ReverbNation the leading marketing platform for musicians, launches ‘Sponsored Songs,’ a new online music distribution program that will give music fans access to unlimited free song downloads from 1,000 artists.

Sponsored Songs will be available on www.MySpace.com/Windows for free until September 24, 2009, and will feature music from independent and mainstream Artists in the rock, alternative, hip hop, latin, and electronica genres.

The first brand to sponsor the new program is Microsoft. The program is mutually beneficial to both brands and artists: brands are able to position themselves as tastemakers, and artists are able to monetize from their music.

“By participating in Sponsored Songs we are supporting music artists and their fans,” said Marty Collins, group marketing manager of Windows Consumer Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “We’re excited to be a part of an effort that could transform online music distribution.”

Sponsored Songs is an opt-in program for select Artists that use ReverbNation.com as their online marketing platform. Artists are paid for each qualified download, and are shown the exact advertisement for their approval prior to the campaign launch.

“We treat Artists like we would want to be treated,” says Lou Plaia, vice president of artist relations at ReverbNation.com. “We give them the information to determine if Sponsored Songs is a good fit for them. If it is, we equip them with turnkey tools to promote the song to their fans.”

ReverbNation is the music industry’s version of a “Web 2.0 Fairy Godfather”…

If you’re an artist looking to market your music online, but don’t know where to start, ReverbNation is a platform that provides Artists, Labels, Managers and other Industry Professionals with their own set of digital marketing promotional tools.

Now artists have the ability to manage their fan base, create widgets and banners, distribute music on iTunes, create geo-targeted campaigns and send e-newsletters -all from one platform (and did we mention it’s free?)

The most refreshing part about digital distribution on ReverbNation is how they’ve created a business model that puts artists first. For $35.00 per release/per year artists can distribute one song or an album of up to 99 songs – best of all, ReverbNation does not take any percentage of the sales.

ReverbNation offers both a free and premium service. Features include:

• FanReach: fan managements system with customizable and targeted email system

• Widgets & Banners: Music Players, Fan Collectors, Street Team Collectors, Press, Shows, Shows w/ Map, Exclusive Song.  Widgets and Banners are also trackable

• Digital Distribution: distributes music on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody and emusic

• RPK (Reverb Press Kit): electronic press kit (EPK) that allows the   recipient to access music, videos, bio and photos. Artists also have the ability to geo-target fans and track number of click-thrus

• Fan360: reveals the contact information for emails e.g. name, age, sex, gender, zip code and how many Friends, Fans or Followers on Myspace, Facebook and Twitter

• Street Team Functionality – every artist gets their own Street Team Program to help activate their fans and make every promotion “viral”. These promoters will help artists gain exposure by talking about the artist on blogs, message boards and by posting music, banners, tour dates, etc.  The platform even tracks everything these Street Team members do and creates a Leaderboard that measures impressions, number of plays, clicks and/or conversions

• Facebook and Bebo Applications – the MyBand Application is currently the #1 Artist Application on Facebook.  It puts almost everything from the ReverbNation profile right into the artist’s Facebook Public Profile page.  Artists can also include “Buy links” e.g. music, tickets, merch on their Public Profiles

Currently there are over 400,000 artists using ReverbNation including 50 Cent, Kenny Chesney, Madonna, Pantera, Judas Priest, O.A.R., Natasha Bedingfield, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Sara Bareilles, Lamb of God and Jason Mraz. 

“Given the fact that Scion has always worked with DJs and respected their culture, we wanted to give our audience a useful tool for their craft.” - Jeri Yoshizu, Scion sales promotions manager on the release of “Scion Radio 17 BPM Meter” iPhone and iPod Touch application.

The launch of the free Radio 17 Beats Per Minute (BPM) Meter application is part of Scion’s effort to generation brand engagement through a social gaming.

The app, developed by EpicTilt.com, automatically calculates the BPM of a song as users tap the screen to the song’s rhythm.  After recording the song’s BPM, users can create playlists by genre and send their song lists with corresponding BPM info to themselves and others for use in the planning of live sets and recorded mixes.  The Scion Radio 17 BPM Meter also provides a scrolling news ticker that keeps users up-to-date with the current month’s Scion Radio 17 features, as well as information about the latest Scion Audio Visual (S A/V) releases and events.  

