Tag: development

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Dear Spotify: Please create a ‘Followed Artists’ feed

Spotify Followed Artists, spotify playlists
Spotify playlists are shaping the future music business, but reaching the curators of the most influential lists is often incredibly difficult. We can help.

Spotify is, by far, the world’s largest music streaming service. The company currently boasts 191 million monthly users and the music of over 2 million artists. They add nearly 20,000 songs per day.

Spotify also leads the industry from a development standpoint. Nearly every significant advance in music streaming technology over the last five years has started with the company, from offline access to direct upload distribution.

While the company is continuously taking steps to empower artists on their platform further, they have fallen short in doing the same for users. Listeners can choose to ‘Follow’ artists they love, but as of this moment, the tool has little use aside from automating the occasional push notification when relevant content becomes available on the platform. It’s not constant, however, as many fans never received notifications when the artists they follow release new music.

And if that’s true, which it is, then what is the purpose of the ‘Follow’ button?

It would benefit fans and artists alike if Spotify created a ‘Followed’ feed. This feature would operate much like a newsfeed on Facebook, except (ideally) in a more efficient manner. Users would use the feed to browse a timeline of updates regarding artists they have followed. This would include releases, as well as any supplementary information the platform allows (tour dates, new merch, playlists, etc.), listed in chronological order.

The advantages of adding this feature include:

  • Higher likelihood of engagement with new releases for smaller artists
  • Incentivizes more artists to promote their presence on Spotify
  • The ability for the platform to ‘suggest’ other artists based on taste
  • Would open the door to allowing additional supplemental content offerings in the future, such as news updates, video releases, etc.

The cons are…Well, the cons are nonexistent.

A ‘Followed Artists’ feed is a win-win for everyone involved. Spotify no doubt has a long list of developments in their production pipeline, but this one feels like its long overdue. Is there any chance we will ever see it, or something similar, brought to life? Only time will tell.

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Job Board News


Constant evolution is the key to professional stability

Roughly ten months ago, we (Haulix) messed up. Some of you may remember, but others may not. We planned for over a year to launch a new, completely overhauled version of our leading digital promotional platform, but when the time came for the updated system to go live there were bugs – a LOT of bugs.

We knew something was wrong almost as soon as the new system was live. Even though we had spent months of work on the updated platform, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars, we did not have a way to know if everything would function as it should without turning it on and letting our users run wild. So we tested as much as we could internally, wrote help docs to aide in helping people transition to the new layout, and hoped for the best.

Within hours of the updated system going live we were buried in complaints from clients and members of the media alike. Some could not even load the new site, while those who did encountered a number of bugs. Some people had very few issues, but those cases were decidedly rare. Despite our best efforts, our long-promoted new system was junk.

The next few days passed like a blur, with stress and confusion falling on our team, as well as our clients. Our system wasn’t working, which in turn meant our clients could not do their jobs. It was the worst thing to happen to our business since our launch, and it was entirely our fault.

We quickly realized the fastest way to right our wrongs was to tear the new system out of our service and replace it with the original one. The process took several hours, which came days after the problems first arose, but within a week we were back to where we started with a fully-functional, if somewhat dated platform.

In the weeks that past we came to learn a few things:

  • The people who cared most about the remodeled look of our platform was our own staff. Many clients who were able to access the new platform commented on how drastic the changes to our UI appeared to be. There was a shock value that wasn’t necessarily good.
  • Our core system remained the same on both versions of the platform, meaning despite all the money we spent we were still more or less offering the same product with a few additional bells and whistles.
  • Some of the changes we wanted to make were good, great even, but delivering them all at once could have been confusing. Even longtime clients would have had to learn new ways to navigate our platform.

For months we laid low, allowing clients to conduct their business as usual as we sat in meetings talking about what we should do next. In order to complete the broken update we would have to spend tens of thousands more, but was that really the right move?

Ultimately, we decided to shelve the new system and keep the one we knew was working. Instead of making one drastic change we decided to work on small, meaningful updates that we would release periodically throughout the year. So far in 2017 alone we’ve had no less than three of these updates, each bringing a new tool or capability to our system that would have been found in the overhauled platform.

