is used mostly in-office and Pandora Mobile is generally used in the car. Won’t your messages engage more effectively if you take advantage of where people are consuming media? That’s why we’re huge advocates of heavy use of day-parting; it engages better. Drive time radio may have slightly higher usage, but much lower consumer attention spans and receptivity. A well produced :05 or :15 might better engage people in drive time, while an engaging :30 is a more effective messaging tool middays and weekends.

CROWDSOURCING

Think of crowdsourcing as the focus group of the future; it can offer much deeper information than a series of “controlled” focus groups ever could. It’s the next level of listening, by actually reaching out and having on-going insights on your creative, product mix, line-extensions and promotions. It’s no longer what you or your agency is thinking “back to school” may or may not represent, but what your segmented consumer groups want and will engage with.

Consumer’s media consumption, adoption of new technology and increased reliance on social elements will only continue to explode. Astute marketers will see that this translates into much less value to the “old days” of traditional commoditized media plans, siloed strategies and one size fits all creative. Integrating best practices from social can help your traditional better connect and create higher ROI.
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Chris Beck is a 30-year marketing veteran and is the founder and Chief Vision Officer of 26 Dot Two. The company works with leading brands, including Whole Foods Market & Popchips. He can be reached at chris@26dottwo.com
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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Preferred online music service: Spotify and Rhapsody.

How often do you use these services? Just recently, just about every day.

Why do you like these services? Between the two services, I’m able to listen to an almost unimaginable amount of music. They’re not always as helpful on some of the lesser-known new bands, but I’m continually surprised by what I find. It is an endless and never-ending library.

How have these services benefitted you as a music listener? Since the launch of Spotify, I’ve been strangely shocked about just how much things have changed for me in just the past few months. When you realize you can listen to almost anything you want whenever you want, it rattles your sense of normalcy. I’ve never been into illegally downloading music unless it is something live or out of print. So now, everything is out there and basically free and available. I listen to way more music than ever before.

At home I use Sonos, and there is an iPhone app for it. So when I’m home, I basically walk around the house with my phone, changing up playlists all day long. It’s insane. But, even though I feel like a kid in a candy store, I don’t know if this is such a good thing. I know Bob Lefsetz would say it’s the best thing since Les Paul, and I will admit I love using it. But isn’t there supposed to be a bit more sacrifice that goes into choosing music? I know most record labels have been stealing from artists and consumers for years, but I fear we are making music more disposable than ever before. To me, liner notes matter. Time and the benefits of waiting for some things does have its merits. Call me crazy.

How have these services changed your music consumption patterns? I’ve found that I tend to buy more new music (I made a rule: if I listen to something on Pandora or Spotify more than 2 times, I usually buy it) since it is so easy to check out. On the other end, I tend to buy less older music. I mean, I can’t afford to buy every single thing Bob Pollard, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan have released. But I’m sort of a completist, so it’s nice to be able to hear a bit of everything. I hope 7”, B-side, weird compilation stuff starts getting more available in this space. That would be amazing. Above all, I have started buying a lot more vinyl overall. Nothing trumps that.

Name an artist you discovered on these services. Dirty Beaches, The Cave Singers, Wye Oak, The Rosebuds, Iceage, to name some off the top of my head. I tend to hear new stuff all the time. Plus, I’ve been able to get into tons of back catalog stuff of artists that I was already into.

Streaming music service Songza launched apps for Android and iOS on Tuesday that are designed to make it easy for music fans to find and share digital playlists for practically any occasion.

Think of Songza as curated, hand-picked Internet radio. Like Pandora, Songza is not a stream-on-demand service (meaning, you can’t request to play a certain track or album). Unlike Pandora, Songza doesn’t impose any limitations on how much music you can listen to and it doesn’t serve any audio advertisements. Additionally, Songza doesn’t focus on creating artist based radio stations — although you can do that — instead, it focuses on connecting users with curated or peer-created mix tapes.

These playlists are organized around activities (like “Cocktail Party” or “Coding”), genres (“’70s NYC Punk” or “Math Rock”), Moods and even Culture. For instance, there is a whole playlist category dedicated to Cover Songs, featuring playlists like “More Popular Than the Original” and “Covering Cash.” The playlists are designed to capture a certain mood, event or activity.

Using the free Songza mobile app for iPhone iTunes link and Android Android Market link, users can search and browse through Songza’s expertly curated playlists, save their favorites to their phone and share what they are listening to with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

The Songza team’s previous venture, Amie Street, was acquired by Amazon.com last fall. Songza just closed a financing round led by the same investors that were previously involved in Amie Street. The company clearly has big plans for enhancing its social offerings by allowing users to share their playlists or favorites via social networks.

As it stands, Songza sees itself as a “music concierge” and a better, smarter way of handling social music discovery.

After using the iPhone app over the last 24 hours, we agree. Without a doubt, Songza has the smartest, most well thought out collection of playlists of any of the subscription music services. What we really appreciate is that it is clear that a lot of vetting has gone into creating the officially sanctioned lists. If your friends are on Songza, you can also use the app to follow the playlists they share or like and vice versa.

The one downside to Songza and its mobile app is that right now, users can only create playlists at the Songza.com website. Moreover, Songza’s licensing restrictions prevent users from listening to the playlists they create themselves.

Your friends can listen to your custom mix of ultimate Fall in New York City tunes, but you, the creator can’t. Songza’s co-founder and CEO Elias Roman told us that the company is looking at either partnering with existing on-demand subscription services such as Spotify or working out its own on-demand licensing agreement so that users can listen to their own selections.

If Songza can nail that last loop and provide users who are willing to pay with on-demand access to their own playlists, we could easily see Songza taking off in a huge way.

Still, even with the self-playlist limitations, Songza for iPhone and Android is one of the most promising mobile music apps we’ve seen all year.