By providing the DJ culture with a utilitarian tool, Scion not only builds brand engagement, but also generates brand awareness, but in a relevant way. 

The application is now available at the Apple App Store.

Earlier this week, Blip.fm (a.k.a.“Twitter for music”) launched a YouTube integration feature that allows users to have the option of posting music videos directly onto their Blips.

The Twitter social media paradigm was used as the inspiration for Blip.fm, a platform that’s specifically designed to share rich content media, giving users the ability to make music recommendations (in 150 characters or less), to their network in an easy format, without the use of TinyURLs. With the new YouTube integration, Blip.fm users can now do more than just recommend their favorite songs, but also favorite music videos as well.

“The decision to introduce music videos to Blip.fm is part of our broader strategy to expand our content sources and to introduce all media types to our platform” says Blip.fm Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Jeff Yasuda  “We’re happy with the integration and the feedback from our users has been really positive.”

Artists and labels can take full advantage of Blip.fm’s YouTube integration as part of their grassroots marketing strategy to promote new releases, live performances, or even to become a thought-leader for music recommendations to fans.

“We believe that music discovery is an inherently social process.  In fact, the most compelling recommendations don’t come from an algorithm or a computer… they come from your friends and trusted sources” says Yasuda.

What are your music recommendations? Tell us on http://blip.fm/rockisreligion

Despite his recent tantrum for not getting his way from iPhone, Trent Reznor was honored the title of “Webby Artist of the Year”, a Special Achievement Award at the 13^th Annual Webby Awards.

According to the announcement on WebbyAwards.com the judges selected Reznor for “making his music available to fans for free, Trent Reznor embraced the true openness of the Internet, similar to the release of the album Year Zero, which launched with an award-winning alternate reality game. Trent Reznor’s ability to connect with fans far and wide through the Web makes him a qualified ambassador of online culture, and arguably one of the most-recognized artists harnessing the power of the Internet to spread music.”

Among the social media savvy elite to win this year were Sarah Silverman for “Best Actress”, Film & Video Person of the Year: Seth MacFarlane and Webby Person of the Year: Jimmy Fallon.

Involver is a new application for Facebook that turns your Fan Page from generic to dynamic.

The site touts itself as being ”The first complete marketing suite on Facebook”. There is a premium for the service, but some of the individual applications like the RSS Feed, Photo Gallery, You Tube Channel, Twitter, Poll, Coupon, File Sharing, Slides and PDFs are available for free.

Even though the ability to seamlessly enable a Twitter, RSS, You Tube feed into your Fan Page is nothing new, the ability to brand all your individual Tabs with your own logo on your Facebook Fan Page in a neat and professional looking way is.

The Coupon application is nice if you are a band offering a promotion exclusively on Facebook. You can create e-coupons either exclusively for existing Fans of the page, and/or create a different coupon for new fans (to encourage them to become a Fan of the Page).

However, the product description claims to offer a “set it and forget it” feature, which generally goes against the whole point of “social networking”.

As per the site’s instructions, it’s simple to use and promotes engagement and viral sharing, which enables marketers to take one step closer to being able to find a way to successfully monetize the Facebook platform.

It’s confirmed. Former Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Owen Van Natta is now the newly named CEO of Myspace (who replaced MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe last week). 

Adding to the “new changing of the guard”, The Wall Street Journal confirmed yesterday, Myspace officially announced two new appointments, former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO, and Jason Hirschhorn (former Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks) as Chief Product Officer.

“I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the company’s founders and am eager to work with Owen and Jon and the rest of the incredible management team at MySpace as we enter this exciting new phase in the company’s already revered history,” said Mike Jones in Myspace’s official press release. Jason Hirschhorn continued, “MySpace is one of the most alluring innovations of our time and I am honored to collaborate with Tom Anderson and the rest of the MySpace team to take what is already a stellar product into its next evolution.”

The changes in Myspace likely indicates the desire to be more technically savvy, like its competitor Facebook, which means Myspace won’t be counted out in the social media space just yet.