The Note is Oohlala’s weekly digest of global music news; covering the latest in community, industry and technology. If you enjoyed this week's newsletter, please subscribe, comment, and promote it to your friends!
Welcome to edition 003:
Core team updates
Collection to watch: Metalabel x Gitcoin Quadratic Funding Open Edition
Creator Grant Playlist
Streaming business model in flux
Mainstream news and more..
Let’s get into it, plus don't forget to collect this edition.
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Our dev team has had their nose to the grindstone, shipping two new features since our last edition. Let's check them out.
Creator platform Manifold is now integrated with Oohlala's Direct Mint feature, enabling collectors to discover and collect Music NFTs minted from Manifold without leaving the explorer.
https://twitter.com/oohlala_xyz/status/1632728843516809216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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The Drop Schedule is our new feature which enables artists to add upcoming Drops to Oohlala's Drop Calendar. Try it out today.
https://twitter.com/oohlala_xyz/status/1629119012968996865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Artists! Interested in having your drops listed on our Newsletter? Just go to our Drop Calendar and add your upcoming Music NFT drops to our public schedule.
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Dreams Never Die is an independent record label based in Los Angeles founded by Chad Hillard. Founded in 2019, the label has recently been preparing to conver to a DAO and are taking their first steps with the Dreams Never Die founders pass; previously members of their team have helped discover artists such as Billie Elish, Lany, Two Feet and more. The founders pass will be available to mint on March 15th, with a supply of 1000.
Read more about the founders pass here.
https://twitter.com/dreamsnevrdie/status/1631023718733611008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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The Future Surf Community broadcasted its 100 Episode. Future Surf Labs was established with the purpose of delving into and experimenting with the blockchain technology to craft unique experiences that enlighten creators and brands on the vast possibilities of the Web3 ecosystem.
"FSR is the first project from Future Surf labs. This initiative doubles as a next gen radio network and web3 artist accelerator. FSR seeks to provide safer spaces for artists to share and discuss their work, create together, and expand their careers from web2 to web3." -- Future Surf
https://twitter.com/futuresurfradio/status/1631112238131183618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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In observance of Women's History Month, we are highlighting the Web3 Women Music playlist, curated by none other than Steph Guerrero. She is a curator with extensive experience working for large record labels such as Sony Music and Universal Music Group (UMG). Listen to the divine feminine energy now.
https://www.oohlala.xyz/playlist/c532dad6-42d3-4b93-91ec-29192e84b249
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Metalabel and Gitcoin partnered ahead of ETHDenver to drop their collaborative record "Quadratic Funding" Open Edition, which features a digital edition of "Liberal Radicalism," by Vitalik Buterin, Zoë Hitzig, and Glen E. Weyl which introduced the concept of Quadratic Funding.
"This collection reissues “Liberal Radicalism,” the 2018 whitepaper that introduced quadratic funding to the world. We’re excited to release this record as a way to catalog and celebrate this important contribution and piece of internet history. -- Metalabel
Metalabel is a collaborative platform where groups of individuals with shared interests come together to release and support each other's work. The framework is developed by Yancey Strickler, Co-Founder of Web2 based fundraising platform, Kickstarter.
https://twitter.com/metalabel_xyz/status/1629136024080097281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This Open Edition ends on March 8th, so be sure to collect it before then! Collect here.
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Creator platforms Decent XYZ and Reveel have partnered together to launch the Creator Grant program where collaborators are encourage to mint their NFT and deploy a revenue path using the aforementioned creator tools. Voting is now live, with 1 mint counting as 1 vote.
Top 3 NFTs with the most votes will share the grant prize of $5000 USDC
1st place: $4000 USDC
2nd place: $750 USDC
3rd place: $250 USDC
Voting will end on March 13th, so be sure to check out our playlist and vote for your favorite by using our Direct Mint feature on the Creator Grant playlist.
https://www.oohlala.xyz/playlist/5049c4f2-e62d-436e-93e6-a7e5c54afd0a
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The Future of Music in Web3 Panel brought together some of the most forward thinking creatives and technologists in the space together, all in one room.
https://twitter.com/TKtheLegend/status/1632181176206233600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
On-Chain Records were busy pressing digi-physical vinyl during the week long event. We're stoked to hear the music that came out of these sessions!
https://twitter.com/alanahlam/status/1632216049012621312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
UVR at ETHDenver brought together some of our favorite artists and speakers from Jadyn's daily UVR spaces from IRL to URL. Check out some clips from the event:
https://twitter.com/kailanibtc/status/1631925793889693697?s=20
Music NFT minting platform Catalog announced their curator initiative "Hidden Gems: Cosigns" -- it's an artist-driven series that focuses on highlighting uncollected records. Each week a new artist is invited to curate a selection of records from Catalog for the recommendation.
