History of Link Shorteners and the Music Industry

History of Link Shorteners

Before there were music retail landing pages, like the ones from Metablocks, Linkfire and Gupta’s Smarturl, there were only link shorteners. URLs play a big role on the Internet. They are the connectors of the web. URLs have come a long way since their inception over 20 years ago. Especially with the creation of the URL Shortener, which has come to play an important part in retaining the importance and usefulness of the URL in our ever-evolving digital landscape. URL Shorteners have moved from simply being a tool to shorten your link, to an integral tracking tool used to refine marketing initiatives and drive brand growth, and now have lead to the creation and evolution of retail link pages. Here is where link shorteners step it! Kevin Gilbertson, created the first URL shortener, TinyURL, in 2002. The popularity of TinyURLs quickly influenced the creation of at least 100 similar websites. As the web has developed, URLs are becoming longer, so URL Shorteners were becoming really useful, especially when it comes to music!

April 1, 2017April 1, 2017

What are Retail Landing Pages?

Retail landing pages are a type of landing page, popularized by companies like Metablocks, Smarturl (Gupta Media), Linkfire and others. These pages are used primarily by the music and publishing industry to sell products available from multiple retail sources. As a way of more fairly promoting purchase and streaming option, these pages have gained massive popularity.

The Rise of Retail and Streaming Options

The number of companies selling or streaming music continues to rise and has created a fragmented marketplace. Major internet companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon all have music purchase/download (iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Music) offerings as well as music streaming services (Apple Music, Google Play Music, Amazon Prime) in addition to leading streaming providers like Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Rdio, Soundcloud, Napster (Rhapsody) and a growing number of smaller services. Add to the mix, traditional retailers like Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble and many others, consumers have 100’s of options to choose from. Retail landing pages (and specifically Metablocks Widgets) are designed to help solve this problem.

April 1, 2017April 1, 2017

Most Popular Link Shorteners Used in the Music Industry

Here are some popular link shorteners that are used in the music industry by music labels and artists.

Smarturl.com
This was probably the first link shorter offering aimed at the music industry from Gupta Media. SmartURL was designed to help simplify the process of marketing online and enable smarter marketing. Features and functionality include Geo-Aware Links, Live Redirects, Collaborative Management, Real-Time Stats and Simpler performance tracking (IQid). The company is a service of Gupta Media, based in New York.

April 1, 2017April 16, 2017

Linkfire – Competitors

About Linkfire (Music Retail Landing Pages)

One link to serve them all: That is Linkfire’s aim – to reach all fans, no matter their music consumption preferences, in one fell swoop.

The link shorteners space is not, excuse the pun, short of competition (Bitly, Tinyurl, Goo.gl, etc.). Linkfire, however, has a unique proposition: To address the complexity in music consumption.

Music consumption has never been this segmented across multiple devices and numerous access and ownership platforms. The idea of pushing out an iTunes link to a Spotify-only user does not make sense; nor does it make sense being pushed to an Android phone owner. Yet these marketing mistakes are made daily. And the alternative of having five links under each post does not bode well in the superficial social media age.

March 20, 2017April 1, 2017

Welcome to the Metablocks Widget Blog

What is a Music or Book Widget?

A music or book widget is simple, easy to build, microsite that allows music labels, artists, book publishers and even service providers to create attractive retail link and marketing landing pages used to promote music, books and other products or services. Our music and book widgets support all common retail links but also include advanced features and functionality such as sharing, social links and even application level services such as Spotify Pre-save campaigns, sweepstakes support, email capture, video and a broad range of embeddable players.