BigTinCan
Buzz Me Beats
The sheer number of recorded music artists in the marketplace today and high rates of piracy can make it difficult for musicians to earn a return from their music. Mobile application developer BigTinCan has developed BuzzMe Beats to give musicians and other content owners an alternative revenue source, by letting them place content directly within the operating environment of a fan’s smartphone as a paid application.
BuzzMe Beats enables artists to distribute unique content that is designed to work with a smartphone, including custom audio content that replaces the smartphone’s traditional ringtone and alerts for SMS, email and social media message. These new ringtones and alerts can be tied in with matching LED colours and vibration patterns. BuzzMe Beats can also include additional rich media content such as customised ‘wallpapers’ and videos.
The whole collection of customised content is packaged up as an application and sold through a handset maker or carrier network’s online application store, providing an additional revenue stream for the artist. Because BuzzMe Beats uses unique content, it is highly likely to appeal to fans, and because it is distributed as an application it cannot be copied and distributed by users. The technology is patent-pending.
BigTinCan already has more than 2 million consumers using its existing BuzzMe mobile applications, providing a broad market opportunity. BuzzMe Beats is currently available for BlackBerry handsets, and a version for Android handsets is in development. Future versions will include the ability for consumers to directly download additional content from within the application. BuzzMe Beats is suitable for a wide range of content owners, including filmmakers and sporting teams, as well as musicians.