This week, multi-instrumentalist and artist Mark de Clive Lowe features some of his favorites:
https://twitter.com/catalogworks/status/1632780394599686144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Listen to the tracks here:
https://oohlala.xyz/playlist/43da7271-b8c2-4215-ba13-cbf27e684580
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Continuing on the current debate about Creator Royalties, founder of The Hundreds published an article which gives an insight into the current culture and general state of NFTs. Bobby highlights concerns regarding the current trend of NFT circulation among a limited group of crypto traders, which may confine their market to a niche bubble.
He emphasizes the branding and marketing challenges faced by NFTs and suggests that highlighting the human creativity, inspiration, and innovation behind them could help to attract a broader audience. The article also delves into the unique resale culture of NFTs and differentiates it from the traditional art and fashion markets. Resale is central to the DNA of NFTs, and they are primarily intended to be sold for a profit. The essay notes the shift in consumer behavior towards pre-owned goods, which is driving demand for the resale market, including NFTs.
Bobby raises the question of whether NFTs can thrive without high secondary market value and discusses the role of Creator Royalties, a system that enables artists to receive a percentage of the resale value.
Read the article here.
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Super Hi is an online education platform and worldwide community of creatives learning together. They've recently announced their Grants Program, exclusively focusing on content creators.
https://twitter.com/superhi_/status/1631306530854248450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Sound XYZ co-founder relents about the lack of women led development teams in the ecosystem; this is a call to action to women developers who want to connect to exciting opportunities at the cutting edge of Music and Web3; Reach out to Gigamesh for more.
https://twitter.com/Gigamesh/status/1632495614511697921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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Cherie Hu of Water & Music recently shared their Music Industry Ourubourus, which reveals the complicated rights holders and music/tech companies stakeholder relationships.
https://twitter.com/cheriehu42/status/1627299857076563970
For the entire chart, check out their Figma.
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Karol G becomes the first Latin artist in the USA to earn a #1 record with a Spanish Language record. As Latin American culture and music continue to show dominance throughout the region, we're looking forward to hearing a more diverse range of acts onboarding into Music Web3 as well.
https://twitter.com/chartdata/status/1632501826875453445?s=51&t=ODVSRkSBJyJDouy3bUQcUA
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Spotify, the popular music streaming platform, is piloting a playlist service that will be accessible only to NFT owners. Users who own NFTs will be able to link their crypto wallets to the Spotify app and be granted access to specific playlists, allowing them to listen to curated music.
The playlist service will be continuously updated during the three-month test period and will be available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, and will only be available to Android device users. It is also only available to owners of Fluf, Moonbirds, Kingship, and Overlord NFTs.
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Universal Music Group CEO Sir Lucian Grainge expressed dissatisfaction with streaming platforms' current consumption and payout design in a New Year's memo to employees, stating that the economic model for streaming needs to evolve to support all artists. Despite this, streaming has been the driving force behind the recorded music industry's return to growth and has benefitted major labels such as UMG. UMG's year-to-date subscription & streaming revenues grew 19% and made up ~70% of total revenues. The question remains: why is UMG working to change the terms of the trade with streaming platforms now?
Jimmy Stone, an analyst at Alderbrook Companies shares their perspective on their latest write-up of "Leveling Up". He discusses three key issues affecting the music streaming industry.
The growing volume of music on streaming platforms is diluting the market share of major labels such as UMG, making it harder for new artists to establish themselves and creating a less fulfilling experience for consumers.
Secondly, bad actors may be gaming the streaming payout model, which calculates creators' payouts based on their share of total streams, resulting in some artists receiving a disproportionate share of payouts.
Finally, music streaming platforms have prioritized subscriber growth over monetization, with Spotify, for example, not increasing its subscription price since launching in the US in 2011, leading to a low average revenue per subscriber. These issues may impact industry power structures in the long term and need to be addressed to ensure fair compensation for artists and a sustainable industry.
Source: https://jimmystone.substack.com/p/universals-push-for-higher-streaming
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Chainlink is launching a self-service, serverless platform called Chainlink Functions to help developers connect their decentralized applications (dApps) or smart contracts to any Web 2.0 API, which lets builders run customizable computations on Web 2.0 APIs within minutes through its network. The platform supports more widely used programming languages like JavaScript, and provides integrations to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, and others. Chainlink Functions hopes to be the bridge between web3 developers and Web 2.0 developers to create mass adoption. The platform is currently in private beta mode on Ethereum and Polygon test nets, and plans to launch on the mainnet as soon as possible.
