Meet our latest partner: Conduit Mobile. The mobile app creator is getting all kinds of press these days, and it’s not without good reason. Their sexy app offers every function you could dream of with the ease of use you’ve always wanted.
What’s more, they’re compatible with all major mobile devices, including iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android and Windows. No coding, no fuss — here’s a snapshot of some of the features Conduit offers:
When you sign into Conduit, you arrive at the Edit menu, which is composed of three tabs: Content, Style and Info. Let’s look at these in a bit more detail:
Once you’ve tinkered and perfected your app, you’re ready to submit it to stores. You can do this by clicking on the To Market menu at the top of the page and selecting one by one which stores you want to send your app to. You’ll need a developer account for each store to submit as well as the native files (instructions here). If you have a Platinum or Diamond subscription with Conduit, they’ll take care of the submission for you — you just need to fill out a form with your developer credentials and submission preferences.
Speaking of subscriptions, all clients have access to a free trial, which includes 500 visits to mobile site and 25 mobile app installs. Once you’ve hit those numbers, you can choose between a Gold subscription at $22/month (unlimited site visits and up to 5,000 app installs), a Platinum subscription at $62/month (unlimited site visits and unlimited app installs) or a Diamond subscription at a one-time cost of $499. Go to the Home menu to update your plan.
There’s lots more you can do with your Conduit mobile app by navigating through the Home, Promote, Analytics and Notifications tabs on the top menu bar, including getting a mobile site URL, redirecting mobile users to that page, creating an HTML Promo page, tracking active users and their activity by platform and location, and sending targeted push notifications to your fans.
Check out the demo video below for a more visual look at how to use Conduit in the Marketplace, and make use of Conduit’s slew of specific how-to demos for the best ways to use every part of their app.
Conduit Mobile is available via The Marketplace. Find out more about them on their One-Sheet.
Note: There are some fees associated with submitting your app to each store (one time vs. yearly) and each store has varying approval times (between 1 hour for Android and minimum 10 days to 2 weeks for Apple).
It’s been in The Orchard Marketplace since launch; it’s consistently one of our most popular apps; it was one of the first HTML5 mobile apps out there… I’m talking about Songpier, the mobile app builder that’s now a whole lot more.
You might have noticed that Songpier — or Songpier Studio as it’s now called in the Marketplace — has completely revamped both its look and its offering. Manage your mobile app, desktop website and social sites all in one convenient location, and more than ever share it with your fans, no matter where they’re looking.
So what’s new, exactly?
Here’s how to make the most of all these new features in the Marketplace:
On top of all these exciting updates, the new interface is easy on the eyes and easy on the brain. So play around with it and find out for yourself why Songpier is reliably one of our top apps!
To get a visual step-by-step of how to use the new Songpier Studio, check out the demo video below, and get an idea of what Songpier looks like in action on Der König Tanzt’s mobile-optimized site.
Songpier is available via The Marketplace. Find out more about them on their One-Sheet.
Here at The Orchard, we take pride in delivering the music of our artists and labels to all of the places around the world where it can be purchased or listened to. Once it’s delivered, we use our charm and relationships to get front-and-center placement so that our clients’ music gets the attention it deserves, and the royalties, too.
We figure that everyone enjoys pretty pictures, so we created the graphic below to highlight some of the outlets we market to. There’s a lot — which is why we have a global team located in major music markets to do the heavy lifting.
Thanks to Airene Resurreccion for the graphic.
As I am making the last preparations for my next participation in a Trade Fair, representing The Orchard at WOMEX 2012 in Thessaloniki, Greece, even I can’t try to pretend that “it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it.”
I’ve had a long and enjoyable relationship with WOMEX through my work with various World Music distributors, labels and artists over the last 20 years, starting with WOMEX’s precursor, the “Berlin Independence Days,” which were held in East Berlin just after the fall of the Wall. In those “physical” days — lasting well into this new “digital” century developing the international sales of Cesaria Evora, Lucky Dube, Salif Keita, Toure Kunda or The Skatalites (yes I insist that Reggae also fall in the scope of “World Music,” as does Electro Cumbia or Hungarian Speed-Folk) — involved mainly finding the right distribution partners distribution, promotional activities (via key media outlets and actors of the live scene) and developing solid mutually advantageous business relationships. A lot of these relationships have become friendships and despite changes in companies, some industrial disasters and difficult financial moments, many of these people are still strong players in the very tight-knit World Music community.
The tools that I will be bringing this year are only materially different. Instead of lugging around boxes of CDs, I’ve got a few presentations, pre-prepared collectively to be shown on a computer as to how best use our Sales Analytics, Interactive Marketing, or maximize results from Social Media Advertising. The goal of developing a mutually profitable network of relationships between the various actors of this sector stays essentially the same however, just more detailed, especially since the changing nature of the methods and means of consumption of music worldwide means that more and more world inhabitants are gaining access to their own cultures and those of others.
To quote from memory from an article that appeared in the Berlin Independence Days guide, World Music is also Bob Marley or Rod Stewart blasting from a battery-powered cassette player in Nairobi. However, in those days there was no realistic way of monitoring this usage such that all parties involved got paid. The mobile phone has become the essential vector of this progression in the controllable growth in access to music that we presented on The Daily Rind already a while ago. The main model is streaming via Telco bundles that includes Internet access with the possibility of listening to music.
These kinds of offers are spreading like wildfire across the world. Telephone operators have understood that musical content is a primary attraction within the Internet. For our labels and their artists, this specific source of revenue breeds additional sources of revenue, creating new uses and relationships with fans that can also be monetized. As I always say in my posts: music is contagious, and these models bring in lasting and growing financial returns. This ecosystem exemplifies sustainable development — recontextualized!
So though we have already developed tactics on all of this in association with some of the most prestigious World Music labels around — Lusafrica (selected as World Music Label of the Year for 2012), World Circuit, World Music Network, Sterns African Records, Cantos/Frochot, World Village, Mr Bongo, Stonetree Records, ZZK, etc. — we are always looking for ways to improve these collaborations and build others by involving our teams in 26 different countries around the world. Each team demonstrates its expert knowledge and understanding of its local market and gives each of our partners the possibility of simplifying some of their work in order to focus on the essential point: discovering, producing and sharing great music from everywhere.
Sure, new apps are great — but updated apps are even better! Why? Because they aim to improve a product based on what people want and need. That’s exactly what DIY Music, the do-it-yourself e-commerce platform, has done with their series of updates to their app. As an Orchard client, you can benefit from all of them via our Marketplace.
So, what’s new with DIY Music these days?
DIY has also revamped its store widgets for a fresher feel. They’re not only better looking, but they’re also easier to navigate. Plus, they have a new Help section to make sure you’re getting the best experience possible.
So go ahead! Try DIY Music out for the first time or rediscover it all over again.
