What started as the first successful online marketplace selling music and related media, has recently been focused on establishing new pop-icons, leveraging their traffic with co-branded promotions. iTunes is still the titan of online media, but while the Apple-run marketplace has been focused on film and television sales, new media technology platforms have been innovating and perfecting music release campaigning. Musicians use sites like Justin.tv and Ustream.com to host CD Release, and private listening parties prior to releasing their albums to market. These and similar techniques have been very successful for artists, generating plenty of social buzz and blog coverage, surrounding their album release….

Last Wednesday night, a crew of us jammed down to LA after work to hit up a house party and special Zee Avi concert at Brushfire Records. The event was one of many surrounding the release of Zee Avi’s upcoming record, ghostbird, which hits stores August 23rd and is on pre-sale now

We hustled through surprisingly no traffic, and got to Brushfire Records just in time. After chatting with our buddies there and hitting up the killer tacos they had grilling in the back (SO GOOD), all the guests gathered into one of the rooms in Brushfire’s backyard recording studio, the Solar Powered Plastic Plant. Once the crowd was in place and ready to go, her tiny Greatness, Ms. Zee Avi, walked in guitar in hand and smile wide. Followed by a film crew from Starbucks who were on site filming the event, she plugged in and welcomed the crowd with her infectious demeanor and subtle hilariousness.

We recently mentioned how 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting came to us to create the home of their Raise Your Voice! campaign, and it’s now in full swing! Here’s the official Press Release:

170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting and ANTI-Records are pleased to announce the release of Raise Your Voice!, a 16-track compilation of music from ANTI- artists being offered as a free download to advocates for public broadcasting. Anyone who signs up to join the campaign can download the compilation—available for a limited time only—by visiting RYVoice.org. Supporters will also have the opportunity to share Raise Your Voice! with their friends and social networks.

I always thought I was pretty on top of my music knowledge, and had a good grip on the various kinds of genres, top hits, and artists out there. But, as I have recently discovered, I thought way too highly of my knowledge of music. For some of you this may come as a shock, but until about three weeks ago, I had no idea who Fleet Foxes were, and had never heard their music. I was introduced to them by a friend because he could no longer stand the idea of having to drive to work with me again while listening to “my” music. He burned me a CD of songs he felt were “better” than mine and that was when my narrow and limited knowledge of music became very apparent. 

This idea of discovering new bands and artists started to intrigue me since I had been so stuck in my ways of only listening to my music, that I never really gave myself the chance to go out and explore. But, as I quickly learned, this exploring thing was not as easy as I thought. There are thousands of artists out there with multiple albums and I suddenly became very overwhelmed and defeated. This task was way larger than I anticipated and I was very close to giving up on my new project. Luckily, I was sent an article about an online site that makes the process of discovering new artists and bands a lot easier. GoRankem.com is “crowdsourcing the music discovery process. By aggregating the expertise of the existing fanbase for every artist, the prospective fans can more easily embrace a new artist or dive deeper into a catalog than they ever had before” (GoRankem). The site not only offers rankings on the artist’s best songs, but also provides interactive features between its members.

Marketing over social networks used to be easy. You would create a MySpace page, upload a few songs and a picture or two and let millions of users do the rest by virtually spreading the word. Fast forward to now – boy, has that changed. With a seemingly ever-expanding plethora of social networking sites all trying to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, marketing yourself over these platforms has moved from hobby to chore to nearly a full time job. The typical artist must manage and keep up-to-date their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, website, and any other social media platforms they’ve chosen to market themselves over. Most artists will confess that constantly updating each and every one of their online marketing platforms takes much longer than they’d prefer. The process is arduous at best, and any artist will acknowledge their true desire to use that time creating music. Yet, in the modern age it’s an integral portion of anyone’s marketing strategy.

Enter Musedash, a new online application that lets musicians manage all their social network profiles from one main dashboard. From this dashboard, you can post content (be it status updates, links, news, or photos and videos) and choose to which networks you’d like the content to appear on. So you could simultaneously post a news article on your Facebook profile, your Facebook page, your Twitter, your MySpace, and any other applicable network – all with just one click. Musedash sets itself apart from competing services like Hootsuite and Ping.fm by catering specifically to musicians. And, recognizing that most musicians are not computer geeks in their spare time, creator Hilke Ros and the rest of the Musedash team have made user-friendliness a top priority. The result is a clean, simple and straightforward application designed to make social networking easier, not more complicated. Potentially, using Musedash to manage multiple social networks simultaneously could save valuable time and frustration, and would eliminate the possibility of mistakes or inconsistent information on different networks.