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SOURCE is a new mobile-first product that enables users to discover and track cryptomedia (NFTs) through wallet activity. Ethereum provides an open access to a shared media database updated in real-time, and SOURCE leverages on-chain data to surface the most interesting and relevant cryptomedia. With SOURCE, users can experience cryptomedia through a beautifully designed iOS feed, follow favorite collectors and artists, receive real-time transaction alerts, filter their feed by transaction and media types, and save favorite cryptomedia for later. Upcoming features will transform NFT creation, collaboration, and sharing.
https://twitter.com/sorenwrenn/status/1630253782968807434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The Ethereum Foundation's ERC-4337 account abstraction standard has been audited and is now available on Ethereum mainnet. Account abstraction allows Ethereum's existing wallets to be more flexible, enabling users to add two-factor authentication, have protocols pay gas on their behalf, and recover their social wallets. The implementation of account abstraction through a smart contract deployment accelerates the roadmap significantly, improving crypto UX across applications and protocols. Smart accounts make subscriptions possible through transaction delegation and allow for pull payments, enabling automated bill payments. The AA SDK from Safe, one of the earliest implementations of account abstraction securing $39 billion, will offer developers direct access to a wide range of integrations for web3 apps to offer web2-like UX.
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The team behind Neume, an open-source indexer for the music NFT ecosystem, has made several technical improvements to the architecture, including making it more accessible and faster to run, as well as queryable. The team has also moved away from using GitHub Actions and is actively trying to solve distribution issues while maintaining scalability. They have switched to using LevelDB to enable basic retrieval queries. In the near future, they plan to launch the Neume-server repo to streamline the setup and deployment process and prioritize ingesting contracts from @decentxyz and @lensprotocol. They also plan to open-source @hifilabs's internal musicOS Strapi API into a Neume-api later in the year.
Read the thread:
https://twitter.com/neumenetwork/status/1629151534192754688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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The music industry is experiencing a shift in music ownership where anyone can invest in and own music: brands, venture capitalists, NFT marketplaces, and even casual fans. New fan-centric music ownership platforms, like Royal and JKBX, are making it possible for anyone to own music, allowing for fractional ownership of songs.
The rise of independent distribution options is giving artists more resources outside of traditional major label relationships. As the ownership landscape becomes more competitive, major labels can only survive by providing customized services and resources to artists.
While music ownership has become more accessible, there is still a need for expertise in distribution, marketing, and other ways to monetize music, something that major labels recognize.
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Cryptocurrency market cycles have a huge impact on NFT sales. When buying or selling NFTs, it's essential to know what state the current cryptocurrency cycle is in, and journalist Benjamin Kaspar, who specializes in writing about music NFTs for Billboard, analyzed music NFTs as an example of how to read the market.
https://twitter.com/musicben_eth/status/1628055794640879618
Explaining that the market changes based on the price of Ethereum, journalist Benjamin introduced the crypto market cycle as "euphoria, panic, consolidation/accumulation, and expansion" and that we are currently in the "expansion" phase.
Euphoria - NFT sales increase 🟢.
Panic - NFT sales decrease 🔴.
Consolidation/Cumulative - NFT sales increase 🟢.
Expansion - NFT sales fall 🟠.
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Bello, a data analytics tool for crypto-native creators, has introduced a new Revenue Dashboard to monitor gross earnings and gain insight into community financial health. The dashboard includes four sub-categories: Overview, Revenue, Time, and Collectors, and features 10 curated metrics to help creators understand their revenue growth, total revenue, and the behavior of their collectors. Bello aims to provide creators with the data tools they need to succeed in the world of crypto, and is continually adding new features based on user requests.
https://twitter.com/bellosights/status/1631031097751482371?s=20
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WFMU is a listener-supported, free-form radio station based in East Orange, NJ. Its studios have been in Jersey City since 1998. Broadcasting at 91.1 Mhz FM locally and at 90.1 WMFU in the Hudson Valley, Lower Catskills, western NJ, and eastern PA, it also reaches New York City and Rockland County at 91.9 FM. It holds the record for being the longest-running free-form radio station in the US, and its main terrestrial transmitter is in West Orange, NJ.
Help support the longest-running free-form radio station in the U.S by making a pledge at wfmu.org/pledge.
Ethereum Foundation Fellow, MarcusAM, published an update on their initiative to empower Latin American communities via Ethereum. The report is part of the Ethereum Foundation's Fellowship program that supports individuals passionate about identifying barriers to mass adoption and breaking them down for underrepresented communities to access crypto.
Marcus, who grew up in Guatemala, seeks to create an enabling environment that allows anyone to flourish. One of the projects he has worked on is a low-income housing initiative called Lamina POP that aims to provide access to affordable dignified housing. However, one of the challenges faced is the lack of financial infrastructure in Guatemala that makes access to dignified financing nearly impossible for those who may not have access to traditional banking services.
Read their update here: https://marcus.mirror.xyz/j9gVZh4HQS1_2jog_uiZ4m69rbzrdSNdAW1sPrQgOow
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