Earbits (YC W11) Brings A Twist: Online Radio Where Bands Can Pay For Playtime

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/09/yc-funded-earbits-brings-a-twist-to-music-startups-online-radio-where-bands-can-pay-for-playtime/

by pitdesi • 15 years ago

84 54 15 years ago

techcrunch.com

lancefisher2• 15 years ago

Wow, I would invest in this. It is an excellent idea, and it will further disrupt the existing music industry for the better.

99992• 15 years ago

One of the few good things about the existing music business is that you technically can't just buy your way onto the airwaves.

guywithabike• 15 years ago

Isn't this exactly what we already have with Clear Channel?

zecho3• 15 years ago

Nah. Clear Channel has a very complex legal system to maneuver so they don't look like they're accepting Payola. Earbits simplifies the payola scheme quite a bit.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Agreed. With personalized streams for every listener, bands with a $10 budget can have the same (albeit scaled down) opportunity as someone with $1000. With terrestrial markets there's no way to start small. Additionally, anyone with a split focus on advertisers and an attempt at this model are not going to compete with someone who has 100% focus on treating artists like clients.

lancefisher2• 15 years ago

I just sent my friends in Stellarondo over there. If you're into great indie folk music you should check them out: http://stellarondo.bandcamp.com/

bmelton2• 15 years ago

Your friends in Stellarondo remind me of Albert Castiglia, and I can't think of many things more complimentary than that.

Thanks for the link.

Edit: Still, thanks for the link, but I'd apparently had another tab behind that one that I was actually listening to when I turned my sound on.

They sound absolutely nothing like Albert Castiglia, however, I'm still really enjoying it, just in a completely different way.

bmelton2• 15 years ago

I don't know that I honestly would have given much weight to this idea if I'd heard it pitched to me, but as they've already got 1300 artists across 90 labels, I'd say it's obvious that I'd have been in the wrong.

I don't know if they'll ever get the bigger labels, and for my money, I hope they don't. I mean, I'd love to see that nut get cracked, because honestly, something like this COULD (I don't think it will) be the end of the RIAA. But if that happens, then I'll be just as sad as I was when eMusic turned coat and started bringing in bigger fish.

pitdesi2• 15 years ago

They've got 1300 artists... but so far no one is paying. So that part of the model remains to be seen.

If they can build a huge audience, I'm sure some artists will pay... will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out (and if any major bands get discovered through Earbits)!

bermanoid• 15 years ago

I'm just kind of unclear as to how they'll build a huge audience, given that any pay-for-play scheme, as a rule, is not going to be playing the music that I most want to hear.

I guess I'm wondering, where's the filter? What will make the music that I hear at this site better, on average, than the music at any other site?

Because it sure as hell isn't the fact that artists will be able to pay for exposure. IMO there's just no way around it, pay-for-play is a listener-hostile dynamic, there's absolutely no way it could improve the quality of what I listen to.

Actually, maybe that's a lie, there's one tiny way it can help: if pay-for-play is limited only to the acts that have not had enough exposure for the "market" to figure out whether they're any good, then it can improve what I hear by letting the artists pay to make sure that they've actually been listened to by enough people to be fairly judged. The real problem with payola schemes is when artists that have already had plenty of exposure can use money to make sure that they have more exposure than even the organically successful acts - this is something that Earbits needs to make sure it avoids, and if it is successful, this will mean some tough decisions, because they'll have to start turning down money that their biggest customers want to give them ("What's that, Mr. Combs? You want to buy up 90% of our play time for the next two months and fill it with your label's shitty music, and you'll pay us six times what we made last year? No thanks, that would be unfair.").

