May 4, 2009 What artists should know about Jango
Would you pay $1 for a new fan? Would you pay 2 cents to have your song played to a fan of your favorite band? I would, and did, with Jango Airplay. Jango offers free internet radio that plays listener-selected artists alongside similar artists. Tell it which artists and songs you like and dislike, and it adjusts accordingly. Basic social networking features are included, allowing listeners to share music and compare tastes. Jango Airplay lets artists buy their way into Jango’s recommendation engine, promising guaranteed airplay alongside your pick of popular artists. You can buy 1000 plays for $30, 2000 plays for $50, or 5000 plays for $100. I started with 5000 plays, and was so encouraged by the results that I spent another $200 for 10,000 more.
When your song is played, a pop-up appears on the listener’s screen. They can close it, ignore it, “like” the song (give it a thumbs up), or become a fan. Once the song gets 50 likes, it enters general rotation, generating non-paid plays that continue after the paid campaign ends. The “how it works” page (featuring yours truly as official poster boy) says that typically 5-10% of listeners will rate the song or become a fan. My results were even better, with 12% of paid plays resulting in likes. It only takes 5% to put the song into general rotation after 1000 plays, which can be had for $30. That said, just reaching general rotation doesn’t mean the song will be played very often. The more likes it has, the more it will come up. I’m currently averaging about 25 free plays per day, approaching the halfway point of my $300 promotion. About 2% of listeners became fans of my music. At 2 cents per play, that’s $1 per fan. I’m obviously using the term “fan” loosely here, since liking one song hardly constitutes any sort of personal commitment. Some listeners may have heard the song multiple times before becoming a fan, which would give their declaration a tad more significance.
A couple of days ago I messaged each of my fans to introduce myself, invite them to visit my web site, and let them know where to buy my albums. So far I’ve received four messages back and one order by e-mail, though only about 20% of the messages have been opened. Yesterday Jango added a bulletin feature which lets artists communicate with all their fans once per week. Unlike messages, bulletins are visible from the listener’s home page, so I expect a better response rate. $300 is nothing to sneeze at, especially when stacked up against sales of my music. What exactly is my return on that investment?
- Increased sales. I can only verify $20 in direct sales, but it’s reasonable to expect a few iTunes sales as well. My Amazon physical CD sales are way up this month, but that could be a coincidence.
- Royalties. Jango promises to pay royalties on every play, though who knows what that will amount to. In January, the US Copyright Royalty Board announced that it will apply royalties to streaming net services based on revenue. For argument’s sake, if it’s a half cent per play, I’ll eventually get $75 back from SoundExchange.
- Song feedback. Listeners are encouraged to comment on the songs. There are over 100 comments on my profile already, though it’s not always clear which song is being commenting on.
- Improved targeting. Jango tecently added the Fan Overlap Report, which provides some insight into the musical tastes of the listeners who like your song. The asterisks indicate artists I’ve already selected as similars.
Analyzing current sales and royalties from the paid plays is a bit shortsighted. My guess is that within five years, everyone will be able to listen to anything, anywhere, for a small monthly fee. Artists will receive royalties based on their proportional share of plays. If that scenario comes to pass, investing in new fans could pay dividends for a long time to come.
EDIT: A Jango representative read this article and gave me an affiliate code. If you are considering trying Jango Airplay, please use this link! Any money earned will be used to buy more plays for my songs. I will continue to report back with my results over time.
UPDATE 10/19/09: I promised to report back with my results, so here they are. It’s been six months since I wrote this article. I’ve “recycled” the few hundred dollars I made in affiliate earnings back into my campaign, but invested no more money of my own. My current stats are:
37076 plays (29582 paid), 3528 likes, 413 fans, 1837 views
I’m only averaging 25 unpaid plays a day, where I used to get double that. I get more on my totally neglected MySpace page! Maybe there are a lot more artists in the system now, or maybe listeners aren’t listening to similar bands as much, or maybe Jango doesn’t have as many listeners as it used to.