As these updates have rolled out the response from our users has been largely positive. People appreciate changes that simplify their workflow, and by spacing out the updates we avoid confusing users by delivering too much new stuff at once. In turn, our business has been growing in an industry that is plagued by stories of stagnation or failure.

We still talk about that week in August when everything fell apart. It is something of an embarrassment for all of us, but in hindsight it needed to happen in order for us to understand the difference between what we felt was needed and what our clients actually wanted. We were able to find a path to growth that did not endanger our users understanding of the system, and in fact found great success through an alternative approach to development.

As the year progresses you will see more updates roll out from Haulix. The same goes for the year after that and so on as long as we’re a company. We will never stop growing and changing, but we know now that drastic change is rarely – if ever – the recipe for sustained growth. That kind of success lies in small, meaningful changes over an extended period of time that considers both the needs of our audience and their ability to navigate our system quickly. We stopped listening to ourselves and returned to the people who know us best, the ones who engage with our platform daily, and that has made all the difference.

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Job Board News

New openings (5/8/17)

Director of Development (Mind Meets Music – Grand Rapids, MI) 

The Director of Development reports directly to the Executive Director and provides support to the Team in one to one and group working relationships. S/he will have the ability to work independently on projects, from conception to completion, and handle a wide variety of activities and confidential matters with expertise and discretion. S/he must be creative, and enjoy working in an environment that is results-oriented and mission and children driven. The ideal candidate will have strong written and verbal communication, administrative and organizational skills, and the ability to maintain a balance among multiple priorities. The Director of Development possesses planning, project solving, goal setting, and time management skills, group dynamic and team building acumen, and an eye for detail and data analysis. S/he needs to be organized, efficient, and skilled at prioritizing.

Sponsorship Coordinator (Live Nation – Burgettstown, PA) 

This position will provide support and sales assistance to Local Sponsorship Sales, overseeing the fulfillment of local, regional, and national accounts by ensuring the delivery of contractual elements and providing excellent customer service.  Coordinators will also be responsible for managing all sponsorship inventories.

Campaign Specialist (Pandora – Atlanta) 

The Campaign Specialist will partner directly with Sales Account Executives and will be responsible for working internally and externally to ensure that we execute strategically and flawlessly for our advertising partners. The right individual will be a key contributor in Pandora’s Client Services team and responsible for operational development, implementing, maintaining and enhancing these campaigns.  This position involves sales and client support, project management, execution and reporting.   

Marketing Assistant (Life – Saratoga Springs, NY)

The role of Marketing Assistant is a project based/temporary assignment and plays an important support role to the company by providing assistance with all marketing activities. This roles primary responsibility will be to support marketing, media and promotional efforts of the company across multiple projects. Additional responsibilities include assistance with execution of strategic promotions plans and programs, both short and long range, to achieve event goals and providing additional support as needed.

Community Manager (WMG – NYC) 

Radar is a start-up division that sits within both the Warner Music and ADA teams.  It is targeting a new exciting market segment for the company of unsigned artists for distribution. The Radar technology is aimed at being the first port of call for the music creator community, giving them the immediate solution for distribution via one of the largest music companies in the World, whilst simultaneously making them visible to the owned labels at Warner and the premium independent labels that are distributed by ADA.

If you enjoy being part of small teams trying to achieve big results, this is for you. As a member of the Radar team, you’ll be highly visible across the whole company, as this project enjoys the support from all corners of the leadership team.

Here you’ll get to:

  • You will help launch a new business for a leading global music company
  • You will create content to engage and inspire our artist community
  • You will manage Radar social media accounts
  • You will assist the marketing director in contests, launch initiatives, and customer acquisition
  • You will help users troubleshoot through customer service
  • You will help fine tune FAQ communications
  • You will identify and propose development priorities based on artist feedback

Artist Services Coordinator (Beverly Hills, CA) 

The Artist Services Coordinator will support the building, execution & reporting of multi-channel marketing programs for Artist Services. This role is a key member of our team to help maximize awareness to support Live Nation Touring clients & Artist Nation managers with targeted marketing campaigns to help promote all aspects of our client’s careers, including new music, new videos / movies, charitable endeavors as well as ticketing selling initiatives. Knowledge and experience with software solutions to execute social media publishing, email marketing and online analytics solutions is preferred. The role requires someone who is a true team player, comfortable in fast pace entertainment environment, very detail oriented, driven by results and has a high standard for quality.

