Music Arsenal Blog

Say Hello to RockDex Pro!

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:49:35 GMT

Here at Music Arsenal HQ in sunny Omaha, NE we've been hard at work on an all new version of RockDex. We began RockDex simply as a cool site to track your online buzz but the response has been so overwhelming we decided to take it a step further. We heard your requests and have developed deeper tracking, better results, detailed data and more. We call it RockDex Pro!

So what does this mean for you? You'll be able to better understand where and who your fans are and what they're saying about you. Maybe that deep cut on your new album is the most buzzed about track and you should consider giving it a little more attention. Plan your next tour around hot cities and interact with your fans buzzing about your the most. Find and cultivate that tribe and 1000 true fans.

We plan on releasing this into the wild soon and if you signup for early warning we'll let you know before anyone else and give you first chance to use RockDex Pro. We promise no long waits. (We'll also start deep tracking for any artist that signs up)

We'll also be giving one on one phone demos several times a week so if you're interested, indicate in the form. If you don't want a demo and just want to say whats up we want to hear from you.

Now for the goods! Feast your eyes on the first shots of RockDex Pro! Make sure to click the images for full size.

We have several artists and companies using this pro version now and have had great feedback! Needless to say we're very very VERY excited for this! Remember to signup for early notice, keep an eye here and follow us on twitter for updates!

Music Exposure and Discovery with Twitter

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:29:49 GMT

Twitter has undoubtedly become what many are calling the next big thing in music promotion. There have been several success stories and on the same hand some have been disappointed by the results. If you look beyond individual case studies its interesting to see how artists and fans are using twitter to expose music and what methods are most popular.

RockDex has been tracking millions of Twitter posts as part of our upcoming RockDex Pro edition and garnered some pretty interesting data. We've poured over your tweets and categorized the biggest sources of twitter music discussion and discovery.

First off, a breakdown of all tweet sources. These are tweets containing an artist's name. If the tweet states something along the lines of, "I love Rocket From The Crypt" it is categorized as a general tweet. If the tweet content is "Rocket From The Crypt - Born in '69 http://blip.fm/~8p7l4" it is categorized as a blip.fm tweet and so on. Artists like Cursive, The Streets and Rush were excluded from this study for being overly used in non-music contexts. Click on a chart for a larger view.

You can see that the vast majority of these tweets are general posts about an artist. However 3.6% of all music tweets come from blip.fm and another 5% were from radio stations tweeting what they're playing right now.

If we break this down further we can see what percentage of specialized tweets come from individual sources excluding general tweets. These are tweets posted from social music sites such as blip.fm, The Hype Machine and radio based sites Yes.com and RadioTAGr.com.

Finally here is a chart of specialized tweet sources without radio station tweets. I've excluded radio from this chart because radio tweets don't require any human interaction (both yes.com and RadioTagr.com are generally automated) as tweets from these social music sites do.

You can see currently Blip.fm is leading the pack far and wide. Although twt.fm is only holding 6.01% of the market share right now, keep in mind they only launched five months ago and are a site to keep your eye on.

We'll update these charts as we collect more data and new social music sites are created. If you'd like more information or want to check out a demo of RockDex Pro e-mail me at jimmy@musicarsenal.com.

New in Music Arsenal - Tagging, Paging, Navigation & more!

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:52:38 GMT

We've been doing a lot of work under the hood in Music Arsenal but we also wanted to let you know about some of the visual and functional updates we've made recently to make MA easier to use. Click on the image to view a bigger version

Tagging is here!

Lots of Music Arsenal users requested we add tagging to our contact system to make searching and navigation easier... so we did just that! On any contact page you can click the 'Add Tags' link to add a tag to a contact right then and there. After you add a tag it is searchable from the 'Tag Search' box located on the left of almost every page of the application.

Paging

We admit, it used to be hard find all of the contacts in our music industry contact directories.... but no more! We've added paging to the contact lists so you can see every contact we have. This will make cruising through the directories faster and easier for everyone.

Navigation

Another update we're very proud of is the retooled site navigation. We've ditched the dropdown menus in favor of a faster tabbed based navigation. The feedback for this feature in particular is resounding as the overall experience with Music Arsenal is much improved.

Redesigned Contact Page

We released a new design for a contact page awhile back and now we're getting around to writing about it. Its MUCH easier to read and find information on a contact page and if a contact has an address a map of that location is also displayed. You can also add notes and communications for a contact without refreshing the page. What a relief!!

We are hard at work making more updates available in the near future and as always we'd love to hear what you think or if you have any ideas. Just e-mail us at info@musicarsenal.com or fill out the suggesting form in the application.

The First Week of RockDex

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:42:51 GMT

RockDex was launched just over a week ago and what a first week its been! We haven't done much more promotion than a post on this blog, some tweets (@musicarsenal), and e-mails to Music Arsenal users and the response has been great!

First, some quick stats! We've had over 800 artists check their score since we launched. The average score of the international artists is 68.6, national artists is 41.6 and regional artists is 34.5. We will be using this new data to tweak our algorithm over the next couple of weeks and will announce any adjustments.

