SoundCtrl - Social Media Week New York (SMWNYC) - MAY 4

5 Minutes With Jesse Kirshbaum

Posted on February 18, 2013February 18, 2013 by Lindsey Taylor Wood

Photo: Jesse, right, with panelists at his SoundCtrl panel in 2012. Advisor Jesse Kirshbaum is the CEO of Agency & Co-Founder of SoundCtrl. One of SMW’s earliest supporters, and a man on the frontline of both the music business and social media, we are thrilled he continues to provide us with his thoughtleadership:

1. What is your or your organization’s greatest success with social media to date?
Last year, SoundCtrl presented a satellite event called the Music Hub which featured 7 different panels and discussions, with 25 speakers in music and new media. The online conversations generated by this event were some of the most dynamic and engaging we’ve seen for any event in SoundCtrl history, with over 3K online global viewers watching the live stream and event tweets from Nick Jonas who at the time was the 3rd most influential online voice behind only the Dali Lama, Justin Bieber and his brother.

2. What do you think is the most exciting thing happening in the emerging technology and/or new media space right now?
Its very interesting how artists are beginning to have direct control not just over their music, but in the ways in which they are able to engage with fans across multiple platforms and even gain control to valuable fan-made content – I think we’ll see the rise in more crowd sourced music and videos as it becomes easier to aggregate relevant and valuable media through platforms like instagram, ptch, and vine)

3. What speaker or event are you most looking forward to at SMW NYC?
Very excited that DMW Music and Social Media Week have decided to unite and join forces when it comes to music content for the week. As a music tech enthusiast and board member for both conferences, it was only natural to me that these unique teams should know each other and cross pollinate. SoundCtrl was able to bridge the gap and provide SMW with special registration and access to the great lineup of music and technology industry speakers lined up at DMW this year. Check out the full list here: www.dmw-music.com. Of course, we’re also very excited to be presenting SMW’s second installment of “I Know the DJ” with Elektro Magazine and Nokia, taking place on Friday, Feb 22nd at the SoHo House.

4. What prompted you to join Social Media Week’s Advisory Board?
Funny story, many moons ago, Toby Daniels and I were meeting about a charity event he was heading up in NYC called Twestival with Charity Water. That same week was the first ever Shorty Awards. It was an era in NYC. And he turned to me and said and I’m going to call it Social Media Week. I was shocked. It was three weeks out and Social Media was not a huge trend at the time, especially in New York. I looked at him with fright and excitement and said… I’m in! I’ve been on board ever since and over the years it’s been a wild ride that continues to grow and evolve!

What’s interesting about SMW is that it covers a wide range of medias, industries and professionals. The growth and influence of social media on all industries has been radical over the past 10 years. It’s not often that all these very dissimilar professions (health, culture, education, advertising, politics, science, and environment to name a few) get to come together under one umbrella and discuss the rapid evolution we all face… it usually illuminates some connections that we might never have noticed, might lead to new solutions to difficult problems, and even anticipate challenges within our own fields.

5. What is the most creative way you’ve seen social media used?
The 55th Grammy Awards are just around the corner and I’m still reeling from last year’s insider look on the social media analytics that Beverly Jackson (Senior Director os Social Media and Marketing, GRAMMYS) gave us at SMW ’12. Last year, the Grammys became the most social event of all time – overtaking all other award shows and even the Superbowl. Their social team – including one of Billboard’s top 140 tweeters, Lindsey Gabler – are a dream team and I’m excited to see how they manage the biggest conversation in music this year.

Music Lovers Rejoice: SMW NYC Partners with SoundCtrl & DMW Music

Posted on February 14, 2013February 15, 2013 by Nicky Yates

This year, we’re excited to have DMW Music is an official event partner for SMW NYC. What does that mean? DMW Music is 2 day event with 500+ of the most influential music and digital media leaders gathering to socialize, share ideas, do deals and learn about new technologies and services. This two-day event features a music-tech crawl at Pandora, Spotify, YouTube/Google, and iHeartRadio; classroom style presentations; interactive pit sessions, a music awards dinner; and executives from companies such as Sony, YouTube, Warner Music Group, Shazam, VEVO,Universal Music Group, Pandora, and more.

And we want you to be able to take part! We have 20 complimentary passes to distribute to our community. Interested? Just tell us why at #SMWDMWMusic

Now, we want you to learn more about SoundCtrl, the team that helped pull the partnership together. Learn more about Jesse Kirshbaum and SoundCtrl!

