Don't stop updating your Facebook page yet, but almost half of the 1,000 people polled by the AP and CNBC believe that Facebook is just a passing fad. 51% have a favorable impression of the company, while 23% have an unfavorable opinion. And not that the average American is a financial analyst, but half of those polled also believe the initial stock asking price (which has gone up since the poll) is is too high. THE CHARTS:

Continuing their ongoing battle with Ticketmaster, jam rockers String Cheese Incident sent 50 fans to the box office of LA's Greek theater armed with $20,000 in cash from the band. Each was on a mission to buy eight tickets for $49.95 plus any services charges for the group’s show there in July. Then the 400 tickets were sent back to String Cheese's Boulder HQ and put back on sale on the band's web site for the very same $49.95, sans most charges.

“We’re scalping our own tickets at no service charge,” Mike Luba, one of the group’s managers, told the New York Times. "I would argue that on some level they are our tickets.”

This small protest is part of what endears the band to their fans. The group is even eating the credit card processing fees for orders on their own site. “It costs us money to sell the tickets,” Keith Moseley, the band’s bassist, said. “But we are going to eat that cost this summer in order to make a better deal for our fans and let them know how much we appreciate them.”

Purchasing a ticket directly from the band does come with a $12 to mail tickets by United Parcel Service - still cheaper than buying through Ticketmaster. So far, Ticketmaster has refused to comment.

Both Evinar and Gyroskope are services that musicians can use to monetize streaming video. Evinar focuses on livestreaming via Facebook while Gyroskope features videos for which customers pay to stream as often as they like. Neither service is exclusive to musicians but both seem potentially useful to musicians attempting to diversity their revenue streams.

Please let us know what you think about these options in the comments. And please consider answering this question, what are you looking for as a musician seeking to monetize video on the web?

Evinar - Monetize Live Concerts on Facebook

Evinar offers the ability to sell tickets and livestream concerts via Facebook. Evinar takes a 40% cut of ticket sales but you can also offer concerts for free.

The process seems pretty simple from setting a date and ticket prices to using their dashboard to invite your friends and fans via social media. Viewers can buy tickets ahead of time via the Evinar Facebook tab which will display a stage image with a live countdown.

In addition to broadcasting live via your webcam, you can also upload images and videos as part of the show and text chat with viewers during the event. The chat feature includes moderation so, if fans get out of hand, you can moderate what gets posted. You can also appoint additional moderators to help with the event.

Charging people for livestreaming events comes down to whether or not your audience wants that. My only concern would be with how comfortable your fans would be making a purchase on Facebook given a recent AP-CNBC poll finding that 54% of respondents "wouldn’t feel safe using the platform for financial transactions such as purchasing goods or services."

Gyroskope - Monetizing Video Streaming

Gyroskope is an ad-free service designed to monetize video. It's not exclusive to music but that is one of the areas on which they're focusing.

The basic concept is that artists pay a monthly fee, set their own prices and upload videos and previews. Gyroskope handles the rest including payments. It appears you can also offer video viewing for free though that's not emphasized.

Pricing starts at $19 a month for hosting 5 videos. In addition, there's a 2.08% plus .35 charge for payment processing. It's unclear how much bandwidth you get but, at a certain point, you either upgrade your account or start paying $30 per 100 GB.

Viewers pay per video and can watch them at anytime via the Web including free use of Gyroskope iPhone and Android apps. However, they aren't initially purchasing the videos but rather the right for relatively unlimited streaming. Once they hit 500 views of an individual video, viewers are then asked to download the video.

There's clearly some math to be done here to figure out what you should charge based on bandwidth usage and account costs but the bigger question will be whether or not you're able to entice fans to pay for a viewing experience of media that they can't initially download. Given that videos have such a long history of being used as promotional tools, Gyroskope may require the creation of special content to entice music lovers.

Janet Morrissey, writing for Fortune, shares a bit more about the company including some comments from founder Todd Smith. She also rounds up some questions raised by livestreaming video company reps who are future competitors since Gyroskope is planning on adding such capabilities in the future.

To see who's using the service, you can browse or search Gyroskope's current inventory.

