Comparing digital music distributors Ditto Music, CD Baby, Tunecore, and ReverbNation

To sell music online in stores like iTunes, Amazon and Spotify has never been easier. There are several digital distribution companies out there who offer different services for unsigned artists. So we thought we would review the  market and list some feedback to our users.

FargoTube reached 1,000 subscribers in about 12 months, and 2,000 subscribers just 5 months later

The faster growth has come from several important partners, including Ditto Music, a premier online meta-distribution service; the tube that Eddie’s Attic set up for its Open Mic Mondays competitions; and country musician Sherrié Austin, who is launching her next album using FargoTube’s crowd-funding capabilities. Thank you to the three of them and all our other partners, and to all the artists who are monetizing their talents through FargoTube!

fanBunker Screenshot

FanBunker facilitates interaction among sports fans, centered both on outside links to sports news and on independent, team-specific blogs.

We’re also bringing on former NFL Linebacker Carlton Bailey, a three-time Super Bowl-er to help bring introduce fanBunker to new fans.

Carlton and the acquisition are part of our continuing push to broaden FargoTube’s appeal to entertainment forms outside of independent music, which has been its strongest market. As you probably know, our social networks are designed to draw users with both exclusive and non-exclusive content, to present that content in an attractive manner, and to make that content a touchstone for fan interaction.

“Our decision as a company to acquire a sports website was a no-brainer,” F3 President of Media and Marketing Kwan Straughn told me. “Since 2008, integrated sports/social entertainment has grown from a modest niche market to a multi-billion-dollar industry.”

F3 Technologies CEO Frank Connor (second from left) and fanBunker co-founder Seth Roseman shake on the deal. From left to right: F3 VP Baron Agee, Connor, Roseman, fanBunker co-founder Mark Griffith, Straughn and F3 Senior VP Stephanie Miller.

Kwan helped to drive our acquisition of fanBunker. We’re hoping to acquire one, two or three additional fan-centric websites by the end of the year. As was true with fanBunker, we’re assessing them for their potential synergies with FargoTube, including the increased visitor traffic we expect them to bring. We’ll definitely keep you abreast of all new happenings on that front.

You can read more about Carlton Bail and fanBunker in the press release we put out this morning.

We’ll also put out details of the FanBunker acquisition in the next couple of days.

Austin launched the fundraiser in mid-June, with the goal of raising $15,000. Crowd-funding is useful for unsigned artists because it’s an alternative to the traditional label-centric model, in which a record label funds an album’s production, keeps most of the sales proceeds, and often owns the rights to the music in perpetuity.

Beyond that, the combination of Jump Start and FargoTube allows Austin’s fans to participate in the production and release of her music and in other aspects of her career. Austin’s Jump Start campaign allows them to contribute at varying levels, from $5 to $2,000. Fans who contribute that amount can spend a day in Nashville with Sherrié as their tour-guide, a brand-new autographed guitar, a Skyped living room concert premiering songs from “Circus Girl,” an autographed t-shirt, a mention in the CD’s liner notes, and a range of other schwag.

Kwan and Jemiah Jai

We’ll probably get others beyond those additional ten or 12. About 50 people came to B-Rock’s and Kwan’s panel — mostly musicians, along with several producers and independent-label executives. One of the people they met was a distributor who may end up getting independent films onto FargoTube.

Separately, B-Rock told me he and Kwan have been talking with a comedian who has appeared on Black Entertainment Television. We’ll definitely let you know if we get him onto FargoTube.

Last but not least, B-Rock and Kwan have been getting really positive feedback on the new logos and branding that we plan to introduce for FargoTube in the next few months. That’s likely to create a lot of additional buzz that will bring even more artists onto the platform. Right now, we’re at 1,716 and counting!

I plan to upload a few pictures late tonight or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here’s B-Rock speaking for a couple of minutes about the conference and his plans for meeting up with Shanti Das and other people who have worked with him in hip-hop.

Disclaimer: B-Rock mentions the pop musician Katy Perry only as an example of an “A-list” artist. Perry and F3 Technologies are not collaborating.

A business or other customer seeking design services posts a description of the site to be designed, its purpose, and a target prize amount. Designers who have registered on the site – free of charge – create and submit mock-ups. The customer chooses the winning design and pays the designer. Our revenue comes from a percentage of the customer’s prize award.

As an added benefit for both F3 and Website Tournament customers, we can follow-up the design service by hosting and managing the websites for a low monthly fee of just $149.99, including a number of monthly updates. It’s a value-added service comparable to those we’ve introduced for FargoTube and Interaction Community Systems since late last year. Another value add is that customers can opt to load completed website designs onto F3’s proprietary Ascend website content management system for a low monthly fee of $39.95.

Our CEO Frank Connor developed Website Tournament designed and developed Website Tournament after seeing how difficult it is for a small business to purchase high-quality custom website design services at affordable prices.

Several dozen page designers from at least 12 countries have already registered on Website Tournament. The platform ranks designers according to customer satisfaction, the number and type of trophies a designer has earned and other measures of feedback.

Designs not chosen remain the property of the respective designers. We can work with designers to find alternative paths to monetize those designs, for example by promoting select designs as templates in a new website theme store.

Kwan Straughn (left) and Baron "B-Rock" Agee

Friday was a fun and exciting day at the F3 office. We welcomed Baron “B-Rock” Agee and Kwan Straughn to the F3 team. They’ll be leading FargoTube’s expansion in urban music — particularly here in Atlanta, whose hip-hop scene has come to rival New York’s and L.A.’s in the last few years. Kwan and B-Rock are based here.

B-Rock was part of the hip-hop act B-Rock and The Bizz that put the single “Mybabydaddy” at the top of the charts in 1997 and the phrase “my baby daddy” into popular lingo. But his and Kwan’s experience in the music business goes far beyond that, as detailed in our press release on Friday. They’ll be introducing FargoTube to the hundreds of other musicians, producers and managers they’ve worked with in their 20-plus-year careers.

As you probably know, FargoTube has artists in all genres, with an especially strong concentration of country musicians. So I’m thinking about setting up sort of a friendly in-house competition: By this time next year, will FargoTube more country musicians? or more hip-hop musicians?