I still have no reliable way to quantify my return, but Jango continues to bring in occasional sales, mailing list sign-ups, Facebook requests, and Twitter followers. While I stopped keeping track after the first $100 or so, my totally unscientific guess is that I’ve earned back maybe half of what I’ve spent. At least a dozen Jango listeners have converted into “real” fans, who I regularly interact with. Maybe the exposure will pay off in the long run, maybe not. Still, if I had a dedicated promotion budget, I’m not sure where else I would spend it! Between a traditional radio campaign and Jango, there’s no contest.
Brian Hazard is a recording artist with fifteen years of experience promoting his seven Color Theory albums. His Passive Promotion blog emphasizes “set it and forget it” methods of music promotion. Brian is also the head mastering engineer and owner of Resonance Mastering in Huntington Beach, California.
Reader Comments (34)
So, let's discuss the entire 'pay-for-play' landscape here.
In addition to Jango, Grooveshark has one:
http://artists.grooveshark.com/
And Last.fm has a program:
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/is-a-lastfm-powerplay-campaign-right-for-you.html
I have two questions about them:
1. Do they 'net' a good outcome for the Artists that spend money on them?
2. Does it 'preserve' the good experiences that music fans have with them?
If it doesn't do both, it is likely a short term opportunity. If it does (think when google finally separated the ads from the natural search and made billions), then it sounds positive.
The fundamental conflict here is that:
Having money ≠ being good music
How do any of these 'radio' sites deliver good quality music (and new opportunities for Artists) within the context of delivering on their mandate of being good (and neutral) radio stations, without being just a web 2.0 version of the 'payola' model that everyone railed against when Spitzer finally took down the majors and terrestrial radio?
Sure, the opportunity for 'payola' is now open to everyone, but does that make it better?
I'm asking the audience, not taking a stance here. I'm really a just a curious observer at this point.
I keep asking myself two questions:
1. How would I feel if Pandora were feeding me paid placement, as a fan?
2. Can Pandora survive if they don't?
The confluence of internet radio and paid placement seems upon us right now. Its a model that worked in the past, financially, for broadcasters. But if its allowed to work again now, what stops those with the most money from out-bidding Artists that don't? Aren't we right back where we started? Won't I eventually be guaranteed to be spoon-fed major label content? If not, how will sites like Jango stop that from happening when they are struggling to make it on their current models (I'm not suggesting that Jango has any financial problems, just generalizing here about internet radio)?
Anyone have any thoughts about how this model could work in the long run?
Thanks for the post, I'm all ears. Please enlighten me.
Money makes the world go 'round, the world go 'round...
If:
1) Millions of people can make "nice music" that is "good enough" for the average casual listener, and
2) If yo are the frist to get "into the ears" of milli0ons of listeners, then they tend to know you and return to your music, and
3) Those ears can be purchased..
THEN
Average musicians/bands with the most money to spenf on "ears" will be the most popular.
However,
--- "niche" artists will have their relatively smaller networks (no income, but lots of satisfaction)
--- Amazing artists will "bubble to the top" every once in a while.
But the odds of it being YOU will be astronomical! As always.
According to the recent Future of Music Coalition analysis (April, 2009) on radio playlists, payola most likely continues to determine the composition of radio playlists everywhere.
I have mixed feeling about payola.
The majors could never buy all of the slots available (if payola was widespread and acceptable everywhere). So, I see payola as a direct (a democratized) way to obtain access to mass(?)-market exposure. I am all for leveling the playing field. Anyone with a bit of cash should be able to buy access. Transparent payola is far better than backroom payola.
However, I am having a hard time envisioning how this model could scale to include...everyone. The ability for consumers to 'change channels' and filter music (coming soon) is unprecedented. If reliable 'quality' (I know this is subjective) filters are not applied to payola models, they are doomed to loose listeners faster than they acquire them.
