Online Music Marketer Echo Shutting Down
Music marketer Echo, which handles web sites, online communities, and digital marketing for such top tier artists as Kanye West, Keith Urban, Alicia Keys and Dierks Bentley will be winding down operations over the next 60 days. Ticketmaster bought Echo in March of 2007 for a reported $25 million, but found the Nashville based business unprofitable. “The decision is not really a big surprise to most of us considering the economy,” one staffer told LA Business.
COMMENTARY: When a business with the proven track record of Echo fails, it's easy to blame the perils of operating within a struggling industry in the midst of slumping economy; and no doubt those were major factors. Mistakenly, marketing dollars are often the first to go during cutbacks.
But wasn't building community, as Echo diid, supposed to be the alternative to the failing label machinery and the direct artist to fan connectioion the answer to all of music's monetization woes?
Echo took a top down approach to community building. Based on cutting edge concepts, they built beautiful tools and for a fee provided the experts to run them. But just as tech has proven the power of open source and low cost software, open API's and crowdsourcing, the real potential lies within the communities and the tools that support it rather than the gatekeepers.
Going forward, music is better served putting tools in the hands of creative artists, entrepreneurs and fans and keeping the experts to a minimum. Look around. It's already beginning to happen.
Other reports say echo is moving to LA, not closing completely.
http://www.musicrow.com/2009/04/echo-operations-move-to-la/
This has been a long time coming. Ticketmaster never really knew what they had purchased (for better or worse).
Meanwhile, some former employees have already been hard at work building a newer, smarter better version of this business model: http://www.strategicblend.com
It’s not that it doesn’t make money…TM probably paid too much for it.
Just 3 weeks ago they were being praised as the greatest company out there at Digital Summit in Nashville. How likely are all these great companies that are out there now are going to mirror the dot com bubble?
The problem isn’t with Echo, its with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster long ago forgot who its real customers are. The company is constantly catering to the sponsors and VIPs instead of the fans. They give the best seats to the sponsors and the brokers and then wonder why people aren’t filling arenas.
Sadly most artists aren’t willing to fight with the company that holds the monopoly on ticket sales and stand behind their fans. The artists need to force the evil TM into reserving the best seats for their fans. Fans who are happy and feel appreciated will buy the music and the t-shirts and the fan club membership. Fans who don’t feel that way will walk away and find other artist who do care.
…hello..anyone paying attention out there…… ..live nation owns musictoday….don’t need two of them….this isn’t brain surgery….buy the competition and then eliminate the competition…..the purchase price for echo was peanuts compared to the overall financial picture of a ticketmaster/live nation deal….consider the data base of historical/active consumers of “music/entertainment-related products and services” owned and being “monetized” by both companies…they own the most valuable piece of the puzzle….fill in the blank as to what they want to sell…tickets, records, merch, etc. etc. etc…..they know who bought what, when and for how much….END OF STORY….unless of course the government doesn’t like the lopsided nature of the deal going forward…although, from the little I know of Mr. Azoff and Mr. Diller…they asked someone who knows about such things way before they made the call….GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE….YOU’LL NEED IT.