Jesse, SoundCtrl is a regular partner for SMW NYC. Why is the convergence of music and tech so important and how is SMW fill that need for SoundCtrl?
Technology is advancing at an exciting pace, with innovators who consistently challenge and evolve our conceptions of how music can be created, shared and consumed. Now more than ever, this is a sensation felt across all industry lines and creates opportunities for us to learn both from each others’ successes and missteps. Social Media Week provides a great context for us to discuss this interconnectivity and as this year’s theme suggests, illuminate the principles for a more collaborative world.

Last February, SoundCtrl produced a special music day for SMW NYC. What do you have in store this year?
Last year was truly a blast. We worked with SMW to created the first ever Music Hub satellite event at Dominion Theatre, with a full day of panels from groups like NYC Nightlife, elektro Magazine and Translation LLC. The discussion was kept lively all day with speakers that included Nick Jonas, Beverly Jackson, Asher Roth, Maura Johnston, David Sonenberg, & Junior Sanchez.

This year, we’re bringing back a very successful part of our hub – a conversation hosted by Zev Norotsky (Executive Publisher, elektro Magazine) about the role of social media in the growth of electronic music in the US and what trends we see developing nationwide. This year, the invite-only event will take place at the SoHo House on Friday, February 22nd and Zev will be joined by Joe Rosenberg (Director of Marketing and Partnerships, AM Only), Tommie Sunshine (DJ, Producer), and others TBA.

The music industry is currently undergoing great changes. What are the biggest factors for this and what trends do you see shaping the future of the industry?
It’s a great time to be in the music industry – the balance of power is shifting away from major conglomerates and towards young entrepreneurs who are in the trenches, seeing the opportunities taking shape in real time and have the flexibility to quickly pivot and execute plan B when plan A fails.

To that end, we’re likely to see increased partnerships between these individuals and their startups in 2013. Creating alliances between well established artist services will be key rather than each service extending themselves into areas where they don’t have a solid foundation (EX: Topsin’s integration with Artist Growth, Fireband, INgrooves Fontana and PledgeMusic).

SoundCtrl is producing your 4th Annual FlashFWD awards, set for this May. Can you tell us a bit more about FlashFWD, and what’s in store for the big event?
We’re very excited about the evolution of the FlashFWD Awards and what you can expect to see this year. To give a little background, FlashFWD is the premiere award ceremony highlighting and honoring individuals & organizations using and developing innovative technology in the music space.

Last year’s honorees included Best in Discovery – Spotify, Best in Live – Square, Best in Mobile & Tablet – Snibbe Interactive for Biophila, Best in Artist Support – BandPage, and our 2012 SoundWAV Influencer – Scooter Braun.

This year’s nomination period is almost underway and community voting will open on all categories (including new category, Best in Gaming) this April. For more information, check in with www.soundctrl.com/flashfwd

This year, NUE Agency, who produces SoundCtrl, has an artist up for a Grammy, one of the most social events in the world. SoundCtrl also helped connect Social Media Week to the Grammy’s both for NYC and LA. Can you tell us more about NUE’s incredible success in this area, and how the Grammy’s have managed to adapt so successfully to social TV and engagement?
We were so excited and proud to be at the GRAMMYS with Wale for his nomination in Best Rap Song for the chart topping single “Lotus Flower Bomb” ft Miguel… going for more nominations next year and the big win.

SoundCtrl was excited to be a part of Grammy Weekend as well where, on Friday, February 8th, we produced the Grammy Music & Technology Lab with The Recording Academy and Zuckerberg Media at LA Live. Participants in the lab included the startups Pheed, Pledge Music, Mixify, Buddy Bounce, and Amplifier (powered by SoundCloud) and we were thrilled to introduce the Academy to these entities and take steps to invest and cultivate these innovative services.

The social team for the Grammys are an amazing group lead by one of our mentors, Beverly Jackson. Their open-mindedness and ability to cultivate & capture the online Grammy chatter in meaningful ways is beyond impressive and it’s no wonder that the 55th GRAMMY Awards were the 2nd most social event of 2013 with over 15.4 million social interactions measured across Twitter, Facebook and entertainment check-in platforms such as Get Glue and Viggle.

SoundCtrl is partnering with DMW, as part of SMW. Can you tell us more about DMW and your relationship?
We’re very pleased that DMW Music and Social Media Week have decided to unite and join forces when it comes to music content for the week. Taking place February 20-21, DMW combines Digital Music Forum East and West into one large event simply named DMW Music. 500+ of the most influential music and digital media leaders will gather in Downtown New York to socialize, share ideas, do deals and learn about new technologies and services. This year’s event will be packed with great content, stellar people and a lot of companies that are new on the music-tech scene.

As a long time friend and supporter of both SMW and DMW, it seemed natural to us that these unique teams should know each other and cross pollinate. SoundCtrl was able to bridge the gap and provide SMW with special registration and access to the great lineup of music and technology industry speakers lined up at DMW this year. Check out the full list here: www.dmw-music.com.

