Byta.com is “the platform for music before it’s on streaming services”. With over 25 years in the music business, Byta’s founder Marc Brown will talk through some of the most important yet overlooked aspects of working with digital audio files and streams. Combining Marc’s own experience and interviews from Byta’s popular #HowWeListen blog series this talk will offer insights for anyone trying to get noticed in the digital age.

1. Digital Music
WTF?!
Nova Scotia Music Week
Truro, NS CA
November 8th 2019

2. Marc Brown

5. byta.com
The platform for
music before it’s on
streaming services

6. Byta takes advantage of
audio file’s unique properties:
Metadata File format &
Audio Quality
Streamability

7. 1. #HowWeListen
2. Digital Insights

8. Byta interviews people
about how they find,
listen and experience music
#HowWeListen

9. Algorithms are not your Savior
Being top of Spotify’s Rap Caviar is not a solution
#HowWeListen

10. Amber Horsburgh
“You’re looking at basically
a spreadsheet of words that
play music, no branding,
no imaging, no story.
It’s impossible to get a hook
on an artist if you do not
immediately connect with
the first 30 seconds of their
track. It’s boring.”

11. Patrick Ross
“The Dry Streams Paradox,
as we call it. The idea is that
simple playlisting alone is
not going to create a
sustainable artist-fan
relationship.”

12. • Radio 1 90’s story

13. Spotify’s Car Thing
(Or why dumb ideas
might not be so dumb)

14. “This vague product
feels a bit like investor
focus-grouped
vaporware.”
David Turner

15. #HowWeListen
CDs in Car
Jen Pomphrey / Byta (AUS)
Jason Reynolds /
Universal Music (USA)
Sam Ford / So Young (GBR)
Tom Malmros (SWE)

16. Streaming services are a blank slate
#HowWeListen Summary
Even success there is just a start
How people listen is not obvious

17. “The Medium is the Message”
Digital Insights

18. "Going back to cds
would almost be
an improvement.”
Chris Price, BBC Radio 1

19. “What tools empower
everyday people with
no formal musical
training or industry
connections to create,
edit, distribute and
market a song from
scratch?”
Cherie Hu

21. “In general, context is difficult
to automate and requires
a lot of manual, human creative
thinking and introspection,
which is why most tech
platforms that try to automate
strategy end up failing at
that task.”
Cherie Hu

22. Wyndham vs. Vish
The recipient is always right

23. Wyndham Wallace
“I’d also always rather
stream first rather than
download without some
sense of what I’m putting
into my iTunes, because
my iTunes already has
enough music to play for
almost 150 days without a
pause and I think it’s going
to burst.”

24. Vish Khanna
“I generally prefer
downloads as I’m moving
around so much that I’d
prefer to have the files
stable and not reliant on
my data plan or bad WiFi
for streaming. If I’m sent a
stream, I don’t listen to it as
much (or sometimes at all)
until I get a download.”

25. Basic Metadata
Knowledge
is Essential

26. Clotilde Bayle
“I’m not a fan of
download links in emails,
often the files names are
“0999922.mp3’ go and
find something like that
in your iTunes..! ”

27. Stream Ripping
Used to be about piracy
Now about controlling narrative

28. Digital Summary
Consider the person being shared to. What do they need?
Metadata = important!
Stream Ripping all about the narrative

29. 1. #HowWeListen
2. Digital Insights
Last Words

30. Tack för att ni lyssnade!
( = thanks for listening)