Note: Opening thumbnail is from the Gyroskope account for Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith blogs about business at Flux Research: Business Changes and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

When booking a tour, there are various challenges that can come up. On Music Think Tank, Simon Tam posts about potential pitfalls in booking. What problems have you faced when booking a tour or shows?

“It’s always a good idea to know what kind of situation you’re booking into: Will they have an adequate stage? Will they have a sound system and engineer?”

(Read On)

U.S. approval of Universal's EMI purchase is a toss-up, according to a Reuters survey of anti-trust experts: "Eight antitrust experts interviewed about the issue were divided about the chances for approval, largely because the music landscape has changed so much in recent years that it is not clear that a deal that would concentrate 40% of the recorded music industry in one company would harm competition."

"Ten years ago, the labels had power. Today they don't have any power. If they (the U.S. Federal Trade Commission) block it, it's just because they don't understand the market," Daniel Sokol, a professor of antitrust law at the University of Florida told Reuters.

But two antitrust experts who spoke off the record said that Universal faces a tough fight, especially because Warner Music Group is activley opposing the deal. "My sense is that the FTC could take a hard line depending on how good a job Warner does in generating complaints," one said. "It wouldn't surprise me if it didn't go through."

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

While techie hipsters (techsters?) complain that Turntable.fm is so over, most people and even music fans only recently began to grasp the concept of downloading MP3s from the internet and transferring them to a portable MP3 player, in the grand scheme of things. When you obsess about technology all day, it can be easy to forget how advanced the concept of listening to the same music with friends or strangers in other locations is — unless you remember (or still experience) FM radio.

We kid — real-time group listening apps go way beyond FM radio in part by by allowing the listeners to pick what pays, and letting them text-chat to each other as they listen.

Myxer, long known for its sales of ringtones, wallpaper, and other relics of the pre-smartphone era, impressed us with its plan to evolve into a smartphone-friendly app company on the strength of its group-listening app, Myxer Social Radio. In the early days, during our testing, we barely noticed anyone else using it. However, Myxer founder Myk Willis told Evolver.fm in a meeting in Manhattan last night that Myxer will see its millionth install this week, which is nothing to sneeze at.

“I don’t think anyone has really cracked the mainstream code at this point,” said Willis about the real-time group listening phenomenon, which allows people to gather in rooms online to hear the same music and talk about it, sort of like the way we do in real life. ”We saw the ‘high-profile’ Turntable.fm launch, but that’s really only high profile if you’re in the space — it really didn’t have a lot that connected with a mainstream audience.”

According to him, Myxer’s long (in internet time) run as a purveyor of mainstream digital goods like those wallpapers and ringtones will serve it well, as the company attempts to build on that success and become a smartphone app company.

“Myxer has a seven year operating history, so we have a long view of the whole thing,” said Willis, “and we have a very mainstream audience with out existing site, so we’ve been trying to build something that takes advantage of the fact that we know people want to interact with entertainment together in real time — but something that’s also natural and makes sense for a mainstream audience. We’re still working on it to, on dialing the right knobs so you get that mix of simplicity, which is key, because the mainstream just wants to press play, for the most part — but you want to mix that simplicity with that kind of rich overtone that comes from real-time interaction.”

As part of his strategy to bring the group-listening trend we spotted last May to the mainstream, Willis plans to embrace Facebook much more closely than Myxer did originally.

“In the coming weeks, you’ll see all of the song-level play information synched back to Facebook, whereas before we were doing it at a very coarse level,” he said. “We weren’t sure whether a mainstream audience would want to have all of that noise coming into their Facebook profile from it, so we went slowly into that. But as far as listening hours and active users, those numbers are all trending up.”

Indeed, as we observed last week, as much as people bristle at the notion of every dumb article they read showing up on Facebook, the same does not appear to hold true for music.

Myxer Social Radio currently has 90,000 monthly users on Facebook; mobile apps are also available for Android and iOS.

(UPDATED) Greg Scholl, the former CEO of digital music powerhouse The Orchard, is returning to the music industry as the Executive Director of Jazz At Lincoln Center. Working alongside Founder and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Scholl will take the helm of the not-for-profit arts organization next month.