What are you most looking forward to this SMW NYC?
We at SoundCtrl are excited about SMW’s Ideas Connected at the Global HQ. The lineup includes everything from master classes taught by companies like Tumblr & Google+, to an interactive exhibition called “The Internet of Things” which will feature new innovations in connect products and devices. You’ll see us around the HQ all three days and we’re already getting excited to hear from Internet entrepreneur, activist, investor and co-founder of social news website Reddit, Alexis Ohanian.

Creating Music for the Social Web

Posted on February 17, 2012January 7, 2015 by kimberly reyes

Social Media Week’s Creating Music for the Social Web panel, hosted by SoundCtrl, took place this morning at Hearst Magazines, the Art & Culture Content Hub for this week’s events. Pitchfork Media President Chris Kaskie kicked off the morning with a keynote speech, where he talked about Pitchfork’s role as a kind of music discovery curator.

In the evolving world of music, where listeners are not only discovering songs and artists through their friends, but also through automated listening processes like Pandora, Pitchfork is using social media in conjunction with its website as a means of maintaining contextual relevancy and trustworthiness for its fans. Kaskie pointed out how the definition of “music ownership” is changing, and that some day he’ll leave his kids with “logins to cloud accounts and not record collections.” And while it isn’t Pitchfork’s responsibility to figure out how musicians can continue to generate revenue in light of this change in music consumption, he feels it is Pitchfork’s responsibility to cover music that their audience is interested in.

At present, Pitchfork finds that Twitter and Tumblr are two social media networks that augment their audience’s music discovery experience–as platforms to have conversations (Pitchfork.com does not allow user comments) and also to find content that is re-contextualized from Pitchfork.com.

Creating Music for the Social Web
The panel included a range of industry professionals: Jessie Kirshbaum (Nue Agency and SoundCtrl), Maura Johnson (Music Editor at Village Voice), Josh Deutsch (CEO at Downtown Music), Asher Roth (rapper) and Chris Kaskie (President at Pitchfork Media).

The panel, lead by Josh Deutsch, discussed the role that the web has played in the music business. Asher Roth, the only musician on the panel, gave insight into how the musician is tasked with not only creating music, but also navigating the social space in a way that is effective and efficient. Because, as he remarked, it seems that right now there are “so many tools…I just need a knife and a fork.”

Creating music for the social web, however, can be a liberating process. The creative freedom that comes from being unbound by the expectations and constraints imposed by traditional record labels can be a major reward for an artist. Kaskie also pointed out that although there are many record labels doing great things, today people don’t pay as much attention to record labels. The production, distribution and success of an artist all come down to the audience’s interest level in the music and the artist. Fans are often artists’ greatest promoters, taking it upon themselves to tweet, share and blog about the music. So in essence, all musicians are on the same playing field. There are varying degrees of popularity and production quality, but because musicians now have the ability to create and release songs from their bedrooms, critics like Pitchfork, will treat the music the same. To quote Maura Johnson, “If the craft is there, it’s there despite the business side.”

Take-Aways From the Panel
The social web continues to create opportunities for musicians. Artists need to be able to find out what works for them. They must be mindful of focusing on those networks that will help achieve their specific goals. As Josh Deutsch answered when asked what the top things an artist should know to get their music in front of the right music curators and editors, “it all depends on who you are as an artist and what you want to accomplish.”

Laurie Amodeo is Senior Community Manager at Big Fuel, where she has worked on social media campaigns for clients such as General Motors, Nutrisystem and H&M. She has also created marketing and social media campaigns for public and private sector organizations including the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade and Peeled Snacks. When she’s not executing innovative social programs for clients, Laurie can be found singing, writing, hooping and cooking with veggies. flavors.me/laurieamodeo

A Student’s Perspective: Chris Kaskie Keynote with SoundCtrl’s Creating Music for the Social Web

Posted on February 16, 2012October 16, 2014 by smwnyc

Nikhita Venugopa is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism. She is one of ten students providing on the ground coverage of SMWNYC- all from the student’s perspective. She is providing her report from Keynote: Chris Kaskie, President of Pitchfork Media followed by SoundCtrl’s Creating Music for the Social Web.

Day Three of Social Media Weekend began at the Hearst Arts and Culture Hub with the keynote speech by Chris Kaskie, President of Pitchfork Media, a Chicago-based webzine and guide devoted to music criticism and news. Kaskie commented on social media’s role in music today and what Pitchfork hopes to achieve through Twitter and Tumblr.

“When it comes to social media, I find myself spending more time trying to figure out how to use it than actually using it,” he said. Kaskie also highlighted the importance of maintaining Pitchfork’s role as a trusted source for music journalism, regardless of their platform of communication.

