YouTube’s latest acquisition may be another attempt by the Google-owned video-sharing platform to woo musicians, this time by offering convenient ways for them to grow their fan base.
On Friday, San Francisco-based startup BandPage, which helps bands increase their visibility by promoting them across social media platforms, announced it’s been acquired by YouTube. TechCrunch reported the acquisition is worth $8 million.
BandPage provides a platform where musicians can create a profile and update it with videos, audio tracks, tour dates and merchandise information. The startup then automatically spreads that information across the Web, to sites including Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud, in order to reach as many fans and potential fans as possible. Last year BandPage announced a partnership with Rhapsody that allowed the company to send listeners push notifications advertising particular artists. BandPage is 10 times more effective than Facebook at driving fans to artist’s stores, the company boasted in September.
The deal may be a bargain for YouTube, as the price is far less than the $27.6 million BandPage has raised in four rounds of funding since 2010, TechCrunch reported. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for BandPage. The company started in 2009 as tool that let musicians create a music tab on their Facebook page, according to TechCrunch. BandPage lost 90 percent of its traffic when Facebook shut down the music pages and other similar apps in 2012, forcing BandPage to pivot and develop a new, independent platform.
YouTube has launched several programs in the past that cater to musicians, Forbes reported. Those efforts include YouTube for Artists, which helps musicians track data about their fans, and YouTube Space, which provides collaborative physical spaces for artists. Meanwhile, while YouTube remains a popular platforms for fans looking to stream music by their favorite artists, it’s not a favorite of artists hoping to make some cash from those plays. YouTube and other streaming sites pay artists just a fraction of a cent for each play, The Guardian reported.
Photo: Visitors stand in front of a logo of YouTube at the YouTube Space Tokyo, operated by Google, in Tokyo February 14, 2013. (REUTERS/Shohei Miyano)
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