Automatic Album Maker Moment.me Launches A New Service For Mobile Event Websites

Apps that help users make sense of their ever-growing photo collections through automatic organization and curation would seem to make sense, and offer a service people need. But over the past year or so, we’ve seen these types of startups fail, pivot or simply stagnate. Everpix is no more, for example. Tracks shifted, launching a new app called Kanvas for photo-editing. Flayvr has yet to see mainstream adoption.

And today, Tel Aviv-based startup Moment.me joins the fray, with a new business that sees it distancing itself from the automatic, social photo album space, with the launch of a new service focused on building mobile websites for events.

These “microsites,” as the company calls them, are meant to serve as online pop-up shops for events, including things like concerts, sporting events, film festivals, and more. Today, information about an event can be found across the web, on the sites belonging to the artist, the band, the promoter, the sports team, the venue itself, and on blogs and social media, Moment.me co-founder Eilon Tirosh explains.

The new microsite creation service essentially repurposes Moment.me’s aggregation technology for this (the team hopes, eventually profitable) new venture, allowing event organizers, bands or teams to quickly launch a mobile website that serves as the hub for everything there is to know about the event in question.

The idea is to make building the microsite as simple as using any other consumer-facing service, with no coding required. After entering in the event time and location (or pulling in those details from a Facebook page), the service then pulls in the top content from social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, while also allowing for further customization, like adding maps, details on where to eat or drink nearby, links to ticket or merchandise sales, sharing features, and more. The resulting sites work well on any form factor, whether desktop/laptop, tablet or mobile phone.

While the basic microsite builder will remain free, over time, the company plans to introduce premium features for commercial events that will allow for additional customization or levels of engagement. Moment.me is also in discussions with others in the event industry, like ticketing companies for example, for further integrations.

Site creation is currently available online, though the company notes it will also be offered within the Moment.me iPhone application.

Moment.me was founded in February 2012 in Tel Aviv by Ronny Elkayam, Eilon Tirosh, and Boaz Adato. It has $1.5 million in seed funding from Blumberg Capital and other private investors.

Vulfpeck Releases An Album Of Absolute Silence On Spotify To Make Money

Funk band Vulfpeck is showing everyone what growth hacking is all about — exploiting weaknesses to promote your work. The band recently released a new album on Spotify called Sleepify. It consists of 10 songs comprised entirely of silence. Each song is 31 or 32 seconds long. Not coincidentally, Spotify pays royalties when someone listens to a song for more than 30 seconds.

In a video, the band explains that it wants to try something new for its next tour. In order to raise a bit of money, Vulfpeck is counting on its fans to stream its songs on Spotify. But playing an album on repeat is just not that efficient.

Vulfpeck asks its fans to stream the newly released album on repeat while they sleep. It’s a way to generate a few dollars in royalties every night and a great way to show one of Spotify’s loopholes.

Whether a song lasts 3 minutes or 12 minutes, the band gets the same royalty payment from Spotify. According to Spotify itself, labels and publishers can expect between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream. Then, it depends on the deal between a band and its label.

You can see on Spotify that Sleepify is distributed by Vulf Records. Vulfpeck is probably behind this label. This way, the band gets all the royalty payouts. For seven hours of sleep, you can stream 840 times 30-second tracks. With an average payout of $0.0072 per stream, the band can expect around $6.05 per fan per night. Nothing to be ashamed of.

If the band is successful enough, Vulfpeck says it will go on a tour without charging admission. Spotify provides analytics as well, letting Vulfpeck pick its tour dates depending on where Sleepify is popular.

And what if it doesn’t work? It’s still a great promotional stunt for the band. Let’s just hope that Vulfpeck is the exception, not the rule. Otherwise, Spotify will have a hard time generating profits.

Via The Guardian