Blog Posts

We've also had a handful of blogs make some great posts about us! Big thanks to Greg Rollett of Gen-Y Rock Stars for their RockDex Review and Contest! You can read the posts here:

RockDex Review and Contest - Gen-Y Rock Stars
Rockdex: See How Much You Rock - LockerPartner
Music Arsenal Launches RockDex @ SXSW - Silicon Prairie News

New Music!

Not only have our computers been working overtime to pump out the scores but our ears have been working overtime to check out new music. Being the snoops we are we're listening to a lot of the artists that get checked out on RockDex. We've heard some great stuff! We've also had two artists send us music via our SoundCloud Dropbox and we loved them both! If you wanna rock and or roll how about you take a listen to The Bron-Yr-Aurs. If you want to get mellow and hear some sweet soothing sounds check out The Sweater Friends.

Make sure to meet up with us at SXSW! E-Mail Us or say hey at the RedGorilla Showcase we're doing with our friends at Indie Extreme on Thursday, March 19th at the Blind Pig Pub between 4pm and 8pm.

Music Arsenal launches RockDex!

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:53:37 GMT

After lots of work and lots of data we're proud to launch RockDex! RockDex is a site we've developed where artists can see the amount of "internet chatter" about them and learn new ways to increase the buzz. RockDex scours the internet to find current trends about an artist and scores a band based on data from other bands on their level. We generated our algorithm by looking at over 20,000 datasets for artists large and small. Everything from Green Day and Coldplay, to my roommates bands Son Ambulance and Nick Carl to the newest band on the street.

Think of it as the Nielsen Ratings for an artist's internet activity.

It was an idea I first had a few years ago but we never have had the chance to develop. With the wide range of APIs available now it made development rapid and the data much more accurate than it ever could have been.

The charts are based on the most recent data we have on artists for the past week. It will be a changing barometer of who's hot, who's not and who's rising quickly. Data is gathered and artists are reranked every couple of days so the information is fresh.

Building the site was no small feat and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the amazing talent at DownsDesign. Wait till you hear this. They took scribbled ideas we had for a design and turned it into the beautiful masterpiece we have now in A WEEKS TIME. THATS INCREDIBLE! If you're looking for a hot and crisp design, look no further!

We have big plans for where the site is going, yadda yadda yadda, we'll reveal more soon.

On another note, we're going to be at SXSW Music if you wanna talk about RockDex, share your ideas or even have a beer. (Here's my personal tentative, incomplete music schedule) Also, at SXSW we're hosting a party with Music Arsenal partners Indie Extreme on March 19th from 4 to 8pm at the Blind Pig Rooftop. Stop by and say whats up!

Silicon Prairie News interviews Music Arsenal

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:49:45 GMT

Silicon Prairie News, an Omaha based blog, sat down and interviewed me a couple of weeks about about the history of Music Arsenal and where its going.

If you'd like to take a moment you can check out the Music Arsenal interview on their site. If you pay close attention you can catch a glimpse into the future of Music Arsenal and some new tools we're working on.

Also, check out the Silicon Prairie News site! Its great to see website that recognizes cool new companies and entrepreneurship here in Omaha. We're a lot more than a cool indie music scene, home of Warren Buffet and steaks!

Music Arsenal goes Open Source!

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:27:29 GMT

Well, not entirely.... but we have just released an open source Cold Fusion integration with Eventful and the EVDB API we created here at Music Arsenal. We used this on the previous version of Music Arsenal to add tour dates automatically to Eventful and plan on integrating this with the new version soon.

You can check it out at http://eventfulcfc.riaforge.com. Hope you can get some use out of this!

Also on the code front you can check out my talk at the Nebraska ColdFusion User Group Meeting about the Transfer ORM on the Tech Omaha site.

Music Arsenal at NECFUG

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:07:06 GMT

Just a quick note that I'll be presenting some of the tools we built Music Arsenal with later this month at the Nebraska ColdFusion User's Group. I've presented here before on the old version of the app, but these are the tools from the all new version. These meetings are always a lot of fun and you learn some great stuff.

It will be primarily focused on the Transfer ORM but I'll also discuss a couple of the other cool things we used as well.

Here's the information:
Tuesday, November 25th at 6pm
Location: CF WebTools at 11204 Davenport, Suite 100, Near I680 & Dodge.

Hope to see you there!

Tools I Use Every Day

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:54:06 GMT

I was talking with some friends recently and we were discussing the tools we use on a daily basis to run our businesses. I heard the standards like the Microsoft Office tools, online banking, Photoshop and more. To give a little back, here is a list of the tools I use every day to make my work at Music Arsenal a little easier.

Eclipse
I use the Eclipse IDE day in/day out for Music Arsenal development. I couldn't imagine a better IDE and I don't know what I did without it! I used to use Homesite for development but with CFEclipse my life is a breeze.

Firefox
C'mon, we're a web company. I use this all the time!

