The music industry is on the cusp of a revolution. Global online music sales are growing at a compound annual rate of 80% - faster than the Internet itself. Global demand for the MP3 is set to rise from its current estimate of 1 million units to 14 million in 2002. By that year, 20% of US music sales will take place on the Web.
In other words, the Internet has shifted from its status as something that's going to change the future into something that's already shaping the present.
In America, such major players as Public Enemy and Aimee Mann have opted to cut out the record-company middle-man and release their current albums through their own web sites.
The Oscar-nominated Mann has sold fourteen and a half thousand copies of her Bachelor Number 2 collection in less than two months. With the artist keeping up to 70% of the total retail cost, that's a clear profit of $7 per album. So you don't have to shift the same numbers to make the same money.
The Net still has its limitations though, with Mann admitting that she's going to have to look for conventional distribution if she wants the record to be heard outside of her hardcore fan base. Still, it's fired a warning shot across the bows of the majors, who might just try a little harder to keep their talent sweet in the future.
Another recent development is that of a huge number of A-list artists offering exclusive MP3s through their sites to drum up trade for their official releases. Richard Ashcroft's solo debut may be three months away, but you can already download acoustic versions of some of the tracks on his newly-launched www.richardashcroft.co.uk site. Judging by the quality of the graphics and the ultra-fast response time, Virgin have decided to spend a sizeable chunk of their budget on promoting the album online.
Indeed, the last six months has seen a huge upswing in the number of professionally oriented music sites, with surfers and artists alike being well served by the Irish music scene.
Jim Carroll has guided www.muse.com from a nice idea to a supremely professional online music magazine that thousands of subscribers look forward to on a weekly basis. If it makes a noise in any part of Northern Ireland, legendary Ulster scribe and Hot Press columnist Stuart Bailie lets you read all about it on his site www.ohyeah.net.
Staying in the North, in a recent issue, we reported that the independent label Schism Records, set up by former Scheer man, Peter Fleming, is receiving up to 40,000 hits a month on its website. This is thanks in large part to the sizeable demand for Scheer's second album, plus the debut offerings from Asterix and Pulzar, which are all being sold online.
"I've begun to actively include the site in my PR plugging structure now," Fleming admits. "I see it as a valuable promotional tool, although I don't think it'll ever be a major source of income. I can't see online sales ever taking over completely from bricks-and-mortar stores." Next up is the new single from Lima, - the danciest act on the Schism roster, they are generating major interest throughout Europe.
Impressed by the international exposure the site has given Schism Records, the people behind the new northern-dance compilation Apache Tribe have made all fifteen of its tracks available for MP3 download. You can have a listen at www.apache-tribe.com
CLUAS (www.cluas.com) give unsigned acts the opportunity to have one of their songs put online. Visitors to the site can then download the sound file in either Windows Media Audio or MP3 format. CLUAS also broadcast showcase gigs live on the Net, with the next one taking place at the Isaac Butt, Dublin on April 2nd.
Music Unsigned aims to bring A&R people together with unsigned acts. It also allows would-be music journalists to review their local gigs, and have their efforts published online. You can download RealPlayer files of new music from their site www.musicunsigned.com. Music Unsigned are presenting a showcase of new Irish talent in the Temple Bar Music Centre on Thursday 13th April.
Marvellous promotional tool that it may be, there's no point going online unless the quality of your master tape is up to scratch. Beechpark Recording Studios are currently offering unsigned bands 50% off the standard recording rates. Station Manager Daire Winston explains: "Most unsigned bands are not able to afford good quality producers and studios, and end up with a tinny sounding demo they've recorded in their bedroom or whatever. The thing is, these bands are often a whole lot better than their demos suggest.
"We're not really making anything by letting them record their demos with us, but we feel that, if we give them a leg-up now, they might just come back to us when they're signed and want to record their next hit.
"This is a very new initiative on our parts," Winston continues, "but we've already recorded a single with La Rocca and an eight-track with Murv, and are looking forward to working with more fresh acts."
Beechpark are also planning to set up a website service, whereby new and unsigned bands are offered a home page at reduced rates to showcase the demos they've just recorded.
"The Internet has a large part to play in the way bands and record companies interact. It's changing the way that record companies think. By setting up their own web pages with MP3 demo downloads, new bands can publicise themselves even before they're signed. It impresses on record companies how serious you are about your musical career," Winston comments.
Vitaminic (www.vitaminic.co.uk) works with independent artists and major and independent labels across Europe, as well as offering the largest collection of legal MP3 downloads on the Web.
Their Backstage area enables artists and labels to set up their own home pages so that they can promote and sell their music online. The owner of the music can set their price, and the sales revenue is split 50/50 between the artist or label and Vitaminic.
