I started using the Reverb Nation widget (on the sidebar, to your left) a little over a month ago and, I wanted to give it a good trial period before I wrote anything about it.
I wanted to find a widget that was compatible with WordPress, that could be updated/manipulated quickly and easily, that had the option of adding other artists to the playlist and, provided a purchase link on the player. There isn’t a whole lot of stuff out there that meets those criteria.
So far, I’m happy with Reverb Nation. As an artist, you can start a free account, upload songs and have access to a number of widgets in various sizes and shapes. As a listener, you can start a free account, browse and purchase music and use the same widgets for your own sites. In other words you can promote music that you like. You can even, “grab” a widget from an artist. For instance, you could take the widget I have in the sidebar and embed it on your own site and the playlist would update any time I changed it. Or you can create your own.
Reverb Nation has an artist ranking system that is similar to Amazon rankings. The rankings are based on the amount of plays and “site activity” that an artist’s Reverb Nation account gets. Reverb Nation tracks your plays, site visits, the number of people who sign up as “fans”, sign up for a “street team”, the number of people who embed a widget and add your song (promoters). What they are hoping the artist will do, is contact everybody they know, through email and social networks, and pester them into starting an account.
The artist ranking is determined by a “Band Equity Score” that is determined by the number of plays, fans and Reverb Nation site hits the artist gets. Now, when I signed up, I listed my “genre” as rock because, that’s the biggest one. In the rock genre, there are currently, 26,845 artists or bands. The first day, I was at the very bottom. Over the last month, I have moved up the rankings in a fairly steady fashion (a few times I have slipped). My progress has come solely from the plays of my music on pribek.net. I haven’t solicited “fans”, “street teamers” or, sent out mass emails.
Yesterday, I had a fairly high traffic day for this site so, I had a higher than normal amount of plays. I also had two people sign up as “fans” for the first time and my ranking increased dramatically. I moved up 1,396 spots in one day which is the biggest increase I’ve had in a day.
Currently, My Rank among Rock artists: 1613 out of 26,845. Woo Hoo!
Now here is the important part.
Reverb Nation shares equity with artists and bands based on site activity.
ReverbNation shares half of the advertising revenue generated from artist profile pages on the web site. Each month, 50% of the total ad revenue from across all artist pages will be pooled, and artists who have opted-in to the Fair Share Program will receive a portion of that pool based on their overall site activity for the month.
Artists can increase their site activity scores by driving more new fans to their pages, and by having their music played more often and in more places on the web.
So, if you like pribek.net, you will be helping to support it simply by visiting my Reverb Nation page or, if you feel so inclined by setting up a Reverb Nation account and becoming a Pribek fan or, by embedding a widget.
Gary wrote,
Did all of that yesterday, hope it helps!
Gary’s last blog post..CD Review: Man Raze - Surreal
Link | June 5th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Pribek wrote,
Hey thanks Gary. This revenue sharing thing wasn’t part of why I set up with RN but, it cant hurt if it works.
Link | June 5th, 2008 at 10:18 am