Late last month, the unveiling of Google+ prompted the world over reconsider the future of social media and online networking, and many began to wonder if The Goog’s latest product would boast enough innovative features to dethrone Facebook, king of the social networking realm. Speculation has run rampant as the search giant’s latest foray into new media gains momentum, much of which attempts to size up Google+ against Facebook. Many in the tech world are projecting whether or not + will be successful both in stealing existing social network users and attracting new ones. But here at Oniracom, my compadres and I have been interested in how Google+ will integrate into the larger scheme of social media marketing and brand growth strategies. While wishful thinking would allow Google+, Facebook and others to harmoniously coincide with each other in the virtual world, it is becoming ever-more clear (as is obvious with Facebook’s Skype contract retaliation) that there really may only be room for one. It’s impossible to know which network, if any, will prevail, but Google+ is making a strong attempt by promising features and upgrades not available on Facebook or other social networking sites.

William Duvall, lead singer of Alice in Chains, approached Oniracom for a custom blog site to host his personal thoughts and day-to-day happenings. We skinned his Tumblr blog with a custom background image, social navigation, and a Topspin widget in the header of the page. Our design compliments the intuitive functionality built into Tumblr, and this option eliminates any needs to learn a content management system. We also created and branded William’s social networks as a foundation for his future brand health.

Visit WilliamDuvall.com to see this project in action!

Reggae artist Duane Stephenson is one of our amazing clients. He’s currently touring all throughout summer and hit recent single “Better Tomorrow” is generating some serious buzz and airplay, along with the song’s music video. Duane and his team have truly been a pleasure to work with. If you haven’t check it out yet, head over to duanestephensonmusic.com to see what we created and learn more about this fantastic artist.

Today Oniracom turns 10 years old!  We are proud to be serving the music and entertainment industry for the past 10 years.  Here is to another successful decade in Santa Barbara, CA!

We are proud to announce the launch of an awesome website for the very talented (and only 15 years old!) Scott James! Check it out here.

We implemented Topspin for Scott’s mailing list collection and e-commerce, Soundcloud for Scott’s audio content, YouTube for Scott’s video content and Facebook to feed Scott’s photos.

We are proud to present our updated Solutions Page on the Oniracom website.  We like using the filter by Solutions on the upper left.  Click on any Solution in the grid or alphabetical listing along the left column to launch a litebox overlay with details about our offerings.

Photo by Tad Wagner

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences & Festivals offer the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. Fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW is the premier destination for discovery.

Networking for 10 days (or even 5) can easily overwhelm even the most advanced conference-goer.  What does X company do?  Who did I meet last night that I wanted to follow up with?  What was the restaurant I wanted to try in Memphis?  Which after party did I end up at the other night? 

Oniracom enjoyed an incredibly successful 10 day stint of networking, film viewing, music listening and trade show booth-ing.  Here are 3 tips for your next trip to SXSW or another conference or festival:

Check out this short video of the Oniracom booth at SXSW.  To keep up with all the action at SXSW be sure to follow us: http://twitter.com/oniracom

Oniracom is enjoying a full week of film, music & interactive at SXSW2011 by attending screenings, live shows and conference panels in Austin this week.  We have made a tremendous amount of quality contact with the true innovators of 2011 both for Oniracom and our newest venture ProducersPortal.com.

Please follow us on Twitter throughout the week:

Oniracom, Company
Jacob Tell, CEO
Justin Davis, Lead Strategist
Tyler Singletary, Dir of Biz Dev

We look forward to sharing more of our thoughts, experiences and media, so stay tuned…

Congrats to Oniracom’s client ACIDIC for their AOL Music feature of “The Big Bang” music video.

Oniracom and SoundCloud have partnered to create custom embeddable audio players.  Our first project together became available on Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco for G. Love’s “Fixin’ To Die” album.  We designed a custom skin for SoundCloud’s development team who implemented this player to stream the entire G. Love album.

We look forward to co-authoring more custom players.

Oniracom is proud to announce the new website for Ron “Tater Salad” White, the popular stand up comedian who is a charter member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.  Ron has been nominated twice for the Grammy Awards and is RIAA certified 10x Platinum for CD/DVD sales of over 10 million.

Don’t forget his famous slogan…. “You can’t fix stupid.”

Oniracom is gearing up to work on more projects with Ron’s management who has been an incredibly savvy and wonderful team.

