Watch, download and share artist endorsed live music as it happens. That’s the tagline of the online music industry’s latest player – SoundHalo.
It’s not another Spotify or another Deezer or another Grooveshark. This is a video platform that sells itself on quality videos from live gigs as the performance unfolds. SoundHalo has launched with a free Android App (no iOS App available yet) and the emphasis is on impulse buys during a show.
I love the idea of this – it’s good for both the artist and the fan and there is a definite shift towards subscription based services online. That’s not to say that there aren’t some heavy challenges ahead for this crowd of innovators…
- Unless you’re a fan of the latest Mercury Music Prize winner Alt-J, there ain’t nothin’ on SoundHalo for you to buy into yet. Launched on beta last Thursday, Alt-J is the only artist there is video footage of on the new pay-per-video platform.
- People like to put their stamp on things and be the first to share a status update and that’s why they raise their arms above their head with a smartphone pointed at the stage. Will they buy into the fact that this is “better than any video your phone can take?” As a concert goer I’d love to see the disappearance of a sea of phones in front of me. I’m just not convinced it’ll be quick to change.
- If you look hard enough you’re almost sure to find something on YouTube…when I did a search for a video from the Alt-J gig on SoundHalo, I immediately came across full versions of performances from the gig. Not near as good quality mind you – but bearable.
- It’s €1 per video or €6 per live set. Maybe as the library of content available expands they can look at a monthly subscription. It’s hard to tell how this will work out for them until we see a much bigger volume of content become available.
A quick turnaround for these guys is key and the technology they’re using to do this might just be what wins the fans over for them.
Overall the App is slick, the videos look great and you get an audio file of the video download too so it’s kind of a bootleg version of a song.
Would you be willing to pay for something like this? People buy songs for 99c on iTunes so maybe that model does stretch to live music videos.
In the world according to the internet, first comes the technology. Then people change their behaviour. And finally the business models change. We are just starting to enter phase 3 for TV and it is getting very exciting as the “dash for cash” intensifies.