Manager, Artist Marketing (NYC – Spotify) 

The Creator Services team is responsible for developing and maintaining the connective tissue between Spotify and the creator community. We are looking for an excellent candidate with experience building out global music marketing campaigns to join our Artist Marketing team.This role sits within the Artist Marketing team, a new team within the Creator Services vertical of Content. This team will collaborate heavily with Spotify’s Core Marketing teams which includes brand managers, communications designers, experiential marketing experts, film producers, copywriters, and social marketing managers.

Director of Production / Associate Producer (Feld Entertainment – Palmetto, FL) 

The Director of Production / Associate Producer works with Producers, Sr. Director of Production, and Sr. Executive(s) to identify / develop new show concepts, and oversees all phases of new show production.  He/She will also have management responsibility for Feld Entertainment Inc.’s (FEI) internal Music Production and Dubbing personnel.      

Marketing Specialist – Frost Music (University of Miami – Miami) 

The Marketing Specialist will develop and manage marketing strategies, digital campaigns, events and communication activities designed to effectively promote the programs, faculty, and services of the Frost School of Music. The individual will work with the communications and events team, students, staff, faculty, vendors and contractors as needed. The Marketing Specialist will assess the success of all marketing efforts, will serve as a writer/producer for internal and external communications, and will also manage the development and production of external publications and collateral materials.  Under the guidance of the Communications Director, the incumbent will be responsible for developing and implementing integrated marketing, promotional and advertising campaigns to support the recruitment, promotion and development of the School’s initiatives, as well as managing other campaigns to support the School’s marketing strategies.  The Marketing Specialist will work with the Director of Events on all aspects of event production (from concerts to conferences and more).  This position reports to the Director of Communications.

Sponsorship Coordinator, Sponsorships (Live Nation – Syracuse, NY) 

To maximize sales, this position will support Local Sponsorship Sales Director, overseeing the fulfillment of local, regional, and national accounts by ensuring the delivery and tracking of contractual elements and providing excellent customer service.  Coordinators will also be responsible for managing all sponsorship inventories and finances and helping to develop new sponsorship programs.

Digital Marketing Specialist ( SoundExchange – Washington DC) 

The Digital Marketing Specialist will oversee social media properties and perform strategy development, analytics/insights, and the execution of digital marketing campaigns. This person will serve as the primary point-of-contact and project manager for the creation of digital assets in support of all online marketing and branding initiatives (i.e. website content, mass e-mails, newsletters, banners, video, audio, and other digital content internally and externally).

Listener Advocate (Pandora – Oakland) 

Pandora is looking for a Listener Advocate to join our growing team.  This is a full-time hourly position located in our Oakland, CA office. Weekly schedule will include weekends and maybe overtime.

Responsibilities:

  • Provide first-line assistance in response to Pandora listener email. Assist with troubleshooting the set-up and functionality of :
  • Pandora on a computer (Windows/OS-X,Firefox/IE/Chrome/Safari, Flash)
  • Pandora on mobile devices (iOS, Android, Blackberry)
  • Pandora on CE devices (Blu-ray, TV, set-top boxes)
  • Pandora One Desktop application
  • Pandora in vehicles
  • Provide account support for Pandora listeners:
  • Use of Pandora features and user-interface assistance
  • Help with registration, lost username and password issues
  • Transaction troubleshooting
  • Other duties as assigned

Festival Salesperson (Southern Atlantic – Louisville, KY) 

Seeking a trustworthy people person that enjoys music and fresh air. Earn money for traveling to festivals and working our kiosk. Show and sell our fun, cool jewelry to festival goers while earning an hourly pay plus sales bonus. Work in an entertaining, laidback environment with low stress, while maintaining a responsible, professional demeanor.