Oniracom has teamed up with our good friends at SoundCloud to bring you the first listen of
G. Loves latest release from Brushfire Records, Fixin’ To Die, exclusively on Conan O’Brien’s website Team Coco.  Head over to TeamCoco.com to hear the full album a week before it hits stores and you can download an exclusive track right on G. Love’s website.

Jake Shimabukuro is one of the latest artists we’ve been honored to work with. It is true we are excited to have him as a client because of the unparalleled level of musical ability he embodies, revolutionizing what’s possible with the ukulele. But even more so, we are thrilled to work with him because of the goodness of his character and the positive change he is contributing to this world.

We are proud of our client ACIDIC who is currently visiting troops to entertain them.  Here’s an excerpt from SantaMonicaPatch.com

Los Angeles based modern rock band ACIDIC will visit troops in Germany and Kosovo this December and January as part of an Armed Forces Entertainment tour.  The band will perform for troops in several undisclosed locations, sign autographs, pose for photos and extend their gratitude to America’s troops.

ACIDIC consists of lead singer and guitarist Michael Gossard, guitarist Michael Thompson, bassist Ted Dubrawski and drummer Matt Whitaker. Their latest CD, “Getting Lucky” was released in March 2010. ACIDIC has performed at legendary venues such as SXSW, The Sunset Strip Music Festival, The Troubadour, The Showbox Sodo and Whisky A Go-Go. This past year, they toured across the United States opening for the bands Filter, Hawthorne Heights and The Higher.

“We were so happy to get this chance to entertain our troops because they are the people who exhibit the most intense tenacity and courage in the face of danger on America’s behalf. They deserve nothing but the most sincere and memorable performance and we’re certainly going to offer ours! We’re going to do everything we can to give them an awesome New Year’s celebration. Our appreciation of our troops knows no bounds, and this is one way we can say a special thank you,” said Gossard.  Thompson added: “It’s an honor to provide entertainment for the people who provide us protection.  We’re hoping to provide some happiness and bring a little bit of our USA rock’n'roll until they can get back home.”

Additional info on ACIDIC can be found on their website at www.acidicband.com.

We are super excited to be the technology providers of FanManager’s Street Team platform.  Here’s an excerpt from FanMail’s blog post:

Our clients are awesome and every one has interesting stories to tell.  Some of them, like FanManager, are really pushing the innovation needle to drive their business and communicate with their fans.

FanManager is about as cool as it gets: They offer creative, full-service solutions to artists and festivals. They manage musician’s on and off-line street teams, as well as work exchange programs for events.  FanManager hosts a very large community of street team members who accrue points for completing marketing tasks for their favorite artists. With these points, street-teamers can purchase merchandise, tickets and get VIP access.

The case study below is what happens when 3 great companies get together: Oniracom, FanManager and FanMail. Partnering, we help FanManger manage over 90,000 online and offline street team members, keep their data clean and actionable, provide custom profiles for each member and deep analytics for each FanManager client.

Super Geeky Goodness!

G. Love’s “Fixin To Die” album drops February 2011, and to build a buzz, Oniracom developed an Action for Media page where users get a free song from the album in exchange for one of three actions.  You can post a message about this campaign to Facebook, Twitter or sign up on G. Love’s Mailing List.

Thank you to MySpace for recognizing Oniracom’s great design and implementation of their new beta profiles!

Jack Johnson has a new album and a new profile to go along with it! One of the best upgrades we’ve seen so far. We’re glad that he volunteered and we didn’t have to get pushy. After watching the featured video he has in the Expandable Marquee we realized he’s not a dude to mess with!

Make sure to check out Jack’s new profile and listen to some new tracks.

Read more here

Beginning tonight is Santa Barbara’s own New Noise, a music conference and festival in its second year.  I feel pretty nerdy when I get more excited about the panels than the music at festivals, but it’s happened again. (Same thing with SXSW!)

Click ‘Read More…’ to check out the panels I’m most excited about seeing (and you should be too)...

CNN recently featured Jack Johnson and his All At Once community on a segment called “Impact the World.”  Oniracom designed and developed the All At Once community so we are proud to see CNN included a couple screen shots.

Jack Johnson’s foundation “All At Once” promotes local charities on his tour route and encourages fans to get involved.

View the short video below to get a taste of what we’re about.

A big thank you to Matthew McAvene and Atman for their amazing efforts at turning Oniracom’s concrete floors into a work of art.  Instead of buying and laying tile, why not Faux paint tiles on your concrete floor?

