????幫助不精通技術的音樂人在線運營業務是一個不斷發展的領域。“圍繞這個概念似乎產生了一整套期望和業務，”瑪吉?維爾說。她曾經在頗具影響力的獨立唱片公司殺死搖滾明星(Kill Rock Stars)擔任副總裁一職。去年，維爾離開了這家唱片公司，出任CASH Music基金會聯席執行董事。這個非營利性組織致力于面向音樂人開發免費的開源軟件，包括“最基礎的音樂技術，比如數字銷售，實體唱片銷售，電子郵件收集，這些都是音樂人運行自己的網站時需要掌握的基礎技術，”以及一個教程，旨在向他們展示如何應用這些技術。“這些技術一點都不難，”她說。“有些人僅僅幫助你把貝寶(PayPal)賬戶和一個亞馬遜(Amazon) S3賬戶連接在一起，就收取15%的傭金，這是完全沒有正當理由的。那是管理者揩的一層油。”Shoutabl通過Topspin Media提供實體和數字唱片的銷售服務，后者收取15％的費用，但這家網站自身并不提取傭金。

????除了把各類“電子產品”匯集在一個平臺之外，Shoutabl還增加了一些有可能產生相當于現場感受的在線音樂場景服務。過去，音樂現場主要是由地理位置的臨近性決定的。“音樂人的生意正變得越來越獨立，”莫里森說。“但他們不想局限于自身的文化領地，也不想囿于自己的社交圈。”音樂人不僅能夠以 SoundCloud那樣的方式（MySpace也曾經發揮過這樣的作用）發現彼此，互相聯絡，而且能夠結合資源，互相推廣。

????比如，肢解計劃樂隊在Shoutabl 上擁有一個網頁。莫里森為自己的獨唱作品開設了一個頁面，為他的另一支樂隊Burlies開設了另一個頁面，兩支樂隊的各色成員都擁有各自的項目。莫里斯表示，Shoutabl 讓他們每個人“充分利用維恩圖(Venn diagram)”，即相互重疊的粉絲群。比如，在獲得他們準許的情況下，肢解計劃樂隊可以將其公告新唱片發行日期的博客內容推送至每一個與他們相關聯的活動頁面。樂隊也可以使用一個內置于平臺的廣告系統，在彼此的頁面上傳播有針對性的廣告。多諾萬聲稱，這就好比某位正在舞臺演出的音樂人提示觀眾關注好友即將上演的演出。只不過，它是這種行為的數字化版本。這種方式不僅可以維系一種有機的社區感，還能夠放大一場營銷活動的輻射范圍。結合其通過網頁銷售商品的能力，Shoutabl能夠為歌手提供一種將作品變現的簡單方式，幾乎沒有其他平臺具備類似的能力。最終，多諾萬和莫里森甚至希望這些歌手網絡使用這個平臺發起集體籌款活動，為唱片制作募集資金。

????就本質而言，Shoutabl的終極目標是賦予音樂人一種達到專業水準的廣告或營銷技能，而且無需他們真正學習這些技能，從而讓那些不具備自我宣傳天賦的音樂人專心致志、心無旁騖地從事音樂創作。

????“歌手可不是互聯網專家，”多諾萬說，“但我們算是。”

????多諾萬說：“我們正在做的許多事情，都是實施一些已經被證明能夠非常有效地推送內容的策略。我們正嘗試著幫助樂隊和歌手逐漸掌握最佳實踐。我們其實在潛移默化地向他們傳授最佳實踐，或者干脆代替他們來完成這部分工作，這樣他們就不必操這份心了。”

????莫里森笑著說：“讓一位歌星說出‘最佳實踐’這個充滿商業意味的詞匯的確是個好創意！”（財富中文網）

????譯者：任文科

????Helping technically un-savvy musicians get operational online is a growing field. "There seems to be a whole set of expectations, and a whole set of businesses, built around that concept," says Maggie Vail, former vice-president of the influential indie label Kill Rock Stars. Last year Vail left the label to become co-executive director of CASH Music, a nonprofit developing free, open source software intended to give musicians, "the most basic layer of music technology: things like digital sales, physical sales, and email collection, basic things that artists need to run their website," as well as an educational curriculum to show them how to apply it. "The technology isn't difficult," she says. "There's no real reason why someone connecting your PayPal account to an Amazon S3 should be taking 15% of your money. That's a manager's cut." (Shoutabl offers physical and digital sales via Topspin Media, which charges a 15% fee but doesn't take its own cut.)

????As well as pulling together assorted "B-plus products" into one platform, Shoutabl also adds in services with the potential to produce the online equivalent of music scenes which in the past have been defined largely by geographical proximity. "Artists are becoming more business-independent," Morrison says, "but they don't want to be on their own culturally, they don't want to be on their own socially." Musicians can not only find and connect with each other in the way that SoundCloud does (and MySpace once did), they can also combine resources and promote each other.

????For instance, the Dismemberment Plan has a Shoutabl page, Morrison has one for his solo work and another for his other band, the Burlies, and assorted members of both groups have their own projects. Shoutabl lets each of them "exploit the Venn diagram" (as Morrison says) of their overlapping fan bases. With their permission, the Dismemberment Plan can, for instance, push blog content announcing Uncanney Valley's release date to the pages of each act associated with them. Bands also can use an advertising system baked into the platform to serve targeted ads on each others' pages. Donovan calls it the digital version of someone onstage telling the audience to check out their friend's upcoming show, a way to magnify the scope of a marketing campaign while maintaining an organic sense of community. Combined with the ability to sell merchandise through Shoutabl pages, it can provide an easy way to monetize their work that few platforms can match. Eventually Donovan and Morrison would even like to see networks of musicians using the platform to launch collective fundraising efforts, for instance to underwrite the launch of a record label.

????The ultimate goal of Shoutabl is essentially to empower musicians with the skills of an advertising or marketing professional, without them actually having to learn those skills, and to allow the ones who weren't born with innate gifts for self-publicity to concentrate their energy on simply making music.

????"Artists aren't Internet experts," Donovan says, "but we kind of are."

????"A lot of what we're doing," Donovan continues, "is taking strategies that we know, that are proven to work really well at pushing out content, and we're trying to ease bands and artists into these best practices. We're trying to kind of subtly teach them best practices or just to do them for them so they don't have to think about it."

????Morrison laughs: "The idea of even making a musical artist say the words 'best practices!'"