Dude, Songza is great. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should. It’s basically a very clean, a very easy-to-use "Google-meets-jukebox". Search for any band or song, listen, get recommendations, etc.
For kicks, I even tried my own interim band name, DreamSpin, and my song "Spinning Daydream" showed up. How? I’m not sure, but i’m assuming they’re somehow cataloging all bands that have some kind of social network presence. Whatever their method, it’s clearly very deep if they’ve even indexed bands with only one song in the market..!
But here’s the latest brilliance: Songza has launched a Band Self-Promotion Beta Program where bands can promote their own music by having it featured in the "Recommended" section of Songza’s search engine results. Though it’s in beta now, Songza is opening doors to do what Google already does — charge bands (i.e. advertisers) to target relevant audiences by making their music appear when related music is searched for.
It might work like this — you (the band/label) create an account with Songza. Your band sounds like Coldplay and Keane. So, you bid some amount per click/display/play/purchase/share, perhaps $0.01/$0.10/whatever, to have your song recommended when someone searches for a Coldplay song. It’s good for bands/labels, ’cause it’s a relevant, targeted audience.
Google makes 90%+ of its revenue from search engine advertising. Songza could move towards that model, and could eventually launch an advertising platform similar to Google’s Adsense program, which enables ads to appear on other websites via contextually-driven widgets. Perhaps we’ll see them on Last.fm, Jigg.com, Hype Machine, or GarageSpin some day.
Definitely keep an eye on Songza, it may be one of the few online music startups that has a viable business model in the works. AND, it could become a great channel through which to promote your music. Be sure to sign up for the beta and try it out.
(Thanks, Taylor)
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