Bebo, one of the world’s largest social networks, has teamed up with Slicethepie, a financing platform for recording artists, to offer a service designed to discover new musical talent. Bebo says that its Social Discovery Engine, unveiled as a beta programme in December 2008, democratises music artist financing by taking the A&R (artists and repertoire) role away from a handful of people from record labels and enables Bebo’s community to review tracks, identify new talent and push the best artists forward for financing.

Bebo music fans can then directly invest in the artists in return for artist access, a copy of the completed album, their name on the album sleeve and a share in the financial returns from album and single sales. Bebo users who participate in the review and rating process will be paid a small fee for every review left. Financed artists will retain the rights to their music and the majority of revenues from music sales.

“Now, for the first time, fans can actually help break an act, help them record their first single and help them get discovered,” said Hal Stokes, Bebo’s Global Head of Music. “With Slicethepie we can unearth the best ‘undiscovered’ talent on Bebo and fast-track them to a sustainable career in music while strengthening their bond with their fans."

Slice of the Action

NMK caught up with David Courtier-Dutton, CEO of Slicethepie, an online artist financing engine where new, unsigned or established artists can raise finance directly from music fans and investors for the recording, production and marketing of their next music project. Slicethepie is not a record label, it does not acquire any copyright or publishing rights from the artist and does not market or promote the record once made.

How did the concept come about?

It appeared to both parties to be an entirely logical fit. With the advent of social networks, the trusty one-to-many music marketing model is increasingly ineffective. Slicethepie’s core 13-25 year-old music market demographic is on social networks, and to capture their attention a new artist must be there as well. By leveraging the 50 million users and marketing power of Bebo with the filter and financing capabilities of Slicethepie we can take an artist, finance them and launch their career using the power of the community.

Above: David Courtier-Dutton 

How is the best act decided? Is it worked out purely on numbers or quality of review?

Slicethepie has built a crowd-driven filter that accurately identifies the best new artists via a double blind review methodology. This is exactly the same engine that powers SoundOut, the new market insight and analytics service [from Slicethepie] for the music industry. Once the best artists are identified, Slicethepie provides a trusted micro-funding platform that engages the fans to support their artist with £1 upwards. Once the artist reaches their £15,000 target - enough to record a series of well-produced tracks or a professional album - they return to Bebo who then provides each artist with the ultimate marketing package, weaving the artist into the community consciousness. 

Is this a bit like Fame Academy fused with Google Adsense? How will it work?

This is a partnership which enables the best artists on Bebo to be objectively ranked and rated by music fans and the best of these to secure financing from their fans. It’s about taking the artist/fan connection to the ultimate level and launching sustainable music careers as opposed to one hit wonders.

It seems more aligned with something MySpace would do. Do you know what MySpace doing in this space? Is anyone doing anything similar or is this a first?

This is a first. Myspace music is co-owned by the four major labels which could potentially have an issue with the artists taking the bulk of revenues from music sales and sharing the rest with music fans.  In addition the artist/fan connections are generally far stronger on Bebo than MySpace. Finally, Bebo is a social media platform (rather than a simple social network) which offers far more opportunity to financed artists for promotion on online shows, sync deals and so forth.

Who will pay the fans? Where’s the cut for Bebo and Slicethepie?

Music fans simply review music in a unique double blind, online ‘Scout Room’, the algorithms do the rest.  No one can choose what to review.  Payments for these reviews will be paid by Slicethepie.

Will Bebo add a download service directly from the site to help finance the artists once launched?

Further promotional activities are still to be confirmed.

Going Live

Bebo and Slicethepie anticipate that up to one artist a month will be financed as a result of the partnership. On top of the £15,000 raised from music fans to record an album, Bebo will provide every financed artist with a valuable promotional package to give them a genuine opportunity to launch their music. In addition these artists will benefit from a ‘street team’ of hundreds of dedicated fans who have provided the finance, and can be mobilised to further promote their artist across the Bebo community and the wider web, the company said. The programme goes live in late March.