Vitaminic's Chris Cass elaborates: "People who've downloaded your sound files can leave their email addresses with us, so you can write and distribute your own newsletter through Viatminic, to let your fans know when you're playing a gig, or when you're releasing a new song.
"We also have message boards for each genre (rock, pop, world music, or whatever) so a community evolves. The communities help people to find others with similar interests in different countries. It's a very good way of building up a network of fans, friends, and contacts."
Vitaminic signs non-exclusive contracts with its artists, so that their music can be promoted and sold elsewhere. Cass explains "Companies like MP3.com are sometimes perceived as working against the music industry. We want to work with the music industry. That's why we emphasise legal downloads and non-exclusive contracts. Unless you can protect copyright, there is no music industry."
It's a sentiment that's echoed by Daragh Kettle of Digitalpressure.com. "I think one of the greatest myths of the Net is that independent artists can become millionaires by flogging a few albums online. Record companies are incredibly good at what they do - with every album that's released, there is a whole host of people working feverishly behind the scenes to promote it. Copyright is essential to protect the effort of both the artist and the record company and to ensure that artists can continue to develop."
Digitalpressure is a division of global music publisher peermusic and offers a selection of its parent company's 160,000 files for download on MP3. Kettle continues, "We would move very quickly to shut down any sites that we thought were illegally distributing the work of artists we represent. Our musicians rely on us to protect their rights." These include such prominent Irish names as Kieran Goss and The 4 of Us.
"We're planning to further develop the relationship between such artists' material and the Web," Kettle explains, "For example, we might include a link to Digitalpressure's site in a Kieran Goss CD-Rom, which would enable the buyer to download bonus tracks on MP3 or listen to exclusive concert recordings."
Servecast (www.servecast.com) broadcast live coverage of the St. Patrick's Day Festival as it wound its way through Dublin's streets. 22,000 people who tuned in to the parade were given the choice of streaming Realplayer or Microsoft Media Player.
Servecast were also instrumental in the online auctioneering of the much-loved Smith's pub in Baggot Street, which attracted record 'viewsers'.
"I think our audience for that was a mixture of Smiths' aficionados and Web enthusiasts who wanted to see if such a thing could actually be done," laughs Servecast's Kevin Quinn. "Now that we've proved online auctioneering can be successful, we intend to build a much larger network. This would support a lot more people and provide more interactivity, so users can actually bid over the Internet, no matter where they are."

EFFECTIVE WEB SITES

If you're putting up a home page for your band, you want to make sure that it works for you, especially if you're offering sound files or selling music. While the beauty of the Internet is that there are no hard and fast rules, some fundamental traits distinguish great web sites:
1. Keep it simple. 48% of those who've purchased online complain about the difficulties of getting around sites. The most successful sites are the simplest - Amazon and CDNow, for instance, are extremely easy to use.
2. Be responsive. Bandwidth is still a major issue for Web site users, especially if they wish to download sound files. Chris Cass of Vitaminic comments: "At the moment, downloading music from the Internet can be very slow. In the future, bandwidth will increase dramatically and users will be able to download sound files in seconds." Until that happens, bear in mind that the typical web user has a 56Kbps modem, so avoid bloated files.
3. Provide original content. Decide what information you want on your site. Is it new and interesting? A list of links is not a good enough reason for a site's existence.
4. Maintain the site. Outdated content is a sure way to lose credibility. Schism's Peter Fleming notes; "I spend a good lot of time updating my site to keep it relevant. Regulars don't want to see the same old material from 6 weeks ago." You should also check regularly for broken links.
5. Be interactive. The Web is an interactive communication tool and your site should reflect this. Good interactivity engages the user and makes your site memorable. And user forums like message boards actually create content for your site.
6. Use graphics sparingly. Although graphics can greatly enhance the look of your site, each one makes your page slower to download, so choose them carefully.
7. Be easy to read. Text that is difficult to read, such as red on black, is a turn-off for users. Dark text on a lighter background is the most readable.
8. Track your visitors. Part of web marketing is gauging the effect your pages have on the public. Vitaminic, for example, can monitor the number of people visiting each homepage, and can distinguish between how many people are listening to your music (through streaming) and how many are downloading it.
9. Be secure. If you are selling your music online, your buyers need to know that you have a secure server connection before they entrust their credit card details to you. Sites that are affiliated to reputable sellers, such as Digitalpressure's links with Emusic and liquid audio, score highly.
10. Advertise. Fleming advises "Unless your site is well-designed and marketed, there's not much point in putting it up. You have to advertise your site in the same way as you would anything else, using flyers and press releases etc. You have to let people know that it's out there."