“The biggest challenge that Pitchfork faces today is the expanding world of music online,” said Kaskie. It’s increasingly common to see people discover music through peer-to-peer interaction and recommendation. “I’m really bummed that when I die, I have to leave my kids logins to my Cloud account and not record collections,” said Kaskie.

The Internet is filled with opinions and comments on music but Kaskie said he hopes that Pitchfork can provide context to “all the noise,” whether it’s on Spotify or Twitter or Facebook. “To me, it’s very social that we’re interacting with people’s social music experience,” said Kaskie.

After Kaskie’s talk, a panel discussion commenced on social media’s effect on the creative process of the music industry. The panel included Kaskie; Maura Johnston, music editor of the Village Voice; Josh Deutsch, co-founder of Downtown Records; rap-artist Asher Roth and moderated by Jesse Kirshbaum, co-founder of Sound Control. In speaking on the role of social media, Deutsch emphasized maintaining the image of a trusted brand, echoing Kaskie’s keynote speech. The panel discussed the differences between creating an album for a major label and a mixed tape for the web. Asher Roth said social media had rewarded music artists by letting them be free. “It’s a more enjoyable experience to create music for just your fan-base,” he said.

From a journalistic perspective, both Johnston and Kaskie agreed that the music’s format does not affect their critique and commentary. “People can make some of the best music in world in their bedroom. It’s a level playing field,” said Kaskie.

Johnston believed that music is visceral and it’s that feeling determines the strength, regardless of whether it’s online or on an album. “It’s the way it hits you,” she added.

However, in response to what they felt was missing from social media, Kaskie said it lacked an editorial, personalized voice. Johnston also commented on the myopic view that can come from the digital world, referring to Spotify, an online music streaming service. She said social media users often forget that there’s more to music than what you can find online.

All four panelists agreed that while social media was a valuable platform for communication, people should step away from it once in a while and explore a world outside Facebook and Twitter. “Go for a walk. Ride a bike,” said Roth. “It’s going to make you a more interesting person. A better tweeter.”

Nikhita Venugopal grew up in Bangalore, India. She moved to New York in July 2011 to attend Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she is currently pursuing a master’s degree. Nikhita studied Media and Communications, Psychology and Literature in India and has interned at Ogilvy as a copywriter and Macmillan Publishers as an editor. She is interested in writing on subjects like education, science, music, arts, social issues and the general eccentricities of the city. You can can follow her on Twitter at @niks_90.

To avoid wasting your time and money, we recommend you to let writers at buydissertations.net take care of your writing assignments – this is the most affordable way to get a high quality essay written within the specified deadline.

SoundCtrl Presents SMWNYC’s Music Hub

Posted on February 13, 2012February 14, 2012 by Nicky Yates

This is a guest post by SoundCtrl.

SoundCtrl is excited to announce our Music Hub at Social Media Week, featuring two days of programming. On Wednesday the 15th at the Hearst Tower in New York City, we will present the panel “SoundCtrl’s Creating Music for the Social Web,” which will cover the evolution of digital tools for music discovery and consumption. Following that will be our panel, “Reflecting on the 54th GRAMMY Awards: Digital Partnerships, Social Media and Innovation,” which will feature Beverly Jackson, the Director of Marketing and Social Media for the GRAMMY Awards.

On Thursday the 16th, SoundCtrl will present our Music Hub at Dominion Theater. The full day of programming will begin at 10:00 AM with “A Conversation with Nick Jonas, Moderated by Jason King.” Jason and Nick will discuss how social media plays into the creative process and identify the most effective platforms to engage and leverage a fan base. Following that will be “Nightlife Disrupt: Social Media’s Impact” at 11:30 AM. Then, at 1:00 PM, SPIN presents “Music Criticism Is Dead; Long Live Music Criticism,” where panelists will discuss the merits of social media and music criticism and consider what the future holds for music journalism.

At 5:30 PM, Translation will present “Connectivity: Discovering the Power of Social Communities in Music.” Experts with perspectives in social discovery, promotion, performance & contest creation will demonstrate how to better leverage relationships in the new music landscape. At 7:00 PM, Zev Norotsky of Elektro Magazine will moderate “I Know The DJ: How Social Media Has Fueled the Explosive Growth of EDM in America.” The evening will wrap up with a cocktail mixer and a DJ set by Junior Sanchez from 8:00 to 10:00 PM.

Learn more and RSVP to any of these events here.

SoundCtrl is NYC’s premiere event platform for the convergence of music and digital media conceptualized by a group of music industry professionals and senior executives in digital media and technology. In addition to building a vibrant online community, SoundCtrl also hosts a series of monthly events featuring industry leaders and New York based music and technology companies.