????幫助不精通技術(shù)的音樂(lè)人在線運(yùn)營(yíng)業(yè)務(wù)是一個(gè)不斷發(fā)展的領(lǐng)域。“圍繞這個(gè)概念似乎產(chǎn)生了一整套期望和業(yè)務(wù)，”瑪吉?維爾說(shuō)。她曾經(jīng)在頗具影響力的獨(dú)立唱片公司殺死搖滾明星(Kill Rock Stars)擔(dān)任副總裁一職。去年，維爾離開了這家唱片公司，出任CASH Music基金會(huì)聯(lián)席執(zhí)行董事。這個(gè)非營(yíng)利性組織致力于面向音樂(lè)人開發(fā)免費(fèi)的開源軟件，包括“最基礎(chǔ)的音樂(lè)技術(shù)，比如數(shù)字銷售，實(shí)體唱片銷售，電子郵件收集，這些都是音樂(lè)人運(yùn)行自己的網(wǎng)站時(shí)需要掌握的基礎(chǔ)技術(shù)，”以及一個(gè)教程，旨在向他們展示如何應(yīng)用這些技術(shù)。“這些技術(shù)一點(diǎn)都不難，”她說(shuō)?！坝行┤藘H僅幫助你把貝寶(PayPal)賬戶和一個(gè)亞馬遜(Amazon) S3賬戶連接在一起，就收取15%的傭金，這是完全沒(méi)有正當(dāng)理由的。那是管理者揩的一層油?！盨houtabl通過(guò)Topspin Media提供實(shí)體和數(shù)字唱片的銷售服務(wù)，后者收取15％的費(fèi)用，但這家網(wǎng)站自身并不提取傭金。

????除了把各類“電子產(chǎn)品”匯集在一個(gè)平臺(tái)之外，Shoutabl還增加了一些有可能產(chǎn)生相當(dāng)于現(xiàn)場(chǎng)感受的在線音樂(lè)場(chǎng)景服務(wù)。過(guò)去，音樂(lè)現(xiàn)場(chǎng)主要是由地理位置的臨近性決定的?！耙魳?lè)人的生意正變得越來(lái)越獨(dú)立，”莫里森說(shuō)?！暗麄儾幌刖窒抻谧陨淼奈幕I(lǐng)地，也不想囿于自己的社交圈?！币魳?lè)人不僅能夠以 SoundCloud那樣的方式（MySpace也曾經(jīng)發(fā)揮過(guò)這樣的作用）發(fā)現(xiàn)彼此，互相聯(lián)絡(luò)，而且能夠結(jié)合資源，互相推廣。

????比如，肢解計(jì)劃樂(lè)隊(duì)在Shoutabl 上擁有一個(gè)網(wǎng)頁(yè)。莫里森為自己的獨(dú)唱作品開設(shè)了一個(gè)頁(yè)面，為他的另一支樂(lè)隊(duì)Burlies開設(shè)了另一個(gè)頁(yè)面，兩支樂(lè)隊(duì)的各色成員都擁有各自的項(xiàng)目。莫里斯表示，Shoutabl 讓他們每個(gè)人“充分利用維恩圖(Venn diagram)”，即相互重疊的粉絲群。比如，在獲得他們準(zhǔn)許的情況下，肢解計(jì)劃樂(lè)隊(duì)可以將其公告新唱片發(fā)行日期的博客內(nèi)容推送至每一個(gè)與他們相關(guān)聯(lián)的活動(dòng)頁(yè)面。樂(lè)隊(duì)也可以使用一個(gè)內(nèi)置于平臺(tái)的廣告系統(tǒng)，在彼此的頁(yè)面上傳播有針對(duì)性的廣告。多諾萬(wàn)聲稱，這就好比某位正在舞臺(tái)演出的音樂(lè)人提示觀眾關(guān)注好友即將上演的演出。只不過(guò)，它是這種行為的數(shù)字化版本。這種方式不僅可以維系一種有機(jī)的社區(qū)感，還能夠放大一場(chǎng)營(yíng)銷活動(dòng)的輻射范圍。結(jié)合其通過(guò)網(wǎng)頁(yè)銷售商品的能力，Shoutabl能夠?yàn)楦枋痔峁┮环N將作品變現(xiàn)的簡(jiǎn)單方式，幾乎沒(méi)有其他平臺(tái)具備類似的能力。最終，多諾萬(wàn)和莫里森甚至希望這些歌手網(wǎng)絡(luò)使用這個(gè)平臺(tái)發(fā)起集體籌款活動(dòng)，為唱片制作募集資金。