Here's my execution plan (quickly): every artist should be able to buy a refundable payola ticket. However if the song does not pass the entrance test, a refund is generated and the song is bounced from the payola machine.
The real question is how do you build a reliable, no-brainer 'entrance test'? For any model that involves music (40,000,0000 songs + over 1,000,000 new songs a year) and fickle consumers, the absence of a reliable filter will prohibit these models from scaling. When building filters, I am not a fan of solely relying upon crowd-sourcing for this capability (OurStage makes my point perfectly). Music Xray is building a filter that relies on a combination of proven industry experts, machine analysis and market traction measurement. By the end of the summer, Music Xray will be able to filter (as just described) over 1,000 songs a day (limited services available now). Hopefully, Music Xray will become the 'entrance test' for some of these payola models.
Musicians all come to these debates and make the mistake that the general public needs "great music".
That's a musician thing.
The general public only needs "good enough". They need "fun" music, or something catchy.
LOTS of people can learn to make gobs of it on today's digital audio workstations, either midi, sampler-based, or loop based. Usually a combination.
So there will be a deluge of "good enough" music clamoring for a listening on th eInternet.
And as early producers give up and leave, new hopefuls will continually take their place.
The MONEY is going to be made by the Internet infrastructure providers, the guitar makers, the DAW software makers, and the tee-shirt/merchandise makers.
It's true.
Internet radio "payola", where everyone has access to it at the click of a button, is like advertising. You are buying a slot on internet radio the same way advertisers buy slots on TV channels and terrestrial radio. As long as it's a transparent system, ie the listener knows it's a paid for advertisement, there is no ethical problem with a business (ie band or label) doing this.
Due to its relatively low access price point, this puts advertising in the hands of more bands and small labels who could never afford a spot on TV or terrestrial radio. However, the price is only low because there are other types of advertisements (I tried to listen to Jango radio and there is a 15 seconds ad slot at the end of each song). So essentially, the listeners already have to suffer ads from product companies then they have to suffer ads from bands. This is too much.
Is there any good user survey demographic info on these services? I can't figure out what kind of people are actually using them. Personally, I just rely on friends to clue me into good stuff and I've never had the patience for the Pandoras, the Last.fm's, but that's also a quirk of my listening habits.
Do we have any real figures on WHO is on the other end of these services? I'm very curious.
Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here… great discussion. Couple of comments below:
Re: Jed
We remain convinced that Jango Airplay is a great way for bands to reach new listeners and for listeners to discover music they’re likely to like. Making sure both artists and listeners are happy and come back for more is obviously crucial to our success.
So quality and listener control is key. Airplay songs that receive lots of positive ratings enter general rotation and get "organic" plays too. And Airplay songs that receive more negative than positive ratings get “retired” (and the emerging artist can submit another song or get a refund). Also note that even when we hit the cap for 'Airplay' artist presentations our average listener will only hear one of these songs in an hour.
On the listener side - we aren’t going to start playing lots of "spoonfed major label content.” In order to retain our listener base, we simply must provide a compelling music experience - and playing only what major labels are promoting just wouldn't work. Jango (much like Pandora and unlike terrestrial radio) is a personal, customizable experience, and the way we curate stations based on listeners' taste is one of they key differentiators for us relative to more traditional outlets for music.
Re: Bruce
Like the way you think. We're thinking along the same lines. First of all, we review all songs to ensure that they meet (our own admittedly totally subjective) quality standards, and that the “similar artists” chosen make sense. But more importantly, the wisdom of the crowds decides what songs get played more, just like our user's tastes determine the mix in "regular rotation.” Saying that, would love to give your Music X Ray a spin with some of our ‘Airplay’ artists…let’s talk
Re: Natalie
Our 15 second ad spots only play when someone skips a song, and only will happen to any one user two times a day at most.
I did my best to address the concerns I'm hearing on multiple forums in a follow-up article:
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/is-jango-payola.html
I appreciate the thoughtful and considerate discussion!
