Using p2p networks as hit detectors

[TankGirl]

Wired runs an interesting story on how a company named BigChampagne tracks and records what is being traded on public p2p networks and makes money by selling the distilled information to commercial radio and - yes! - to some labels as well. It turns out that the p2p download activity combined to geographical information makes a fairly good detector for music's hit potential - something worth paying for.

For most customers, Garland says, "we're the mistress." He and his colleagues once met with some executives from a major label on the street near the label's offices, just to avoid setting off gossip. But not everyone is afraid to be seen with BigChampagne. In March, the company signed a deal with Premiere Radio Networks, the subsidiary of radio giant Clear Channel that sells research products, including the airplay-tracking system Mediabase. The agreement gives the two companies access to each other's data and lets Premiere sell packages of information that include the BigChampagne product.

Radio stations need to measure reactivity even more than labels do, and Garland says the package has exceeded sales targets. Erin Bristol, program director at Clear Channel's Hot 107-9, a Top 40 station in Syracuse, New York, began looking at BigChampagne before the deal. "A lot of radio airplay is based on what other stations are doing, and that's silly," Bristol says, "because what's going on in New York or LA isn't necessarily indicative of what's going on in Syracuse." For example, she might not have added the Kid Rock- Sheryl Crow duet "Picture" to her playlist ("which leans rhythmic") until she noticed that local file-sharers were sucking down the song. "I threw it into my call-outs, and it was reactive, so we made it a subpower," a song that plays 40 to 50 times a week. Bristol says she was turned on to BigChampagne by an executive from Warner Bros. but asked me not to name him.

The story gives a very lively picture of what goes on behind the scenes in the corporate hit factories. It is very hectic and very clueless as you might expect... but nevertheless pervertly interesting...

Have you ever watched file-sharing? I mean really watched file-sharing? I'm in BigChampagne's Atlanta office, where several of the company's dozen or so employees have gathered in the conference room to show off the firm's technology. Garland is filling me in on how he started the company, but I can't take my eyes off the green digits raining down on the big black screen behind him in a matrix of file-sharing. I interrupt him to ask the coders if they can freeze the display. One of them taps a few keys, and the blur atomizes into individual search requests. One user - BigChampagne's software doesn't retrieve actual IP addresses, only a cipher corresponding to metro area - wants to hear the Goo Goo Dolls. Another is interested in "endurance bondage-caning." "A lot of people," COO Adam Toll notes, "are looking for porn."

For the curious, here are the Top Ten Swaps of the moment as claimed by BigChampagne...

- tg