Here’s how to do it yourself….

BEFORE

AFTER

Click to Read More…

Peter Tanham of Amp Music Marketing writes, “When we start working with any musician, two of the most important goals we start with are:

1.) Build a strong mailing list

2.) Build a popular Facebook page

Fans are going to be more comfortable interacting with the artist through these mediums, and they are also the ones that drive the most sales.”

Highlights from this article include:

The importance of Facebook Ads

Implementing effective Facebook Ads

1.) If You Like Those Guys…  it’s called a “power play,” pick musicians that are similar to your style and pay to be played to their fans.

2.) Building A Good Landing Page: make sure your Facebook ad redirects them to a customized landing page which will encourage them to click the “like” button with some incentive to hear or get your music. Make sure it is the most similar sounding music to the artist you referred to in the “power play.”

3.) Target Your Ads… and run multiple campaigns!

4.) Ask Questions. Encourage Clicks and Likes - (reference pseudo ad image on the left).

“At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco, Eric Tseng said that Facebook “really sees mobile as the future,” and that we can expect to see Facebook’s “Like” buttons in mobile applications soon.

Tseng used geolocation as an example to illustrate the power of the mobile Open Graph. If you were to walk near a coffee shop and get a location-aware notification that there’s a happy hour going on there, you’ll probably be even more inclined to visit it if the notification comes bundled with recommendations from your Facebook friends.”

From Paramore’s rendition of “Use Somebody” to Framing Hanley’s version of “Lollipop,” cover songs seem to be all the rage right now. Which is exactly why we love BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, because honestly, what is better than watching your favorite artist cover a song that we already know all the words to?

So, what is Live lounge on BBC - Radio 1, you ask? Well, Radio 1 is a station on BBC and Live Lounge is a separate segment on Radio 1. The radio show features interviews and performances with musicians spanning all genres. After the interview is conducted the interviewee will usually perform a cover song in addition to one of their original songs. Interestingly enough, the cover usually tends to be outside of the musicians typical genre, the result… pure awesome-ness.

Thanks to Facebook who recently released their “Best Practices” guide for musicians.  Facebook attempts to teach musicians how best to connect music fans on their social network.

On page 3 of the PDF, they reference some tips on how to connect, and under point 2 “Create Content Worth Sharing” they show an example of Oniracom’s Lenny Kravitz photo-tagging campaign!

Oniracom is honored to be part of this official Best Practices Facebook guide.

Now that we’ve had a year to reflect on Michael Jackson’s death, I have compiled a list of MJ favorites from Oniracom’s staff.

What is your favorite Michael Jackson song/video?

We, through our label Oniric Records, announce that legendary reggae band The Wailers have contributed an exclusive new track titled “A Step for Mankind” to our “Solutions for Dreamers: Season 3” compilation album. This compilation, to be released July 1, 2010, is the third in our Solutions for Dreamers series and all of the proceeds generated will go directly to the United Nations’ World Food Programme(WFP).

The World Food Programme is the world largest organization fighting hunger on a global scale. WFP is committed to getting food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict, and natural disasters. Each year, on average, WFP feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries. We at Oniracom and Oniric Records have been inspired the work the WFP does and are proud to partner with them on Solutions for Dreamers: Season 3.

InsideFacebook.com published an article “How Top Musicians Are Utilizing Their Facebook Pages” showing how bands now leverage Facebook more heavily as they turn from artists into brands.  With many of Facebook’s tools (old and new), artists are able to form lasting relationships with their fans, rather than selling them the occasional album, EP or single.  Oniracom shares this philosophy—in fact all of our websites, microsites, widgets and social media destinations facilitate direct to fan marketing, fan-oriented growth tactics and lasting relationship building.

By collecting additional contact information from their fans through a sign-up form, musicians can augment their Facebook campaigns with mass e-mails and mobile promotions. Mozes, a leading service providing mobile engagement tools such as mass promotional text messaging, powers the mobile sign-up of many leading musician pages such as Rihanna and Kings of Leon. Email sign-ups are predominantly handled through an integration of a widget, often developed by an artist’s record label. Jack Johnson, in a tab powered by Oniracom, baits users with a free mp3 but then requires an email address to which to send the file.

Tabs which offer downloads, especially of rare b-sides or live recordings, in exchange for contact information are a great choice for musicians because they entice both hardcore and new listeners with something exclusive, and help establish the artist on the fan’s hard drive, not just their web browser.