OK, now I know MTT doesn't automatically parse URLs. Let's try that again:
Is Jango payola?
Just a little note to say I updated this post with my latest stats and thoughts.
as for the person who said that:
"Musicians all come to these debates and make the mistake that the general public needs "great music".
That's a musician thing.
The general public only needs "good enough". They need "fun" music, or something catchy."...
That type of mentality is the reason why music does not and is not selling today, the public needs Great Music, not mental cases like we have floating around in todays industry with screaming and hollering, cellulite, skin bleach, color contact lenses, weave, weave, weave and more weave, stink breaths, leotards and lace wigs that have come alive all by themselves! Not to mention the fact that most of these artists can't show the world that they can get along in a group...all while screaming "girl power",.... "ladies"... give me a break!!!
Sounds more like "fake" to me!
Thanks for giving us more prostitutes music industry, thanks for giving us more poverty and bastard children and baby mamas and muddas...
Its more like a halloween show, especially todays hip hop and r and b artists who only sing to alter egos, hint hint: (rainman) (forming triangle and other stupid shapes) (gangs)... demons and other spirits that have overtaken them to give the world bad music, more unwed mothers, more booty shaking, and fatherless homes, yeah, thanks a bunch, the world doesn't need great music, thanks to idiots like this, they only need more AIDS.
Wake up people!!!
After reading about Jango I feel that it is a catch 22. Jango can benefit artist that are talented in terms of reaching more fans and possibly gaining more exposure in their respective genre. Now on the flip side, the issue of quality control is an issue. If random artist with lot's of money are able to purchase plays, but lack the talent to make great music this only puts us back to square one in terms of how traditional radio stations work (payola). I think that if Jango can regulate the content in terms of ensuring that the artist that are purchasing plays actually have good music, Jango will ultimately flourish based upon the fans get to hear great new music, and the new artist gets exposure (essentially a win win for everyone). Time will tell if that happens...
My band "Imaginarius" is currently testing out Jango. We started about 3 weeks ago, and our results have been close to what Brian has been doing.
Our song likes are 5% compared to his 8% for every 100 paid songs. However... our new fans are 3% per his 1% for every 100 paid songs.
We're going to wait and see if this makes any difference in our sales during this testing phase. And I'll post back here if my band sees an increase... or not. After all... if you're gonna spend the money... it would be nice to know if you can get something back for it... right?
A couple weeks ago, I made enough in affiliate earnings to reinvest in a new campaign. They've made a few nice improvements since I wrote this article. While they've finally allowed us to email fans directly, my response rate is still very low. I do like their new PopScore feature! It looks like it'll give me at least 50 free plays a week.
I look forward to hearing your results Imaginarius. It might be tricky to compare sales during the holidays to other periods.
Being that it's the holidays... is true. But we do have 3-4 years of looking back at our income data to indicate if there really was a true spike in our sales or not. I do feel like we're adding new fans like crazy on Jango. I take that with a grain of salt knowing people just click yes or no if they like the song they are hearing and BAM!! They are a fan. However, if Jango is not helping us generate higher sales, then I really don't see the point of continuing to shell out money to have our material played on Jango (expense vs income is crucial here). I'm giving it one more month - as it sometimes takes weeks to obtain all the data we need from previous months of sales. Will keep ya posted once we feel we've had the chance to go over all of the incoming info. And thought other independent acts would like to also know what we've discovered along the way as well.
YES! Please post your ongoing results - with all the hype and promotion of artist services, it is really valuable to get unbiased analytics to help make informed choices. Thanks, and would be great to see others share as well.
Depending on your results (and mine, I suppose), I may need to update my article. A lot has changed in eight months.
Sigh, its the usual story isn't it? A hyped up Internet portal make it based on a high number of artists being desperate enough to sign-up and pay a little bit. The individual artists are still in 99.999 cases out of a 100.000 selling more on a street corner with a box of CD's and a banjo, than with these kind of setups.
