Official.fm Relaunches As Free Music Promotion Platform For Indie Artists & Labels
Official.fm yesterday announced its relaunch with a focus on the music promotion needs of indie artists and labels stripping out the fan-focused offerings on its platform. Though fans can still access content on Official.fm, the focus is on distributing music via the platform and accessing it on artist websites and social networks. The service is now totally free and includes the ability to manage multiple artists via one account from which one can create 10 artist workspaces with up to 100 tracks each.
Official.fm appears to be a solid service for distributing audio though video and other forms of promo content will have to be handled separately.
Guide to the New Official.fm
The above video gives you a basic look at the workspace and describes available options including easy distro and sharing to social networks and sites such as YouTube and SoundCloud. The official blog post and FAQ reveal a bit more including the fact that there are no limits on plays or downloads. You can also require emails for downloads.
You can upload single tracks, playlists, mixtapes or albums for display on promo pages such as that for Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Allderdice mixtape. The page contains an embeddable music player shown below which is HTML5 and accessible via mobile (much smaller options are also available). If you upload tracks that are offered for sale, you can include the music store's URL and a buy button will appear in the player. Official.fm is not currently handling sales.
Wiz Khalifa – Taylor Allderdice Mixtape
Early adopters include Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller, AWOLNATION, Soul Clap (Wolf + Lamb) and Killer Mike.
The private beta also included such forward thinking labels as Warp Records, Adult Swim imprint Williams Street Records, Ghostly International, Red Bull Records and Fearless Records as well as RedEye Distribution.
Cofounder and CEO Jeremie Abihssira states that the service will remain free and somewhere along the line TechCrunch writer Romain Dillet was informed that Official.fm "aims to become the only music platform that professionals will need."
It does sound like they're building an excellent platform for the promotion and distribution of audio files tied into the various social networks and services bands now use. However, given that videos, photos and text releases are also an integral part of any marketing campaign, Official.fm is not currently attempting to be a complete marketing platform.
Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith blogs about business at Flux Research: Business & Revenue Models and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Not impressed at all….So tired of stuff like this coming out that isn’t any different except with the interfaces. Soundcloud & Reverbnation are still way better.
Seriously, have you even tried Official.fm? As a press servicing/promotional tool it is clearly a cut above Soundcloud & Reverbnation. After using the Beta for a few months I was blown away by how seamless and easy to use their platform is. The customization and reporting aspects blow anything else out of the water. Don’t knock it before you rock it SON!
I have an open mind.. I will def check out official.com.
ReverbNation’s a rip off. It’s cluttered and they’re not very transparent about the pricing of premium features, until you’ve spent a lot of time setting them up (in some cases hours (i.e. the ‘band app’ thing)).
Soundcloud and official.fm are both much cleaner and more transparent than ReverbNation.
Yes…I’ve signed up and checked out the “new” official.fm and it’s not worth trying to sell to others who already know that Reverbnation is good. If Official was ‘better’ than Revebnation then it would be a different story but they aren’t so….
Doesn’t sound so interesting than manually promote the band direct to fans ourself…
But I’ll check it out some day later.
O! when, will they make a HTML5 SHOW widget!? The player is great,cool demonstration!
Does the mentioned promotion include free music videos like the one viewable from my YouTube and featured on my free artist music promotion site?