A conference like Music Matters is associated and targets primarily the Recording Industry. And we are all aware that Music Matters has donated passes worth 25000USD to alivenotdead.com. I am curious to understand this association of yours with Music Matters which is a mainstream Music Conference.
A couple of guys from our core management team attended Music Matters last year. One of our chaps, Terrence also spoke on one of the Music Matters panel last year. So this year we decided to be more involved. Yes, I agree with you that Music Matters has always focused on Record Labels, Mobile Network Operators, Handset and device manufacturers, etc. But this year, Music Matters wanted to focus more on music and hence decided to involve artists. You must be aware that ALIVENOTDEAD is the biggest artist forum in China and this part of Asia. So we decided to join hands and that’s why I am here. By the way I am also speaking on one of their panels.
I am surely going to attend that panel. Patrick, if I may ask you, what is your agenda for Music Matters 2009? Or what is that you intend to achieve with this association with Music Matters?
When we attended last year we figured out that there was very good attendance from the industry folks around the whole world. Alivenotdead is about taking the artist to the next level which is to enable him to monetize creativity. We believe that with so many industry people present at the conference this might affect our artists positively and we might be able to achieve our core focus which is taking the artists to the next level.
Also we intend to achieve more exposure and awareness amongst the industry labels.
So are you saying that a lot of artists may walk in through those gates and we might see a lot of deals being signed with artists’ managers and labels present here at Music Matters?
Most of the artists who are signed up with us are Indies. So they don’t really have a representation. A few of them are actually performing tomorrow night after the conference at The Cavern which is one of Music Matters Venue. I don’t expect any deals to be signed here at Music Matters but this kind of networking is useful for artists and that’s something that doesn’t happen enough in China, Hong Kong or elsewhere. So we are really trying to help enable that and this is one of the initiatives we have taken in that direction.
Tell me a bit about the expansion plans of alivenotdead. Are you planning to cater specifically to the Asian community or are you planning to take it across the world?
Right now any artist sitting anywhere in the world can sign up with us. Since we are based in Hong Kong we have a very strong presence here. 50% of our artists are based out of Hong Kong. Our website’s interface is in English. We also have the same version in Simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. For other Asian countries like Japan, we have some fans who help us with translation services. So in a way its an open platform for everyone all over the world but for the immediate future we are going to focus a lot more on China and Hong Kong.
Are you planning to offer your services on mobile platforms as well?
Right now we are not offering any mobile services neither do we have any mobile services on our website. We are in the process of a partnership with TOM.com which is one of the top 20 companies for mobile platforms across the world. In this partnership we are essentially going to replace their celebrity channel with our artist site, alivenotdead and they will help us tap into the potential of advertising from this. One thing that is good with palm is that they work with a lot of international companies like Ebay, Star, NBA, etc. They are known for entertainment and sports. They also have a very large base of mobile users.
If this deal falls in place, it will make a lot of sense to promote our users and artists in China. It also makes more sense to be focused on more mobile services in China.
Alivenotdead is in the same competitive space as MySpace.com. Do you see them as competitors or do you envision synergies with them?
When you look at Social Networks from a global point of view every region has its competitors. The same is true for Social Networks in the music space. In the US, ‘MySpace’ and ‘Facebook’ are huge. Hong Kong has ‘Yahoo Hong Kong’. Taiwan has ‘Wretch’. Japan has ‘Mixi’. Korea has ‘Cyworld’. China has ‘Sina’ and to some extent ‘Soho'. These are also sites that are competing for artists retention.
What we have seen from the artists on our site is that a lot of them are migrating to Facebook. To be able to retain artists we are forming global partnerships so that our artists have an international fan base. So for example a Chinese artist would still prefer our site better than MySpace since they can reach the Chinese audience through us. To answer your question, as we move forward our competition is primarily with Sina. MySpace doesn’t have that kind of traction as far as China is concerned.
Are you planning to focus on merchandising through your website alivenotdead?
We have a part of alivenotdead catering specifically to merchandising. It has generated some revenues but it is not the main part of our business. We see it more as an avenue for marketing. So as a business model we are looking at outsourcing this part of the business where we would give all the products to a third party and they would handle distribution and take a cut off it. Outsourcing is the best option since we don’t want to deal with inventory, distribution and all those issues. For us it makes sense only to promote these products that artists wear because people / end consumers definitely like to wear them. So long as we have a third party who handles the distribution and we are making some money off it we will be more than happy to focus on merchandising on our website.
Are we seeing some kind of a scale up activity / transformation in terms of you evolving into an ‘Artist Management’ agency. I see you bring your artists along for a conference like this and making them network and all those things that are usually done by an artist manager?
One of the co founders of our site called Daniel Wu is a very well known actor here in Hong Kong. He started a Talent Management Agency here in Hong Kong called REVOLUTION. He also brought under his fold a lot of artists managed by Jackie Chan’s company. So for us to scale up to artist management is not a difficult task at all. But we do not want to go that way. Because in doing that we might repel some of the companies from joining our site because they might feel that we are pushing our artist over the others. We want to have a much more democratic approach. So No, this is not a scale up operation to Artist Management.
Tell us about that one BIG thing which you believe will redefine the Future of the music industry?
I personally believe that what these music labels are doing, is that they are trying to build sand castles during a low tide. When the water is low everything is fine and their castles look beautiful. But you can’t stop the ocean from rising its tide. So again you build walls and dig holes to prevent the water from washing your castle away. But the water won’t stop. Eventually these guys are going to realize that “Hey we need to go up there, away from the high tide and build a stronger castle.”
The way I see it is as we move forward Music is going to be available on multiple formats across multiple platforms in unlimited quantities. Music will be instantaneous. Anyone, anywhere and anytime will have accesses to it from multiple devices. And most importantly Music will be available to the end consumer for FREE.
This is the only way the future has to offer away from a pirated market and the lack of the industry’s ability to monetize their content.
Revenues will largely come from complimentary services like Ring Back Tones and other such applications which can’t be pirated.
Also I see positive steps being taken to promote more and more of the LIVE music experience. You can pirate content but you can never create, re-create and pirate an experience.
Alternatives like these which will help monetize revenue streams will essentially revolve around a FREE model. I perceive this as the Future of the music industry – Yes. In the future, Music will be FREE.
That’s a great statement to end this interview with. Thanks a lot Patrick.
Thank You very much Sudhir.
