Playdata - Revolutionary or Bust?

From time to time, a new innovation, new technology or a new discovery can revolutionize an entire industry, an entire Nation or like in the case of the Internet, the entire World. A team out of Atlanta might be on the precipice of such an innovation. Is Playdata going to be a major milestone that would transform the Nigerian music industry for good or would it be yet another pretty thing, with all the bells and whistles, that makes no impact? “Playdata seeks to help creators connect with the public use of their creation, in a way they have never been able to, and by doing this we are extending creators' capacity to grow and maintain businesses.

By giving creators access to critical information that improves decision making, we imagine businesses will plan and execute on a different scale from what has historically been possible.”

What is Playdata? Playdata is a service that allows users track their content (music and advertisement). Information such as where the content is being accessed, how many times it is being accessed and more can now be retrieved by the user in real time. How does Playdata work? “Playdata uses acoustic fingerprinting methods to encode audio files allowing them to be matched easily within any audio stream. Playdata runs on proprietary software.”.In Layman’s terms, the software reads a file and saves it in such a way that when ever that file is played, the software recognizes it. So if a song that has been read by Playdata is played on radio or any other medium, Playdata recognizes it and saves the information. Why create this solution? There is a NEED for accurate broadcast statistics and broadcast content auditing. Such statistics help improve promotion and marketing campaigns, broadcast compliance, royalty forecasting, and dispute resolution.

Who needs playdata? - Artists - Record labels - Artist Managers - Music promoters - Advertisers - Artist booking agents - Radio OAPs - TV jockeys The 411 Around the world, radio stations pay an artist/label and even producer each time their song is played. The amounts vary from market to market but significant amounts of money can be made this way. Services are available that track every single media outlet in certain countries or regions be it Radio, TV, Online Radio, etc. This allows the appropriate authorities collect the money owed with proof. Artists today are making very very little money this way in Nigeria. If Playdata is accepted by the industry and most especially if it ACTUALLY WORKS, this would be a huge leap forward for the industry as a whole. Another great advantage of Playdata, is the ability to know where your songs are being played. If an artist has a lot of hits (song plays) in a particular state or city, they know there is a demand for them and can target shows and promotional campaigns in this areas. I see this aspect as a great tool for artists, manager and labels. This information significantly impacts strategy for the better. Knowing how many times and when your music is being played on certain station further helps you plan better. It helps artists/labels figure out the demography that are fans of their music based on the type pf people who listen to the station. For example, if an artist makes a certain style of music that they feel is for a niche market, the data from Playdata might shine the light on other markets that might have potential.

The company makes money from artists/labels and advertisers through subscriptions. Currently it is free to track 1 song on 1 station. The potential that Playdata has is huge. As a company, they can grow into Nigeria/Africa’s version of Billboard, whose parent company runs a proprietary software as well that tracks essentially everything. We are in the information age and information is power.