Hi everyone.
I have recently signed up with Jango.com.
So far so good - but just as somebody above me pointed out, the big question is will these so called fans click the links and buy the music?
Independent music isn't selling very well these days as it is and I think jango.com seems to be a genuinely great place to test out your music to real, fresh ears, but weather or not these sites actually generate real music buying people is another question...
Well I'm back. And I'm sad to report that our data did not bring back positive results. We had joined JANGO back in early November. Gave it about 3 months of constant playing of many of our songs. We picked up a lot of "fans" and a fair amount of "likes" which seemed promising. However, this did not result in higher sales for our music. In fact... our sales went down over the past 3 months.
We spent hundreds promoting ourselves on JANGO. And for a return on investment model - JANGO did not help us in the way in which we were hoping. Now... one thing to consider is that the way JANGO operates... any "fan" can listen to a song they like at anytime (unlike an actual radio station). When someone hears a song they like on an actual radio station - they go out and buy it. On JANGO... I get the feeling that the people that like your music will just add you to their station and play your song on JANGO when they want.
I am also a little skeptical about how the whole "fan" and "likes" are added. What do I mean? Well... I noticed a pattern. Often when we would pay to play one of our songs... that song would have 100 plays - which would span over the coarse of 12 hours on average. What was interesting is that people that became our "fans" or picked "likes" didn't occur over the span of those 12 hours. In fact... more often than not... they came in clumps on one hour or two and then would disappear for the rest of the day. Even though these "fans" were from all over the world. Interesting... huh?
Anyways... I would love to hear what others have come across with JANGO. Spending that kind of money and not getting any kind of positive return on investment is not an ideal scenario for any independent artist IMO. We will keep watching our numbers... and if anything should change... I'll update you all here.
Thanx :)
Imaginarius
Thanks for the follow up!
I agree that for the most part, we're targeting people who are in the habit of hearing their music for free on the site. Taken in that light, it makes sense that your plays didn't translate into sales.
I understand why you're skeptical of the numbers, but I'm convinced that Jango listeners are real people and that their "like" and "fan" clicks (that's all it is, a click) are genuine. It could be that Jango updates their internal database at certain points, so that our control panels aren't 100% real time.
I actually ponied up $500 worth of plays since they introduced the new feature allowing our "fans" to share their email addresses. As soon as I see a fan has shared their email address, I add them to my mailing list on ReverbNation. So far 5 out of 6 have stayed on (it's only been a week).
how to embed jango music player to my blog??
I'm so confuse about this web..
please tell me about it.
OK my shootout between Jango and Google is underway and whilst Jango took just less than 24 hours to approve my campaign, Google haven't even started.
Initial review so far. Around 6 percent of people like the song, 6 percent have become fans and one percent have commented. Unlike most who use Jango I am not linking it to sales, rather my strategy is to garner fans and then run a promotion to get them to my website. Will let you know how it pans out.
Next is Youtube. I do feel that in theory it SHOULD be possible to gain sales from these type of promotions but only once they start to grow legs and there's a buzz happening. Until then the objective should be get people to watch your video on your site where you can monetise it with some ads.
Ok so here we are.
Jango is proving to be a pretty good indicator of the demographic that would like your music.
So far my stats are as follows:
Plays 762
Paid plays 760
Organic plays 2
Likes 25
Fans 19
Profile views 4
Comments 4
I looked at the stats in a bit more detail and the most fans were female age 25-35
and the song rated highly with females in general from 25-35, 18-24, up to 17 just tied with 35-44. I have a popscore of 74 (not sure what that means though).
But interestingly it shows who my song is appealing to and it could be influential in how the rest of the promotion will go.
Check it out http://airplay.jango.com/bands/93541
And if the Jango man is here how do you do the affiliate link ?
