Musicadium Blog

A new music store website called Guvera claims it will tackle piracy, and bring a whole new way of consuming music to the public. Guvera works like this: users can download free tracks off the website which are paid for by companies that advertise on the site. The customers just have to answer some basic questions about their lifestyle in registration which helps cater the advertising to you by your demographic profile. The site offers over three million songs from both major and independent labels. This sounds like a win for consumers, with the offer of free music straight to your iPod, just for looking at a couple of pretty pictures of a Big Mac. It also sounds like a win for advertisers who can advertise in more effective and cheaper ways. But what does it mean for the artists?

Could this be the new interface for music consumption?

I am a songwriter myself and play in a pop band called This Means That. We are currently in the process of recording our debut EP and at the moment we are reaching the difficult decision of either using this release as a way of earning profits by selling the disc at shows and online or, using them as promotion, and giving them away for free to our listeners. A site like Guvera has the potential to change this however, as artists would have the potential to both offer their music for free to the listener, as well as also making royalties in return. This places artists in a good situation, by being able to capitalise on possible fans without having to sacrifice income. Although by setting the price for your release as $0 on one site and offering it for $16.99 on the other artists may be lowering the value of their music - meaning that no one would buy the album off iTunes if they have seen it advertised for free elsewhere. It is also important to not that at the moment Guvera still only carries content for labels, however they have speculated that they will open it up to independent artists soon.

One thing that struck me as odd is the lack of social networking integration. For such a new website seeming to be on the cusp of technology, it came across as a poor decision not to include features such as Facebook connect or a Twitter API. These integration features would allow the customers on the site to seamlessly tell their friends through Facebook, Twitter or Myspace about the purchases they had just made. This type of technology has been recently announced for iTunes and will mean a big boost in free promotion for the artists. However features like these should be in the pipeline for Guvera and seeing as the site has just been launched, I wouldn’t be surprised if these applications were added later on.

Guvera's three managers at the LA Launch Party

The ability to directly link fans through to a track was also missing. This will make it a little harder for artist to direct their fans through the site, although this could be a positive as it creates a larger divide between the product people have to buy, and the free track. Guvera could also add a new or featured artists section, to further promote the less well known artists on the site, as the home page at the moment is quite bare.  This would create a really powerful promotion tool as people who log on to access a well known acoustic folk track could then be offered several other less well known acoustic folk tracks, based on their previous purchases and demographic profile. The fact is people won’t be scared to click download on your track that they have never heard of before, as it won’t cost them anything.

A platform like this is a powerful tool for artists to offer their music to their fans and shouldn’t be shirked at. There are still a few problems at the moment, however I have no doubt that these will be ironed out over the coming months. When it comes to releasing music, consumers want as many options as possible to access it, and by not offering your music on one particular service it may annoy fans. Any outlet that is able to release music and generate income for the artist is important; however it is the successful management of all of them that creates real success.

So if you were able to put your tracks on Guvera, would you?

Photo Credits: Kelly Samardak for Just An Online Minute.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 12:04 pm and is filed under General, Industry News & Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.