Akon Talks Digital Music at CES
Posted in: Today's Chili
LAS VEGAS — Sporting a sharp, shiny suit, R&B star Akon took the stage during Billboard’s digital music sessions at the Consumer Electronics show on Wednesday to share some tricks of the trade for making money from music in 2009.
"Creatively, I always think financially too," explained Akon to a warm audience response, and he knows whereof he speaks. Not only has the singer sold loads of albums the traditional way, but he regularly makes a mint selling ringtones. Ringtones are so important to him these days that he made sure the songs on his last album would sound good as ringtones by auditioning various mixes on his cellphone before deciding on the final mix.
The singer says that in addition to ringtones, he and his Universal Music Group eLabs label have
learned to work online community to their advantage, somewhat ironically by sharing music with them. "It’s so much easier [than it
used to be] to take traffic and delegate it where you want it to go,"
said Akon, who explained that he and/or Universal posts new music there
to see how the community reacts to it — a near-instantaneous feedback
loop that guides decision-making on what to release and how. "He has this well-trafficked site where he can float stuff out there, which applies to any business," added Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of UMG eLabs (pictured
to the left).
But no artist’s digital strategy would be complete without
YouTube in this day and age. Caraeff claimed Akon’s video revenues were up 70-80 percent last
year and that 70 percent of the increase was due to international
users, many of whom were discovering his videos online for the first
time. According to Caraeff, nearly all of that video revenue came from YouTube.
Back to Akon’s shiny suit. When I cornered him backstage after the appearance (just before my own panel appearance), Akon explained that it’s part of his own upscale clothing line set to debut in April under the brand name Aliaune, which is Akon’s real first name.
Who says there’s no money to be made in music anymore?
See Also:
- Video Pick: Superdeluxe Spoof ‘Akon Calls T-Pain’
- How to Make Custom IPhone Ringtones Without Paying Apple $2
- Underlined: The Hills, Akon, Conan O’Brien
From left to right, photo depicts Caraeff of UMG, Akon and Billboard editorial director/moderator Bill Werde
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