I have a big problem with jango Rado. Aproximately 2 weeks ago I signed up for the free 100 song play trial. I set up the account succesfully. I got a message that it would take between 24 and 48 hours to process and that I would receive an email when I would go live. Its been two weeks and still nothing. My status still says pending. I tried emailing the support team but have not gotten a response. I tried calling the toll free support number listed on the site and each and every time I get the same recording telling me that there is no support technician available to answer the call and that I should email. So far my opinion of jango radio is very poor.
I've signed up with Jango just recently. I'm pretty satisfied so far with how it works--I'll know is a few months if it drives any sales.
However, I'm most impressed with Jango as a listener. I enjoy getting a chance to listen to new artists (I couldn't take it all the time though) peppered in my custom station. I always listen all the way through to give it chance. Most of these songs I don't have a reaction to--I won't give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. The songs I like, I will give a thumbs up. But as a listener, just because I liked it doesn't mean I'll go out an buy it. A song really has to hit you and make you go Wow! to buy it.
I remember when I first heard Anne McCue, John Mayer, Kathleen Edwards--artists like them--well before they became established. They had that wow! factor for me, and so subsequently I went out and bought their CDs.
I think a lot of artists are encountering this when they see those "likes" in their stats, and maybe that's why it's not translating to sales. All you can ask though is for the chance to have people listen to you. The onus is on the artist to make compelling music that people want to buy.
My latest stats:
147692 plays (117457 paid), 14386 total likes, 5924 fans, 4754 profile views
And most importantly to me:
294 email addresses shared (which I consider an opt-in to my mailing list!)
Well, I have just tried out Jango for a few days and here are my results. Please note that I used premium targeting, which uses 2 credits per play as opposed to 1 (it just didn't seem to make sense to pay to have people in Taiwan listening to my music, when I'm trying to get more active fans, coming to my shows in California).
I have spent $10 + 100 free plays, have gotten 164 plays and 18 fans from them (about 11%). 1 fan had shared their email address.
Assuming these stats are indicative, here is what my campaign would look like if I spent $30/month (500 targeted plays) for 6 months ($180):
3000 plays, 330 fans, 18 fans sharing their email with me. Based on previous experience, I'd say only about ONE THIRD to HALF of the fans that had shared their emails with me will actually follow my career.
<u>So, to put it simply, $180 will translate to 6-9 REAL FANS! If each of these fans would buy my $5 EP, I would make $30 - $45, leaving me with a $100-150 loss. </u>
Now, right now I'm getting about 50 email list signups a month WITHOUT any publicity at all (just finished first EP and focusing on shopping it to the industry, not on selling to fans).
So, paying $30 month for 3 email signups just seems ridiculously expensive.
So, my conclusion is - I'm going to save my $180 and unsubscribe from Jango. What will I spend it on instead? I will start building a FUND for a TRADITIONAL PR campaign. NOTHING beats getting into a high-profile radio or TV show or a heavily subscribed magazine or blog.
Just as an example, I was featured in Perez Hilton's blog for ONE DAY about 2 years ago. That day rendered about 7000 plays on my Myspace page and 50 email list signups. Yup. That's more plays and WAY more fans then Jango's paid campaign for 6 months.
I don't think there's any way around traditional PR, if you want to have any kind of major sucess!
Good luck to all the great musicians out there!
Hi, I've been on Jango about three weeks so far and it has delivered what it promised, nothing more, nothing less.
I love the realness that you guys have put into these posts. I was really feeling a lot of the points that were made. I would just add on by saying that Jango does not guarentee record sales, they only guarentee paid plays. Thats fair. I agree with the PP who stated that it is up to each artist to make music that people want to buy. The major labels are not for everyone. Every musician does not desire a major recording contract because we wish to retain creativity and ownership of our hearts and souls = OUR MUSIC.
