Its new real-time search tool, Beluga, launched on Tuesday. The powerful analytics tool is driven by the listening habits of Grooveshark users since its 2007 inception.
Additional data also comes from opt-in information provided by users. While Grooveshark is a free service that doesn’t require users to register or log in, the Grooveshark team says users often take market surveys to garner points on the Grooveshark platform.
“Beluga is the next-tier of music insights,” says Danika Azzarelli, Grooveshark’s senior director of public relations. “Basically, it allows anyone in the entire world to view data about any artist and market research based on surveys on the Grooveshark platform.”
Information is available about any artist within Grooveshark. The streaming music network currently offers a catalog of more than 15 million songs.
After an artist search, Beluga displays highlights about a musical act’s listeners. This report highlights strong market correlations the buying habits of listeners, for example plus demographics and a map of where most fans are located around the world. A quick view of demographics shows the artist’s strongest and weakest demographic groups, along with a gender breakdown.
By searching “Scott Cooke McCreery” last year’s winner of American Idol – we instantly found out “1 to 17-old-year females” make up the singer’s strongest demographic. The group least likely to listen to the young country star “25 to 34-year-old males.” The market research also tells us crazy specific things about the country star’s fan base — 99% of listeners own a Nintendo Wii, 99% say they live in a “rural” area and the majority say they would pay “$26 to $40″ for a ticket to see an artist in concert.
Now artists, music labels, managers and brands can access specific user demographics and socioeconomic factors of an artist’s fan base. User data makes it easier to target new consumers, or find ways to please current fans. Labels can use Beluga to decide where to host the next concert, how much concert tickets should be and what merchandise to sell. Brands can also use the data to develop effective marketing plans or find relevant artist sponsors.
The Beluga launch is a precursor to Grooveshark’s upcoming redesign, the team says, though there’s no date set for the platform’s new look.
“There will be a redesign in the works,” Azzarelli says. “It’s going to be very artist-centric, connecting artist to their fans, like Beluga. It’s definitely a step forward into openness and completely aligned with our mission.”
Do you think large social networks like Facebook should follow suit with Grooveshark and open their user data to the public? Tell us in the comments if you think user data should be public or remain private.