????就本質(zhì)而言，Shoutabl的終極目標(biāo)是賦予音樂(lè)人一種達(dá)到專業(yè)水準(zhǔn)的廣告或營(yíng)銷技能，而且無(wú)需他們真正學(xué)習(xí)這些技能，從而讓那些不具備自我宣傳天賦的音樂(lè)人專心致志、心無(wú)旁騖地從事音樂(lè)創(chuàng)作。

????“歌手可不是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)專家，”多諾萬(wàn)說(shuō)，“但我們算是?！?/p>

????多諾萬(wàn)說(shuō)：“我們正在做的許多事情，都是實(shí)施一些已經(jīng)被證明能夠非常有效地推送內(nèi)容的策略。我們正嘗試著幫助樂(lè)隊(duì)和歌手逐漸掌握最佳實(shí)踐。我們其實(shí)在潛移默化地向他們傳授最佳實(shí)踐，或者干脆代替他們來(lái)完成這部分工作，這樣他們就不必操這份心了?！?/p>

????莫里森笑著說(shuō)：“讓一位歌星說(shuō)出‘最佳實(shí)踐’這個(gè)充滿商業(yè)意味的詞匯的確是個(gè)好創(chuàng)意！”（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：任文科

????Helping technically un-savvy musicians get operational online is a growing field. "There seems to be a whole set of expectations, and a whole set of businesses, built around that concept," says Maggie Vail, former vice-president of the influential indie label Kill Rock Stars. Last year Vail left the label to become co-executive director of CASH Music, a nonprofit developing free, open source software intended to give musicians, "the most basic layer of music technology: things like digital sales, physical sales, and email collection, basic things that artists need to run their website," as well as an educational curriculum to show them how to apply it. "The technology isn't difficult," she says. "There's no real reason why someone connecting your PayPal account to an Amazon S3 should be taking 15% of your money. That's a manager's cut." (Shoutabl offers physical and digital sales via Topspin Media, which charges a 15% fee but doesn't take its own cut.)

????As well as pulling together assorted "B-plus products" into one platform, Shoutabl also adds in services with the potential to produce the online equivalent of music scenes which in the past have been defined largely by geographical proximity. "Artists are becoming more business-independent," Morrison says, "but they don't want to be on their own culturally, they don't want to be on their own socially." Musicians can not only find and connect with each other in the way that SoundCloud does (and MySpace once did), they can also combine resources and promote each other.

????For instance, the Dismemberment Plan has a Shoutabl page, Morrison has one for his solo work and another for his other band, the Burlies, and assorted members of both groups have their own projects. Shoutabl lets each of them "exploit the Venn diagram" (as Morrison says) of their overlapping fan bases. With their permission, the Dismemberment Plan can, for instance, push blog content announcing Uncanney Valley's release date to the pages of each act associated with them. Bands also can use an advertising system baked into the platform to serve targeted ads on each others' pages. Donovan calls it the digital version of someone onstage telling the audience to check out their friend's upcoming show, a way to magnify the scope of a marketing campaign while maintaining an organic sense of community. Combined with the ability to sell merchandise through Shoutabl pages, it can provide an easy way to monetize their work that few platforms can match. Eventually Donovan and Morrison would even like to see networks of musicians using the platform to launch collective fundraising efforts, for instance to underwrite the launch of a record label.

????The ultimate goal of Shoutabl is essentially to empower musicians with the skills of an advertising or marketing professional, without them actually having to learn those skills, and to allow the ones who weren't born with innate gifts for self-publicity to concentrate their energy on simply making music.

????"Artists aren't Internet experts," Donovan says, "but we kind of are."

????"A lot of what we're doing," Donovan continues, "is taking strategies that we know, that are proven to work really well at pushing out content, and we're trying to ease bands and artists into these best practices. We're trying to kind of subtly teach them best practices or just to do them for them so they don't have to think about it."

????Morrison laughs: "The idea of even making a musical artist say the words 'best practices!'"