Question, how many starving artists out there really have the money for major PR? Some of you must be newbies who say they'd rather shop for a deal thru a label...good luck with that!! These industry execs have MILLIONS of would be artists just like all of us here who feel that they are good enough for a deal. Take a number! You need more than a wow factor, you need to be nothing short of amazing, or at least willing to compromise all of your integrity for money and fame. Relenquish all of who you are as an artist to some label dickhead that cares nothing about your creativity, only your ability to sell records. And guess what else?
When you sign a deal, it is not in the form of 5 million dollars like The X Factor would have you to believe! lol, its a RECORDING CONTRACT that includes video money, promotions, studio time and paying the people in your camp among other things. The INDUSTRY will GET ALL OF THAT BACK BEFORE YOU SEE A DIME!! Artists make money off shows, but early in the career, very little off record sales.. At least until your album is shipping double platinum.
Many of us could not AFFORD what is considered "real payola", so I say hats off to Jango for establishing an outlet to help artists boost thier careers INDEPENDENTLY...Jango is a TOOL, not a CURE ALL for wacked artists who would not sell otherwise anyway. Thats no fault of Jango or any of the competitors. It has to be GREAT, cause while good music moves people, GREAT music sells.
Take Jango at face value and use it for what it is designed for...like a PP stated, to allow a wide range of listeners to be exposed to your music and hopefully be inclined to buy it. You still have to do the hard work, you don't just sign up for a service and think thats it. To the PP venting about all the hos and fake gangstas, I agree totally, but guess what?? Consumers are buying the crap so it must have a market...thats why Jango is PERSONALIZED, folks can choose what they want to listen to and leave the bull *ish alone.
I am no judge, I have been an indie artist for over 12 years, and have worked with FAMOUS producers and even as an office assistant at an idie backed by a major label. I have relatives in the industry and in television and I'm not just on here talking mess. You have to respect the music business as just that a BUSINESS, and we all know how it goes in business, right?
The industry as a whole has and is constantly changing, and I feel that us indie artists stand the best chance to be left with the most important thing of all....OUR DIGNITY.
Hats off to you Jango!!! Keep the Fiyah Blazing!!
Sistah Fiyah 10,000 Degrees...Reggae Pop artist on Jango Radio
Jango asks you to pay for play. In the old days this was called Payola and is illegal.
Jango does not pay performance royalties - so they are breaking copyright law.
Jango does not pay Soundexchange - so they are breaking copyright law.
Jango does not pay mechanicals - so they are breaking copyright law.
Jango will not let you remove your songs. That's illegal.
They want you to retitle them. That's illegal too.
They put you on other sites which also don't pay royalties. There are three different sites that I know of that are Jango retitled.
If you get fans or their Facebook links, you can't write to these people because of Facebook freezing your account if you try to.
I've used Jango for an act I am managing and I'm not really clear what the point is... I like to see the Demographic crossover info and it's nice to see that someone in Hong Kong or Hawaii likes the music. But here's the thing: NONE of the hundreds of 'fans' from Jango ever join us on Facebook or Twitter or engage with the act in any meaningful way (including buying products).
This has led some observers to speculate that the fans who like your songs are bots.
Maybe they're not bots.
But it seems statistically unlikely that NONE of these big music fans will go the extra mile and, say, go to Facebook to see the video or hear more songs. When people love music (or anything) they can't wait to share it with their friends, in person or online, or to find out more; Google the band, check out their Facebook.
This is normal human behaviour.
Jango listeners don't seem to do that – I can't 100 per cent say they don't google but the names of our new Facebook fans never ever match any of the names we've seen liking us on Radio Airplay/Jango.
Also: yes it is great to target 1000 listeners who like similar music. But 1000 listens really isn't that many. Here in the UK, even the low-rated local radio stations have tens of thousands of listeners to their new music shows. A play on BBC 6 Music or BBC Radio 2 will expose you to millions of listeners – ok, only a proportion will actively love what you're doing. But it puts the Jango/Radio Airplay stats in perspective.
So... Jango gives you little morale boost - lots of people apparently like your music and, even better, those people like 'proper' name artists too. But, beyond that... what?