In any case, I think more needs to be done to figure out a compelling pitch to users. The payola side of it is not the right thing to emphasize - it's going to offend musicians, and it's not going to attract users.

bretthopper2• 15 years ago

Is there any permissions/information you guys don't request on Facebook Connect? The long list scared me off.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Most of it sounds like we do more than we do, but all of it is necessary up front for the things we enable after you connect. I can assure you that we don't do anything that isn't about making your music experience better.

thegooley• 15 years ago

I understand the hesitation, we try to avoid asking for anything that we don't need to make the user experience better. We don't post anything without you explicitly performing a "share to facebook" action, so you can rest easy on that front. And we ask for your profile info so that we can see what bands you already like.

bretthopper2• 15 years ago

That's good to know. I still wish Facebook offered a feature where you could explain why you need a permission, or better yet, let you pick which ones you agree to instead of all or nothing.

sev2• 15 years ago

Users, he explains, will be exposed to high quality music they haven’t heard yet, and bands obviously get the exposure they’re fighting so hard to find.

But the richest bands don't guarantee high quality music. In fact, as mainstream music suggests, often it's the contrary. Similar situation with low budget vs. high budget movies.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Hey Sev,

Our algorithm, much like Adwords, will be a combination of ratings, relevancy to a particular user, and only after those things help determine a fit would their bid affect anything. Also, a band who spends more may be introduced to more people, but will not necessarily saturate the experience for a single user, as is the case in regular radio. Also, we don't sell pipe dreams to artists with low quality material. Everybody has to be approved, and I think you'll find that even if you don't love everything you hear on Earbits, it is all high quality, professional-grade music.

sev2• 15 years ago

That sounds good. It's just that it's easy to get carried away with an algorithm you own which produces money by "selling out" and doing what your highest bidders want you to do in this kind of business. As long as it's monitored and done in such a way to make money and be appealing to non-mainstream as well as mainstream styles, this will be very useful.

zaveri2• 15 years ago

Congrats! Wish there was an alternate to FB connect to save songs...

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

There will be soon. Thanks for the feedback.

zaveri2• 15 years ago

Seems like you all have quite a few employees! I was under the assumption that YC accepted groups of 2 - 4 founders...

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

It's easy to build an awesome team when you have a vision people can get behind. Look at our advisors...they are some serious heavy hitters. ;)

DonnyV2• 15 years ago

I'v been in many original bands and I can tell you as a fellow musician and band leader that this will not work. If your business model is based on the bands paying you...good luck. We're broke from day 1!

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

I hear where you're coming from but bands spend money on fliers that cost $0.15 a piece, just hoping you'll go home and listen to their music online. We know, because we have done all of that stuff for our own band.

For $0.15, we can play you for 15 people who love your genre of music and put links to your show's box office right there on the homepage. That means for $15, we can play you for 1,500. You won't find better value anywhere, and if you can't sell one $15 concert ticket with the links to the box office right there, God help us all!

DonnyV2• 15 years ago

I see what your trying to do but I just don't think it will work. Your tapping the wrong stone. There's always going to be more fans then bands. You should be finding a way to bring new music to your fans and bringing new fans to your bands. Figure that out and you will have something no one else has. That has value.

zecho3• 15 years ago

But labels aren't. The promotional reach is the whole point of signing away your music to a record deal. What will be interesting is if Earbits can turn payola into actual record sales. In radio or elsewhere paid music promotion exists, the evidence of conversion rates has always been fuzzy.

colinplamondon• 15 years ago

This has THE best sharing flow of any site I have ever seen. If you actually like making money check their site out. I'm absolutely rolling it out across our products in the next whack of updates.

Bar at the bottom showing friends' faces, filter to find someone in particular, requiring like to share, posting to wall instead of Newsfeed- perfection.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Thanks! Note: You are liking the band when you do that, not us. Bands are going to LOVE us. ;)

albahk• 15 years ago

I am on a 1024x768 laptop and apart from the horizontal scrollbar being a little annoying, I can only see "Ch" something link in the top-right of the screen.

Its your choice as to what screen sizes you support, but it seems possible to accommodate dinosaurs like me with little extra effort.