Read the Article Here

The good folks over at Mashable recently published an article talking about who would buy the new iPad.  It got us here at Oniracom wondering who among us would buy the new iPad.  This is what some Oniracom employees had to say about Apple’s latest Magical hardware:

Slightly Stoopid has had a long and successful career and they have never forgotten to give back.  They have been ambassadors for I Went Hungry by donating to their cause and more recently they are heading down to Florida to show their support for Save My Oceans.

This is from their newsletter:

On Saturday March 27, Slightly Stoopid is heading south to Gainesville, FL to play a special show at The University of FL on Flavet Field, brought to you by Save My Oceans. This show is FREE and open to the public! Our boy G. Love & Special Sauce will kick off the show.

The SAVE MY OCEANS TOUR is part of Participant Media’s Social Action campaign for OCEANS, which recently launched online at http://www.savemyoceans.com, and is designed to provide information about the various issues currently affecting our oceans as well as solutions and actions that people can take every day, from supporting national oceans policy to modifications in the types of fish they eat or household cleaning products they use.

We at Oniracom have had a long partnership with Heal The Ocean and like to partner with like minded people, groups and organizations so its great to see our clients Silverback Mangement (Slightly Stoopid) and G. Love and Special Sauce backing this great cause.

I’m sitting at the airport gate right now waiting for my flight out to LAX, then I’m on my way to Austin for SXSW.  Luckily there is wireless at my gate so I can go through the massive list of panels, shows, talks, keynotes, and booths at the festival to decide where I want to go and who I want to meet.  I already have a couple plans to meet up with some cool like-minded companies as Oniracom (like TopSpin and CultureJam), see some of our clients play (Rogue Wave, The Middle East, The Northern Crowns, Christa Borden), and meet up with some companies we already have the pleasure to work with (Justin.TV, TAO, and Luck Media).  It’s going to be a busy 4 days to say the least, but I’m excited to take it all in.

Here are the panels I’m most excited about:

1) Your Fans Are Your Livelihood
How can artists and labels use new technologies and services to sell directly to consumers, retain more of the sale price and build relationships with fans? Services are emerging which offer the framework to go direct. Learn what the new intermediaries can and can’t do for you and your fans.

This one caught my interest immediately because it is moderated by Glenn Peoples (Senior Editorial Analyst at Billboard).  I’ve been following Glenn’s writing on the state of the music industry since before I started working in the industry.  There are a ton of people who write about the music industry, but this guy is the top of the top.  Highly recommended.  I really look forward to meeting him.

Click “Read More….” to read the rest!

The following post was written by reknown producer and industry thinker Sjoerd (Sjoko) Koppert.  Besides working with bands such as The Who, Pink Floyd, ABBA, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Beach Boys, Yes, and Lynyrd Skynrd, he also orchestrated the launch of FedEx in Europe and the Middle East in 1986 while on a personal break from the music industry.  He is well-known for being an insightful and forward thinker for the music industry, as he has constantly adapted his strategies to maintain success in an ever-changing business.

Oniracom is currently working with Sjoko on two original music series, produced in high quality to be premiered on the web before moving to television and film.  (More on that soon!)  Here’s a snippet on some of Sjoko’s thoughts for YouTube future in their fast maturing market. Enjoy:

Points for thought

After launching FedEx in Europe in ‘86 I attended my first “official” FedEx board meeting in Memphis and caused a lot of consternation. When asked my opinion about the state of the corporation my response was: “Dangerous. You are a single product company in a fast maturing market.” To say this remark caused consternation would be a severe understatement. After all, I was addressing a board that had only ever experienced and accommodated growth. But my statement was truth based on fact and before long they recognized that they had to take serious action in order to preserve their market position.

Today I see a very similar situation with YouTube. They are a single product (delivery platform) company, a market leader in a maturing market. Alternative delivery platforms are developing and growing. Just in recent weeks we have seen developments. Hulu is moving from being just another delivery platform to content development (Article). AOL is moving from content provider to include delivery platform (Article). Shifts have also been spotted from companies such as Yahoo (Article) and MSN/Bing (Article). History has shown that this market movement is to accelerate. As such, a company like YouTube will have to make strategic moves in order to preserve and built its market position.

Currently, we are awaiting YouTube’s response to a request for a more “fixed rate” schedule of advertisements for two original series. This is a move away from their Google based advertising platform. Our request to YouTube is based on our concept research, our proven capability to deliver and the interest in the shows from corporate sponsors. 

