Yesterday we saw how Google revolutionized the Music Internet scene with some very interesting proposals. Although the features of the platform are varied and surely we will see in depth in other posts, this time we will highlight one of them: the chance they will have independent labels and musicians to offer their songs for download and also sell a gain of 70 percent, something that gives prominence to Google Music for any other service available.
However, those not wanting to interact with Google have alternatives to pursue, which also can be profitable and interesting. There are many ways to promote our music over the Internet, even before the existence of Google Music, and not have to be through a label or platforms like iTunes, but can be through smaller sites or not intended to promote independent musicians, but they do it accidentally.
We have compiled a list of five services that are similar to Google Music in some of its features, but feel free to add your own choices in the comments.
Bandcamp : This service is one of my favorites, because as an artist allows you to upload music and offer it as a free download, but as a lover of music also lets you discover new bands. We need to make some investment to build an account on this site, but Bandcamp is, in my opinion, one of the strongest competitors MySpace as far as music is concerned. Why? Because we offer a customizable site, let us put the price we want to offer music online, and allows us to build a database of people who have downloaded our album.
SoundCloud : SoundCloud but is less than Bandcamp service as giving users the audio quality is one of the best found on the Internet, and although in recent times have been a little strict on the issue of copyright, dropping many songs and canceling user accounts (this will not do so without prior notice on several occasions, which is a detail worth noting), can be an interesting alternative. SoundCloud allows us to create players that can be inserted into any blog or personal page, fully customizable with colors and sizes. In fact, several independent labels in the United States use it as an innovative way to share their work.
SoundOwl : SoundCloud’s younger brother, SoundOwl have less aesthetic appeal but is just as useful as the latter site shares some of its basic functionality. Audio quality is also very good, and even if we can customize our players, they can be inserted as iFrame code in blogs and other sites. For us who are the ones who hear, also has an interesting search engine and categorized by genre we can discover new artists.
Grooveshark : the shark is already a well-considered online streaming service used by millions of people daily. Although it has some limitations that stem from the separation between a free account and a payment, paying nothing we can access thousands of songs from some of the most popular bands in the world. However, we can find many independent artists upload their songs to Grooveshark to impart. Although it has a search engine, Grooveshark nothing indicates that these songs are present, what remains in the hands of potential listeners artist go to their songs. This is one of those services that they talked, accidental partners in the dissemination of independent music.
YouTube : some may disbelieve the potential of YouTube to broadcast independent music, but the truth is that it is quite large. Simply just uploading a video, share it with the right people and let it all happen. Something that also helps is to upload videos with covers of famous artists to appear well positioned in the search results. To see better how it works, let’s look at two recent success stories. One of them is the Brazilian band A Banda Da Cidade Nice Mais, who published a few months ago the video for their song “Ora?ao” . The video was completely viral in Brazil, and in one weekend the band was on everyone’s lips. It did not take too much for the song, lovely by the way, got the rest of Latin America. It currently has nearly 9 million views on the site. Moreover, Americans Pomplamoose , that feeling that makes video covers classics, is transforming its task of “fun” in YouTube into something quite profitable.