Older listings (7+ Days)

Junior Publicist/Digital Media Strategist (Music City Media – Nashville, TN)

Are you a young professional who geek’s out over artist development, public relations, social media and the land of the worldwide web? Do you enjoy building artist careers? Creating banners and art for social/digital posts? Helping artists create their brand on paper and online? Music City Media, a boutique-style PR, marketing and branding company (in the music and entertainment sector) is seeking a junior publicist to join our team.

Digital Marketing & Strategy Manager (NYC – Live Nation)

One of Live Nation joint ventures is seeking a Digital Marketing and Strategy Manager. This position reports to the Director of Digital Marketing and Strategy and serves as a key member of the Digital Team. The role will support continued development and growth for a diverse roster of artists. Responsibilities will include executing promotional campaigns, designing and implementing creative marketing plans, securing digital retail merchandising, facilitating requests between partners, managers and artists & maintaining artist web and social platforms. This Manager will be responsible for shaping both digital strategy and the execution of plans, including social media publishing, on a daily basis.

Music Metadata Specialist (UCLA 0 Los Angeles)

Reporting to the Team Leader, Subject Specialists; Music Cataloger, the Music Metadata Specialist (MMS) performs cataloging, which includes utilizing derived copy, enhancing and replacing OCLC catalog records at the network level, and creating original catalog records in OCLC when no copy is available. The MMS works primarily with music monographic resources in various manifestations (scores, sound recordings, books, videos, CD-ROMs, etc.), and in other areas as needed. The MMS creates and enhances standard metadata as needed for digital library projects in all disciplines.

Digital Marketing Manager, Audience Development (Complex – NYC)

Based in New York, NY, Complex (http://www.complex.com) is seeking a talented Digital Marketing Manager to join our Audience Development team and develop highly creative marketing plans impacting an enormous global audience. The Digital Marketing Manager’s work will help promote a wide range of Complex Media’s programming content. The ideal candidate should demonstrate fresh thinking and creative, cutting-edge work that stands out from the clutter.

Label Copy Coordinator (Sony – NYC)

The Coordinator will be responsible for researching release information for releases spanning several genres (rock, pop, jazz, classical) and the entry and maintenance of the information in the Sony Music proprietary label copy system (GRAS).

Marketing Specialist, Digital Media (Beats By Dre – Culver City, CA)

Beats by Dr. Dre is seeking a Marketing Specialist, Digital Media to create and deliver engaging, high performance digital media plans for a culture/lifestyle brand. This role is responsible for strategy, development, implementation, measurement, and optimization of all digital media, including high impact media, content driven strategies, performance media and e-commerce initiatives across all digital channels. Candidate should have demonstrated ability to drive the business through data driven digital media planning in an innovative and demanding environment. The ideal candidate will have strong analytical background, a rock solid understanding of the evolving digital landscape, and experience in both high impact, content driven campaigns as well as programmatic initiatives. The team culture is fast-paced, creative, results-driven, and focused on delivering best in class work.

Senior Director, Artist Marketing (Spotify – NY or LA)

The Creator Services team is responsible for developing and maintaining the connective tissue between Spotify and the creator community. For the position of Senior Director, Artist Marketing, we seek an outstanding candidate with experience building out global music marketing campaigns to join our Artist Marketing team. This role sits within the Artist Marketing team, a team within the Creator Services vertical of Content. This team will collaborate heavily with Spotify’s Core Marketing teams which includes brand managers, communications designers, experiential marketing experts, film producers, copywriters, and social marketing managers. This role will be based in either New York or Los Angeles and will report into the Global Head of Artist Marketing.

On-Air Promotions/Programming Assistant (20th Century Fox – Minneapolis, MN)

FOX Sports North is searching for a On-Air Promotions/Programming Coordinator to join their team in Minneapolis. The position is responsible for the execution of on-air presentation and promotional plans. Duties include coordinating and managing placement of promotional material. This position is also responsible for providing support for the Director of Programming in gathering, coordinating and disseminating programming information – both internally and externally. This position has a dual reporting structure: to the Director of Marketing/On-Air Presentation and the Director of Programming at FOX Sports North/Wisconsin and is located in Minneapolis, MN.