Nice site otherwise, listening now.

boucher• 15 years ago

The design is headed in a good direction but there are definitely quite a few little things like this that could be improved. The top bar can still be fixed position at the top without requiring an enormous minimum width. Similarly, the idea of showing only the portion of the image that will fit on the visible page is good, but the calculations are a bit off I think so it ends up looking a bit like a mistake.

twakefield• 15 years ago

Congrats guys. I have been very impressed with the quality of the music. Going in I figured the music was going to be crap but you do a great job of filtering. Goes to show how much good music is out there that doesn't get played through the typical channels.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Thanks! You will definitely hear music you know, though. I think you'll be surprised who is trusting us to deliver them value.

99992• 15 years ago

How is that an advantage for listeners? Payola was made illegal for a good reason. Pay to play live venues are treated with derision by music fans. I really don't see why any music fan would choose this over a model where music is chosen based on merit alone.

pitdesi2• 15 years ago

In case you're wondering what 9999 is talking about (like I was) check this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Hey 9999...I understand your skepticism. The advantage for listeners is no commercials or fees, and flexibility and features that are prohibited when you rely on statutory licenses. We haven't seen that current outlets rely on merit alone, and we're tired of seeing bands waste money on fliers just hoping someone goes home and listens to them online. I think you'll see that the artists on our platform are incredibly talented and high quality, and when you get your first free album by hitting one of our site's triggers, you'll see how working direct with artists benefits listeners.

mikeryan2• 15 years ago

Ironically one of the few services I happily pay for is Pandora in order to listen ad free. I don't really find the earbits model any better.

grncdr• 15 years ago

Only one category for singer-songwriter? and only three (two of which are quite similar) for electronic? How does the genre-list expand? How big (and who!) is your editorial staff? Also, are online sales through Amazon only?

I'm not complaining as a listener, because my listening needs are already very well met. But as a musician and somebody who would really like to recommend Earbits to other musicians, this information is very important to me.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Hey grncdr! As you can imagine, when you are building a catalog from scratch and working with every label and artist directly, you can't just fast forward to a massive selection. We wish we could! Almost every artist has been directly recruited, and every album is classified by our team. You can read all about them on http://www.earbits.com/play/#/about_us

mikeryan2• 15 years ago

As an old guitar player I really have a gut aversion to this whole idea.

I find trying to wring cash out of, what are likely, struggling indie artists sucks.

As a consumer I do not want crappy music by the bands that paid the most in my stream.

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

Hey Mike, I hear you...my partner and I spent thousands of dollars trying "traditional" music marketing tactics - fliers, ads in the LA Weekly, and all of the normal social media that bands use now. What I am sure you know is that nothing sells an artist more than hearing their music and deciding for yourself if you like it. If a good artists gets into rotation enough on radio, they will build a fan base. We can play a band to a targeted user for $0.01 and that's plenty for what we need to operate. That's 1/15th the cost of a flier. We're so committed to treating artists right that, if that user skips you in the first 30 seconds, you're not charged.

And in terms of the quality, we also don't sell pipe dreams to bands who will not benefit. We focus just as much on listeners as bands. Fire up a channel. You may not like everything you hear, but there is no "crappy music" on Earbits.

waterlesscloud2• 15 years ago

Am I just blind or is there no volume control?

earbitscom16• 15 years ago

What kind of computer do you have? It's either on the front or the side.

But seriously, I told the team we needed one and they were like, we have more important things to worry about. Haha! We're on it asap! Thanks for the ammo!

waterlesscloud2• 15 years ago

Ha! Thanks. Always prefer to do it in software if I can. I guess my computer has a hardware control, somewhere, but I never use it.

prawn• 15 years ago

No title tag at http://earbits.com/ ?

Looks great though and I listened to a fair few songs. Quality is pretty decent for a random music feed.

Earbits (YC W11) Brings A Twist: Online Radio Where Bands Can Pay For Playtime

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