Our contact with sponsors is due to my history with marketing / advertising / sponsorships, but our core activity is content development. I am a producer first and foremost and a marketing / development person as a necessity. No question YouTube can handle sponsorship / product placement and have the people in place to do so. The latter is one of the reasons I requested for a YouTube person to be part of our “closing team” when finalizing major sponsorship deals. It helps us and comforts our corporate sponsors.

And here comes today’s key question:

YouTube is considering a strategic decision in changing their manner of advertising. Should they perhaps consider a different strategy and partner in the production of shows?

Personally I think of YouTube as a partner anyway, be it an “initial delivery partner” only. I would not have any objections to them becoming involved financially. Yes we would forego a percentage of our long-term revenue, but I do think they have much to offer to counterbalance that. I would value your opinions. 

In evaluating the above, please consider that currently our production entity owns both shows and YouTube is the initial delivery platform. After YouTube the shows will go to television and after that other alternative platforms (DVD etc.). In other words, there will be a large ongoing residual value. Naturally we would have to share the revenue with YouTube should they partner us in producing the content.

Do you think this would benefit both parties? Or do you think YouTube should stay away from production and revenue share? I welcome your opinions!

Sjoerd Koppert

What makes a good website? How do you start building a website? Learn all this and more this week on Jeremy’s Desktop.

Join Jeremy and the guys from Oniracom to find out what you need to make your website a smashing success. Oniracom is the company responsible for the websites of Jack Johnson, John Legend, Matt Costa and countless other music sensations. We’ll get the scoop from them on how they go about creating these works of art – from the story board to content dissemination. See what these experts say are the 3 things every website must have.

About Oniracom

What makes a good website? How do you start building a website? Join Jeremy and the guys from Oniracom to learn what you need to make your website a smashing success. Oniracom is the company responsible for the websites of Jack Johnson, John Legend, Matt Costa and countless other music sensations. We’ll get the scoop from them on how they go about creating these works of art – from the story board to content dissemination. See what these experts say are the 3 things every website must have.

Fast-Forward 17 minutes…

Oniracom built this free MP3 widget for Matt Costa.  We got a bit of press in the OC Weekly too!

​Visit MattCosta.com right now for your chance to download new song, “Permanent Vacation,”  from the Huntington Beach Brushfire artist. But don’t think you don’t have to put (a little) work into it—by either posting on Facebook, tweeting or joining the Costa mailing list, you can get the track for totally free.

While it’s definitely a deviation from the usual ultra pleasant Costa M.O. we’re all used to—sunshine, Astairs, roses, et al—the track may just be a pleasant surprise for you fans out there waiting for fresh material. Hope you like the Doors. And reverb.

The dominance of the web has changed the way people work, live and stay informed. For now, I’m going to leave aside a discussion about what the internet has done to the average person’s experience of life and the way people relate to others (though they are certainly worthy subjects for reflection and consideration).

What I want to share with you today are the tools we at Oniracom use to help us stay on top of the rapid shifts and changes which we encounter daily.  As a company that works primarily on websites and social media, every new application, every new site, every new contribution to the field of design, development and social networking has the potential to rearrange the way we go about business.  This means that it is a necessity to stay flexible, because you will encounter challenges and you will be expected understand the new developments and rise to the occasion (or risk being met by a client asking, “well they did that over their; are you not as capable?”).

So with all these changes and rapid sharing of information, what is the trick to staying on top without driving yourself crazy?

The solution is finding good tools that bring you the most relevant information and allow you to communicate easily and work efficiently.

Click Read More to See The Tools We Use on a Daily Basis and leave a comment about the tools that you use!

It took a little bit of time and energy, but we’re psyched to announce that the new Marc B Music website officially launched today!

On this new and improved site you will find video, music, Marc’s latest tweets, pics, and tons more cool stuff!

Author Bobby Owsinski’s “Music 3.0: A Survival Guide for Making Music in the Internet Age” features an interview with me (Jacob Tell) about Web 2.0, new media and social marketing. 

The paradigm has shifted and everything you knew about the music business has completely changed. Who are the new players in the music business? Why are traditional record labels, television, and radio no longer factors in an artist’s success? How do you market and distribute your music in the new music world - and how do you make money?

Intro to Jacob Tell’s Interview:

Jacob Tell’s Oniracom is a new breed of company that provides a full line of digital services to artists, labels, and management.  Starting his career running the computer systems on the road and coordinating the merch for Jack Johnson, Tell put the big picture into context by watching the interaction between artist, management, and promoter in different venues around the world.  Helping artists in the digital space before there was a YouTube, MySpace, or Facebook, Jacob has watched the development of Web 2.0 and learned how an artist can best take advantage of it along the way.