Music Coordinator (Milwaukee School of Engineering – Milwaukee, WI)

The Music Coordinator will administer and produce all aspects of University music programming. This would include recruitment, training, and facilitating the various music-centered student organizations.

Major Respnsibilities:

  • Provide music directing and leadership for the Student Music Organization (SMO) and the Sound Engineers (pep band).
  • Encourage the growth and coordination of other music programs, including but not limited to, acapella groups, student bands, etc.
  • Work with musicians at all levels of musicianship and experience.
  • Coordinate with Student Life and Athletics in planning events and programs.
  • Lead and coordinate with other members of the MSOE and WMSE music community.
  • Provide support and resources for the established and emerging music ensembles and organizations.

Account Executive (Soundcloud – TBD)

SoundCloud is seeking an Account Executive with a passion for thinking of innovative ways to connect brands and audiences on channels such as Audio, Display, Video, Native and Custom across Web and Mobile! A successful candidate will have very strong communication and interpersonal skills, be resourceful, customer focused, team oriented, and will have an ability to work independently to meet revenue and business objectives. You will have a proven track record of meeting or exceeding revenue targets and developing new agency and direct relationships.

Temporary Label Operations Coordinator (Sony – Nashville)

This is a long-term temporary position. The Label Operations Coordinator will coordinate day to day mailroom operations; deliver all incoming and interoffice mail; process all outgoing parcels; assist A&R department with fulfillment of audio/video distribution requests and support general business unit operational activities.

Festival Salesperson (Southern Atlantic – Nashville, TN)

Seeking a trustworthy people person that enjoys music and fresh air. Earn money for traveling to festivals and working our kiosk. Show and sell our fun, cool jewelry to festival goers while earning an hourly pay plus sales bonus. Work in an entertaining, laidback environment with low stress, while maintaining a responsible, professional demeanor.

Artist Royalty Clerk (UMG – Woodland Hills, CA)

UMG is currently seeking to fill the role of Artist Royalty Clerk.  In this role, you will be assisting the Domestic Artist Royalty Group.  The clerk will be responsible for processing daily, weekly & monthly Excel files.  They will also handle department emails and statement mailings and will use several intranet sites for various job functions.

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Job Board News

Haulix Weekly Update #118: “Batman’s a scientist”

Hello, everyone. We’re here to talk about the music business, and to be far more specific this post is about our role in the business of music, as well as how that role is changing. It’s also a place where we share songs we love, like this:

As I mentioned above, each and every weekend we like to take a brief break from our regularly scheduled programming to update and reflect on everything happening at Haulix HQ. We are far more than a music blog, as many of you already know, and posts like this give us an opportunity to share more our efforts with all of you.

Important update:

We are doing a large server upgrade this weekend.  Our new network will be able to auto-scale as we continue to grow and you continue to create and send out more promos.

While we are working on this upgrade, there might be some down time. The scheduled block of time will be between Saturday January 23 – 9AM CST to Sunday January 24 – 6PM CST.

If you have any questions, send them to matt@haulix.com.

Development news:

After the underlying server infrastructure is upgraded (this weekend), we will be getting ready to launch the new Haulix website.

The site will include over a dozen new features, as well as a completely re-built email engine that will support press releases AND promo invitations using a new drag and drop email designer.

We will be releasing more information about the new site in the next month or so.

Blog news:

Things on the blog continue to progress with each passing week. This is always the case, I suppose, but in the past week it has especially been true as we have been attempting to plan the remainder of 2016. If there is anything you would like to see us cover, shoot James an email at james@haulix.com

If you missed anything this week, use the archive and get caught up.

That’s all we have for this week. Check back on Sunday for a new Job Board!

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News

What It Means To Be A (Music) Professional

The dictionary will tell you an amateur is someone ‘who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession.’ The origin of the term amateur stems from the Latin word amare, which means ‘to love.’ Amateurs are people who pursue things they love as a pastime rather than a profession. Being a professional, on the other hand, means pursuing the things you love as a profession.

