Mideast Tunes, the Indie MySpace of the Middle East, Announces Partnership with Shazam
In 2010, when MySpace-style music platforms were
just launching in the Middle East, opinionated blogger Ahmad
Al-Shagra took a stand, predicting that Intel
Capital-backed Jeeran Music would succeed, while Bahrain’s
underdog, Mideast Tunes,
could benefit from an overhaul.
Three years later, the tables have turned. Jeeran's music arm
relaunched as Bandoora in July 2011, and then closed down last
fall; Jeeran, now a reviews portal, has departed from music
completely. New Spotify-style platforms Yala Music and Anghami have entered the market to offer
streaming for popular music.
Mideast Tunes, however, has steadily continued on its quest to be
the “go-to place for underground musicians in the Middle East,”
says Manama-based founder Esra’a Shafei.
The site has doubled in size over the past year, now offering over
750 artists on a beautiful site that offers flawless streaming,
even in Lebanon.
Driven to support original Arab voices in the global din, its lush
photos feature an artist of the day, which range from H-Kayne, a
pioneering hip-hop group from Morocco, to Algeria’s folk singer
Souad Massi, beloved for her haunting melodies, and proficient
Jordanian jazz fusion band Sign of Thyme.
Partnership with Shazam
The site is now making it even easier for indie
artists to be heard, through a new partnership with Shazam.
Signing up with Mideast Tunes will now allow musicians to index
their tracks on Shazam’s mobile applications, which reveal a song's
title, artist, and purchase information to browsing
listeners.
Shazam, a London-based company founded in 1999, has built a global
userbase of over 275 million users since the launch of its iPhone
app in 2008. It now boasts over 2 million more joining weekly and
800,000 music transactions daily.
"Our goal is to make bands and their music visible, both on our
platform, and through partnerships with Shazam and and radio
stations whom we connect the bands with," says Shafei. A
partnership with Radio Netherlands Worldwide also grants its bands
interviews and airtime on the station’s Arabic-language
programs.
A Business Model Competition
Mideast Tunes' bootstrapped growth hasn’t been without its
struggles, however. In August 2011, it launched a new platform
based on Zend, which was too buggy to last. That fall, its team
again rebuilt the platform, on Ruby on Rails, which now enables its
seamless functionality.
Mideast Tunes is developed by Mideast Youth, a non-profit dedicated
to fostering “fierce but respectful” dialogue among youth in the
region. Yet clearly the time has come to scale beyond a non-profit
budget.
To this end, its team has launched a competition for a co-founder
position, given to the applicant who can design the best revenue
model for their site.
The major challenge is that, true to its nature, Mideast Tunes
wants to stay free for users. “When times were tough, bands in
Bahrain chipped in and supported our growth. We owe it to them to
sustain this platform and to keep it free, independent, and
influential,” their blog post reads.
“Music for social change” cannot be behind a paywall, says Shafei.
Its
iOS app, which has received thousands of downloads, is free, as
will be its upcoming Android app.
Revnue options
To monetize, the site has a few options. One would be launching a
freemium model that offers current content- on average, 5 songs per
band- for free, but charges for entire catalogue downloads, sharing
revenue with artists.
Another could be licensing plugins for blogs.
If the site wants to build its presence leading regional player, it
may also want to develop a great recommendations engine, a function
solely needed in the region, as we discussed in our recent
Wamda Debate on the music industry.
Yet the biggest moneymaker in today’s music market is offline. As
music is more easily shared online, artists make their money
through concerts, not album sales.
Mideast Tunes might do well to partner with a company that will run
offline concerts for its bands, or to create a festival with
regional draw. Both will necessitate a co-founder who can lead that
initiative.
For now, the region’s indie bands, who “don’t have the budgets to
promote themselves,” says Shafei, will continue to use the MySpace
for the Middle East as one of their best tools for being
discovered.