I have also experimented with Jango over the last few years and we recently launched a new album and invited our alleged "fans" to participate in a free download of 3 songs. Not one fan responded out of several hundred which struck us as odd. I am beginning to wonder if these fans are not software generated and the whole Jango experience is one giant fraud on one level.
My experience with Jango has actually been very well - so much so that I'm considering actually paying for plays.
I signed up with CD-Baby and they offered the 100 free plays to start and then the 10 free plays a week. I took the 100, and the 10 per week. I currently have four songs on Jango and here are my stats since I signed up in January 2013:
I've actually had interaction with at least 3 of the fans.
I really don't expect to see sales from this as I really don't expect to see sales from any of these sites. Why would I go buy the song when I have it in my "favorites" list and can listen to it anytime I want. Personally, I actually do that with other services as well.
What do I expect from this site? Well, I do expect to get some exposure and some word of mouth. This way a fan will tell a friend (perhaps a friend that uses one of the services that pays royalties) who will tell two friends, etc.
From my Jango site, I do direct folks to my youtube site and to my personal site where I have links to my songs on itunes, rhapsody, etc. I've also see revenue (albeit a small amount) from these sites; so that is where I'm figuring on the eventual larger revenue coming from.
Am I still paying for play on Jango - of course! Each time my song is played there is no (correct me if I'm wrong) royalty paid; so I guess that is the cost for me to use their servers, staff, electricity, communications lines, etc. If/when any of my songs become so popular that they are part of the main reason folks tune in to Jango, then, I'm sure, I'd definitely be in negotiations for compensation. Jango is not the only service out there that is not paying royalties and I actually have my music on a few of those sites (i.e. ReverbNation, Facebook, Broadjam, etc.) as well.
Bottom line, at least for me, is you have to figure out what your getting and then decide if you're getting your monies worth.
• Billboard Ads - in Ann Arbor, Michigan (adult population 268,000) Cost per Billboard: $1,500 per billboard (rate for the purchase 3 billboards) per month. Bigger markets are bigger costs!
• Bus Bench Ads: $75 - $400 per ad per 4 week period, usually with a minimum of 10 bench ads.
• An effective size campaign on a popular radio station could cost $500 per week in small town like Myrtle Beach, SC to $8,000 per week in a large city like New York. For your money, you could reasonably expect to get 20 commercials, with the majority of them airing during desirable times of the day
• YouTube advertisers pay per view of their ad, with an average cost-per-view ranging between ¢.10 & ¢.30 per view.
• Magazine Ads Typical Cost: $500 to $20,000, depending on whether the publication is local or national, the size of your ad, whether you use color and if you've negotiated a multiple-ad rate.
• We all know the costs of producing your own show, selling tickets, paying staff to sell our merchandise, etc.
None of these above mentioned methods guarantee your music will be played, so if your ad is not catchy enough (with the possible exception of the radio ads) not even a snippet of your music will be heard. With Jango, your music played and the user has to make the decision to turn-it-off if they don't like it. Since it's played in their station, the likely-hood that it will be turned off, even if they are not 100% thrilled with it, is minimized; and that's what I like about these type of services.
With all of this, it really doesn't matter the quality/type of music, it's really all a matter of your budget. Even the biggest ad budgets don't always translate into positive sales at the outset: Hollywood studios, on average, spend $34.8 million to advertise a movie and earn, on average, just $20.6 million per title; they then, of course, leverage the box office numbers on the global market to garner much, much more than they initially spent. That's what having a full time marketing department can do for you.
So, until I have a full time marketing department, I guess I'll keep writing my songs and novels and keep dropping business card sized ads in public places along with using services like Jango and YouTube; who knows - maybe someday the right executive will happen upon one of my creations and like it enough to buy it for one of their artists to perform it. If that happens, I could be in the thousands of dollars.
0.0
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David R. Mohr