Pick up a copy at Amazon today!

If you haven’t had a chance to come visit Oniracom, you should know that we can get pretty nerdy here. Even during our daily lunchtime gatherings where we tend to talk about other topics, we still end up talking about content management systems and the value of open source. This just happened the other day. The White House has just transferred whitehouse.gov to the drupal content management system. Sean mentioned that it is highly customized version of it, created with a lot of internal development. Hopefully they release a lot of their changes to help the community. We are a smaller shop though, and are better suited to outsourcing that work to a third party. We chose Expression Engine as our main content management platform. It is not a matter of which CMS is better, but what fits the needs of the project….

One of our summer 2009 interns, Karen Kiley, enjoyed her experience working at Oniracom and wrote up a nice post about her experience.  Karen is now back at the University of Limerick in Ireland.  We wish her the best with her career path.

This summer, I spent three months working as a social media intern with a company called Oniracom/Oniric Records. The company, based in Santa Barbara, California, creates online presences for a number of big name musicians. They also specialize in the websites and social media of some entertainment and environmental companies. The record label Oniric Records manage some local Santa Barbara acts.

Read: Karen’s Blog Post

It may be a little early for the Holidays, but we wanted to give you a little early present:

Free Oniracom Wallpapers!

Oni’s going on a little journey for the Holiday season.  Click “read more” to see all the different sizes (we even have one for your iphone!).  Leave a comment if you need one at a different size or if you have an idea for another adventure for our elephant to go on.

Rumors are starting to fly about Googles new music service.

It seems as if the service will be going after Bing who is trying to offers users a better search engine.  Google’s music service would simply be an upgrade to their search results for music.  If you search for an artist like Jack Johnson it would now give you a small list of some of his most popular songs and videos pulling data from music services such as LaLa, MySpace, and iLike.  You can stream the music right there on the same search results page, watch the video and even click a link to download and buy it.  While nothing is official yet we have been working on updating some of our clients on those music services just in time for press release.

Check out the sneak peak at what the service might look at over at TechCrunch.

New Noise Santa Barbara was a great success.  Being their first year, nobody was certain how heavily attended the concert component or conference component would be.  Both turned out to be a success!  People raved about Michael Franti’s Arlington Theatre performance, Jack Johnson’s film screening with last minute acoustic performance as well as many of the sold out club shows. 

The New Noise Panels were also well attended and talked and tweeted about all weekend.  I was asked to speak on two panels, “The Future Is Unwritten” and “The Green Musician.”  Below I’ve written a list of 5 items from each panel that I learned from other panelists.

What I learned from other panelists on “The Future is Unwritten:”

(click “Read More…” below)

What I learned from other panelists on “The Green Musician:”

(click “Read More…” below)

Oniracom will be well represented at this weekend’s New Noise Music Conference and Festival, held in Oniracom’s backyard of Santa Barbara, CA.  New Noise Santa Barbara is a three-day music and digital media conference that will showcase emerging and established bands, host educational panels on the music industry’s hottest topics, present esteemed experts from all aspects of the business, and serve as a place for players big and small to connect and plot the future of music….

The music industry is in a pit.  The future is uncertain, and people just aren’t paying for music anymore.  Thats what the RIAA will tell you as they sue, sue, sue in full panic mode.  The industry is scrambling for a way to make money off album sales, something they say is vital to the future of music.  How and why would record labels produce albums if they don’t sell?  How can bands create music if there aren’t any labels around?

5) Panels, Panels, Panels
-Valuable for anyone interested in the music industry at all levels of knowledge.  Some awesome panelists and topics lined up!

4) Shows, Shows, Shows
For $40 you can see 46 bands over 3 days.  Pretty remarkable, right?  Here’s the lineup and schedule.

3) Michael Franti & Spearhead at the Arlington Theater
Pay a little extra cash and you can check out Michael Franti at the Arlington Theater, just like he did for our SFD Festival!

2) Jacob Tell of Oniracom will be speaking on TWO panels!
Check out “The Green Concert” and “THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN: Exploring The New Frontier In Music” panels to hear our Jacob Tell (VP of Oniracom) speak!

1) World Premiere of Jack Johnson’s New Live Movie: En Concert
What better way to see Jack’s new film then with 2,000 other fans in the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara??

