In the wake of MySpace’s massive wave of layoffs, yet another fan management tool for bands has received a boost. Damntheradio (a platform for creating Facebook fan pages), was just acquired by FanBridge, who recently secured $2 million in Series A funding.
FanBridge, a service that helps musicians grow, track and engage their fanbase, decided to acquire Damntheradio in order to tap into the Facebook market, which it feels is an extremely rich seeding ground when it comes to growing a band’s popularity.
“This momentum behind helping artists figure out their ‘viral Facebook strategy’ translates into businesses like ours seeing where the puck is moving, and positioning ourselves accordingly,” says Spencer Richardson, co-founder and CEO of FanBridge.
FanBridge isn’t the only company of its kind to receive this level of funding in recent weeks — RootMusic recently secured $2.3 million from Mohr Davidow Ventures with David Feinleib to build out its BandPage product.
BandPage is an extremely popular Facebook app (rated number one in entertainment) that lets musicians listen to tracks, check out tour dates, etc. According to RootMusic, the app has 12.7 million monthly active users.
Yes, these are relatively small investments — it’s not like they’re The Cheezburger Network or anything — but the fact that investors are starting to put funds into tools that marry music and Facebook indicates that the tides are turning toward the social network in a much more significant way. In fact, RootMusic recently kicked off a campaign that it’s calling “Make the Move,” urging musicians to switch to Facebook.
Many musicians, it seems, are listening. In fact, Lil Wayne recently released the song “6 Foot 7 Foot” on his BandPage one day before it was available for purchase on iTunes, and Jay-Z and Kanye West gave fans a peek at “H.A.M,” the lead single from Watch the Throne, via a specialized BandPage.
“It’s just an incredicle time for platform disruption,” says RootMusic investor David Feinleib. “Facebook is a social phenomoenon, and music is a big part of our culture. When you put those two together — and you have that in RootMusic — that’s a really big opportunity.”
Granted, the overabundance of such platforms on Facebook could lead to a confusing level of fragmentation when it comes to artist discovery (say what you will about MySpace, that site has made it super easy for any drummer with half a brain cell to set up a profile), but it seems only natural that musicians would head there should MySpace fall. Ideally, Facebook would actually build its own product for musicians, but, in the meantime, services like Damntheradio and BandPage are offering enticing alternatives.
More About: acquisitions, bandpages, damntheradio, fanbridge, funding, rootmusic, startup