Bloglines
I never could get into Google reader so this is my RSS reader of choice. I try not to spend ALL my time with whats going on in music and the web so I also have a few feeds like The Perry Bible Fellowship and Will Draw Anything to keep me "balanced".

Favorite Feeds: HypeBot, Coolfer, Bruce Warila, ReadWriteWeb, and Vitamin.

iTunes and Sirius Internet Radio
For me its Sirius all morning and iTunes all afternoon. (Evident on my Last.FM feed) I didn't just start Music Arsenal because it was a natural progression but all I want to do is listen to music.

Music Arsenal
Not only do we develop it but we use it all the time too. We drink this special sauce for all of our contact and project management. Events.... not yet, but we have some things cooking.

Firebug for Firefox plugin
Nothing has made my life easier when it comes to web development than Firebug! Making changes on the fly to see the results instantly is a life saver.

This isn't everything I use, but its 85% of the important stuff. So what about you? What are your key tools on a daily basis?

New User Plan, Mailing Labels, and Tour Information

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:09:55 GMT

We're keeping things moving here at Music Arsenal HQ and have a nice bag of Halloween goodies for you.

First, we're happy to announce a new user plan. This plan is $16/month and offers full access to our contact directories. After hearing back from our users that a lot of one person shops don't need 5 users but they still want full data.... we created this! Now, for the price of a tour t-shirt you get the full Music Arsenal Directory.

Mailing Labels
We've been working on and testing this for awhile and now its live! After you add contacts to a project you can quickly print mailing labels for everyone. To do this, open a project --> click the contacts link --> click the 'Create Mailing Labels' link. From this screen you can select which type of Avery mailing labels you want to create (five types) as well as the format.

Tour Details
Not only did we revamp how you add and view a concert but now you can quickly see all the retail, press and radio contacts near that concert. This is really useful knowing who in the area you can contact about your show. Take a look at the screenshot below!

Like always, we're working hard to add the features you request and we'll have more soon!

More Venue and Retail Contacts

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:11:16 GMT

Hey everyone! We're staying busy here but wanted to give you a quick update on whats going on...

We've just made a big update to the Music Arsenal directory by adding more than 900 new contacts. This includes 500 new venues to play shows at and more than 350 new record stores to carry your releases. These contacts were all carefully researched and gathered so you know you're getting the most up-to-date and accurate information.

Beyond that we also redesign the dashboard page to help you quickly get started with the features available in Music Arsenal. A little deeper in the program you'll also see we've added guides to nearly every page of the site. These will help you easily understand how each section of Music Arsenal can benefit your band or company.

Thanks for reading and keep checking back for updates!

Updates! Updates! Updates!

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:51:06 GMT

Its only been a week since rolling out Music Arsenal and we're already making updates! We're going to be making these improvements pretty consistently so keep an eye on the blog.

First, we've added an Activity Feed to the Music Arsenal Dashboard. With this activity feed you can now see at a glance the 15 most recent activities in your Music Arsenal account. You can see who created what contacts, who called what stores and lots more. Check out the screenshot for a visual.

Second, we redesigned the search results page. It was OK before, but its great now! Instead of just displaying a contacts name, location and type we're also displaying phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Now you can find the information you need even faster.

Thats it for now but we're working on even more stuff for the next couple of weeks.

Music Arsenal Launch - More Information

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:44:38 GMT

As you can tell we've publicly launched the brand new Music Arsenal site. We are very happy with the response so far and we'd like to highlight a couple of key features.

Contact Directories - We've launched with over 2000 hand collected music industry contacts. You can now find all types of useful contacts in nearly every major U.S. city. We're starting with venues, radio, retail and press and will be adding more contact directories in the near future. (Thanks Jill, Brandy and Jessica for your help in researching these contacts!)

Scene Searches - Using our new advanced search feature you can now find contacts not only within a city but within 30 miles of that city. For example, if you have a show coming up in Nashville, TN you can search Music Arsenal and not only find contacts to promote your show there but also in Lebanon, TN, Brentwood, TN, Hermitage, TN and more!

More Coming...

Music Arsenal is going to be growing very quickly over the next few weeks. We will be adding more features to the program as well as augmenting our contact directories so stay tuned for updates!

Music Arsenal Launched!

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:54:27 GMT

We're happy to announce we've just launched the all new version of Music Arsenal! Not only that, but a new front site as well. Its been a grueling couple of weeks and we're very pleased with the results. We'd love to hear what you think.

More details tomorrow!

Music Arsenal Beta Update

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:08:00 GMT

Just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up on the new version of Music Arsenal and our progress. The private beta is going great and we'll be opening up some more invites very soon so make sure you signup.

We have over 1000 hand gathered, quality contacts in the Music Arsenal directory now. There are a variety of magazines, blogs, record stores, college radio stations and more. This directory is growing very fast so check back often for updates.

We're also working on redesigning a couple of the contact pages to make them easier to navigate as well as adding functionality for advanced searches and mailing label printing.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions so far, you've helped us a lot!