Post date: Jan 28, 2011 12:42:56 PM
Sixteen-year-old ukulele player Misty Miller is looking to score a major success with her debut full-length album, with the help of a new analytics tool called Buzzdeck.
LONDON, ENGLAND, (RECENT - JANUARY 26, 2011) REUTERS - For a sixteen-year-old unsigned ukulele player who has yet to release a full-length album, Misty Miller has already made an impressive global impression.
An online "heatmap" shows where her music is being bought, where her videos are being watched, where her MySpace friends reside and much more."The places in the world that know my music. South America, China and Australia. That's the weirdest part, because there's this map and you can see the areas where people have downloaded your music," she said.
Breaking into the music business was never that easy and given the state of the music industry, the chances of making it big are even smaller than they used to be. However, Miller is at the vanguard of one music movement that aims help artists and their backers make sound judgements.
Buzzdeck is an online analytics tool developed by London's Artists Without A Label to help unsigned acts best target their efforts for maximum success. It tracks everything from mentions on Twitter, to radio plays and YouTube video streams and collates the various titbits of data into a more comprehensive picture.
AWAL co-founder Kevin Bacon said the response to Miller's debut EP which was released this past summer shows how a little information can go a long way in terms of shaping strategy.
"That data there could be critical for them to plan their first tour because they can see where their fan bubbles are. So at different points in an artists' career Buzzdeck has different levels of relevance," he told Reuters Television.
"I had the fear the sales would be in the single units per day or at best in the tens and twenties. What happened was on day one we did about 200, and day two we did 200. We went on and I think we've just hit 6,000 downloads. It wasn't just 'Whoopee, great!' I was able to look into that and learn from it," he added.
Online interest in Miller's music spiked after her song 'Remember' was used in a campaign for the British luxury fashion brand Burberry. Radio plays and prominent placement on MySpace have also helped to fuel interest.
Bacon says data gleaned by Buzzdeck suggests Miller has a surprisingly diverse following.
"For example, her MySpace friends tend to poll 58 percent on average to the male. In this age group here when we look at Facebook, it polls the other way. When we look at YouTube we get that there's a substantial amount of young girls watching her and a fairly high percentage of older blokes," he said, following Miller's Buzzdeck chart
Miller will get a better idea of just how dedicated those fans are when her self-titled debut album is released through the iTunes music store on February 13th.