Notice that definition did not mention money? Making money does not make you a professional. Money covers the cost of living and affords you the ability to further pursue your dreams, but it is only a means to an end. Professionals see money for what it is – a tool to aide them in furthering their efforts.

Everyone who chases a dream begins their journey as an amateur hoping to one day become a professional. Whether you long to be the frontman in the next great rock band, or you hope to one day work publicity for the biggest names in music, your journey and that of everyone else in the music industry begins as an amateur. Many, unfortunately, stay that way forever. To become a professional requires great risk and sacrifice, often over long periods of time, and for those that do see it through there is rarely any guarantee of sustainability.

To attempt to become a professional is a terrifying proposal. It requires you to abandon the safety nets you have built in case things don’t pan out and dive blindly into the often treacherous waters of life with your heart on your sleeve. It asks that you put friends and family aside in pursuit of something that is completely foolish and to some insanely selfish, but for whatever reason it is the exact course you have felt propelled towards your entire life. You know deep down you possess the ability to become a professional, but to take steps toward that reality you must change, and for most of us that is the hardest step of all.

We cannot make you into a professional. No one can do that except you, and even then it’s going to be an uphill battle that you will struggle with on a daily basis. What we can do is provide insight and advice on what you can do to become more professional, and with each new post we aim to do just that. Through editorials and list features we will equip you with the knowledge needed to become a professional. Taking steps to become one, however, is entirely up to you.

Follow Haulix on Twitter and Facebook for updates. 

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News

New Haulix Update: Improved Promo Feedback

Hello, everyone! We have been talking for weeks about how our development team has been working hard to create and release new updates for the Haulix platform. Most of the stuff we’re developing cannot be discussed just yet, but over the weekend one release did go out that we are now able to discuss. It’s meant for clients of Haulix, but it’s use will have an impact on how press interact with our system as well.

This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Haulix promos have traditionally had a scoring mechanism and feedback box up top in the upper right corner. When a press contact submits a score or a review link, customers can privately view that information in their Haulix dashboard.

We now give you the ability to enable or disable that feedback on a per promo basis.

Promo feedback can easily be turned on or off when editing the promo. Your changes are instant; no need to re-send email invitations.

If enabled, the promo view will show a “Submit Feedback” link. When clicked, it will open a window where the contact can submit a score, comment or review link. The mobile view will hide or show the feedback interface as well based on the promo’s settings.

If you have any questions, please contact us at support@haulix.zendesk.com.

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Job Board News

Haulix Weekly Update #71 – “Sit perfectly still. Only I may dance.”

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the end of the work week. It has been bitter cold outside HQ walls, so we’ve been working long hours to avoid facing the dropping temperatures, but even our team is ready to go home and relax. Before we get there, however, we need to reflect on the week we’re leaving behind. We also need to listen to music, like this recent hit from Blood And Ink Records artist Household:

Each and every Friday we like to take a brief break from our regularly scheduled programming to update and reflect on everything happening at Haulix HQ. We are far more than a music blog, as many of you already know, and posts like this give us an opportunity to share more our efforts with all of you.

To start us off, I want to first say that we are hard at work on new development updates. I know it has been a few weeks since our last release, but we have used that time to reevaluate our platform and discuss what changes should be made in the months ahead. We also listened to you, our clients and friends, and the requests you have shared. All of this was poured over by our entire team and, in the end, several goals were set for 2015. We’ll have more on all that soon.

On the blog end of things, we picked up the pace just a bit this week by adding an additional feature highlighting the efforts of Semplice Lessons. We have been churning out six articles a week every week for about a year, so now it’s time to expand our efforts once more. If you missed anything in recent days, here’s a quick recap of our best new content:

Industry Spotlight: Adam Zeuske (Semplice Lessons)

Music Industry Job Board (¼/15)

Journalism Tips: ‘Almost Famous’ Is A Lie

Inside Music Podcast #15 – Scott Heisel

Blogger Spotlight: Jeese Speelman (Real Feels TV)

My Workflow: How To Stay Sane As A Tour Photographer

That’s all we have this week. Have a safe and productive weekend.

Best,

Haulix

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