For all the details, check out newnoisesb.com.

I’m diggin’ on this blog, Copy Cat, where people can upload covers of songs. 

Not only can you find your favorite songs covered but you can also find some of your favorite artists taking a stab at other peoples songs. 

Their tagline says it all: “No Original Content Here!”

So far we like Beck covering The Flaming Lips, Norah Jones covering Wilco, Elliot Smith covering The Beatles and Oniracom’s client Zee Avi of Brushfire Records covering Interpol.

You can check them out at copycats.tumblr.com or have your covers delivered right to your door step by following them on Twitter.

Mason Jennings was featured and interviewed on CNN today.

On the interview he reveals a bit about how the new album “Blood Of Man” came about and what inspires him to write.

Effortless melody, dexterous wordplay, tight compositions—they come easy for Jennings, whom Rolling Stone recently dubbed “one of the best songwriters you’ve never heard of.” But his new album, “Blood of Man” (Brushfire), goes deeper than his previous work, which presented a more affable side of the Honolulu-born, Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter.

Read the full article here.

Also don’t forget to check out the website we did for him.

One of Oniracom’s newest clients, indie rockers The Middle East, got an honorable mention on Pitchfork today.

Check out the write up and listen to their first single, “The Darkest Side” of their new EP

The first track is called “The Darkest Side”, a simple, finger-plucked acoustic affair with alternating and harmonizing vocals that lend the hushed track a sense of beleaguered hope. (Pitchfork)

Also stay tuned for a brand new website for The Middle East coming soon!

We recently launched the new Jack Johnson Music for his upcoming “En Concert” release.  The launch includes a brand new website layout, updated online store complete with digital downloads (integrated with physical merchandise shipments) and a social media campaign to promote the products.  Billboard.biz covered our Twitter widget:

Jack Johnson is harnessing the power of his Twitter followers to promote his new live album. Users send a form letter (form tweet?) to their followers and in return will get a free MP3. Nice. It’s simple, probably cost next to nothing, and will most likely be very effective. Oniracom, the company that runs Johnson’s website, offers a case study on its efforts to increase Matisyahu’s Twitter following and improve his Twittering. (For example, Matisyahu generated buzz by inviting five Twitter followers to his band rehearsal). (Mashable)

Read the Billboard Article

MySpace has launched their sync service to many of their users world wide.  Right now you can sync your MySpace status update with your Twitter. 

The beta service was originally only available to celebrities and musicians like Oniracom clients Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, and Matisyahu.

The service is another great way for musicians to be able to update once and publish to several sites much like several third party Facebook apps that publish your Twitter updates to your profile wall.

We have been able to keep fans updated about new tours, album launches, and special opportunities through Myspace Sync. (Sizlocore)

We recently launched the new www.jackjohnsonmusic.com for his upcoming “En Concert” release.  The launch includes a brand new website layout, updated online store complete with digital downloads (integrated with physical merchandise shipments) and a social media campaign to promote the products.  Mashable.com covered our Twitter widget:

It’s really simple: just head on to twitter.jackjohnsonmusic.com. There’s a premade Twitter message there (you can add 24 more characters if you like) that promotes the new album, titled En Concert, and all you need to do is login into your Twitter account and send it. The download of the promised tune (it’s a 192 kbps MP3) will start automatically.

Read the Mashable Article

Over 8 million users become fans of Facebook Pages every day to connect with their favorite public figures and organizations and get updates directly in their streams. Now, users can connect with brands, musicians, celebrities, businesses, and more, whether they’re on or off Facebook.

Today, we’re excited to launch the Fan Box, a Facebook Connect-enabled social widget that Page owners can add to their websites to allow users to fan and view the accompanying Facebook Page stream. With the Fan Box, brands can bring content from their Facebook Page into their website and help convert website visitors into Facebook fans. Users can view the most recent posts from the Page, see a list of other fans (including their friends), and, most importantly, become a fan without leaving the site. Additionally, if a user visits the site and isn’t logged in to Facebook, the user can log in and become a fan directly inline as well.

How does this relate to Oniracom?

Others implementing the Fan Box on their websites today include ABC News, NPR, World Wildlife Fund, (RED), BlackBerry, Lance Armstrong/Livestrong, Roger Federer, Lenny Kravitz, Kings of Leon, Tide, and Herbal Essences.

Yes, we implemented this on Lenny Kravitz website and social network destinations.  Thank you to the Facebook development team who are incredibly easy to work with.

Read More Here…