After leaving The Orchard in September 2009, Scholl became President, Local Integrated Media at NBC Universal. But his first love has always been music. "I worked with some great people at NBC and I'm proud of what we accomplished," Scholl told Hypebot. "Increasingly I found that I really missed working in the music business, because that's where my passion lies. I love jazz, blues and American roots music and Wynton Marsalis is a fantastically interesting, talented and creative person - not to mention, a pretty decent trumpet player"

"So when this opportunity came along," Scholl continued, "the choice about whether or not to leave NBC wasn't particularly difficult: most of my tweets are about music, my sporadic blog posts are generally music-related, I spend most of my free time somehow pursuing music ... looking for records, forcing my kids to listen to them, playing music with friends ... so, I thought maybe it's time I stopped swimming upstream."

"Plus, this opportunity really is unique: Lincoln Center is of the world's greatest cultural institutions, JALC's mission ("Dedicated to inspiring and growing audiences for jazz worldwide.") is something I really can put my shoulder behind, and Wynton is leading one of the greatest big bands ever assembled - filled with talented players who also are arrangers and composers in their own right. Wynton has incredibly high standards and artistic integrity that permeate the organization. To be a part of all this gives me a charge. And, it is a fantastically interesting time to work in music - the industry is transforming. So, yea, I'm beyond excited," Scholl concluded.

Top Songs
1,"Payphone (feat. Wiz Khalifa)",Maroon 5
2,"Somebody That I Used to Know",Gotye
3,"Call Me Maybe",Carly Rae Jepsen
4,"Boyfriend",Justin Bieber
5,"We Are Young",Fun.

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6,"Wild Ones (feat. Sia)",Flo Rida
7,"Starships",Nicki Minaj
8,"What Makes You Beautiful",One Direction
9,"Dance Again (feat. Pitbull)",Jennifer Lopez
10,"No Lie (feat. Drake)",2 Chainz

Top Albums
1,"Blown Away",Carrie Underwood
2,"Neck of the Woods",Silversun Pickups
3,"21",Adele
4,"Strange Clouds",B.o.B
5,"Up All Night",One Direction
6,"Hello",Karmin
7,"Strangeland",Keane
8,"Making Mirrors",Gotye
9,"Blunderbuss",Jack White
10,"Little Broken Hearts",Norah Jones

APP STORE

Top Paid iPhone Apps:
1. Angry Birds Space, Rovio Mobile Ltd.
2. Pandemic 2.5, Dark Realm Studios
3. Flick Home Run !, infinity pocket
4. iTranslate Voice, Sonico GmbH
5. WhatsApp Messenger, WhatsApp Inc.
6. Draw Something by OMGPOP, OMGPOP
7. Camera+, Tap Tap Tap LLC
8. Cut the Rope, Chillingo Ltd
9. Ski Safari, Defiant Development
10. "Free Music Download Pro" - Downloader and Player, BSOSoft

Top Free iPhone Apps:
1. 100 Floors, Tobi Apps Limited
2. Socialcam Video Camera, Justin.tv
3. Logos Quiz Game, AticoD
4. Highway Rider, Battery Acid Games
5. Line Surfer, Robert Szeleney
6. Rope'n'Fly 3 - From Dusk Till Dawn, Robert Szeleney
7. Instagram, Burbn, Inc.
8. Race Or Die 2, Addmired, Inc
9. NinJump Deluxe Free, Backflip Studios
10. Facebook, Facebook, Inc.

Top Paid iPad Apps:
1. Angry Birds Space HD, Rovio Mobile Ltd.
2. Penultimate, Cocoa Box Design LLC
3. Pages, Apple
4. Draw Something by OMGPOP, OMGPOP
5. Where's My Water?, Disney
6. Notability - Take Notes & Annotate PDFs with Dropbox Sync, Ginger Labs
7. Ski Safari, Defiant Development
8. Batman Arkham City Lockdown, Warner Bros.
9. iPhoto, Apple
10. N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, Gameloft

Top Free iPad Apps:
1. Highway Rider, Battery Acid Games
2. Socialcam Video Camera, Justin.tv
3. Logos Quiz Game, AticoD
4. Skype for iPad, Skype Software S.a.r.l
5. LinkedIn, LinkedIn Corporation
6. iBooks, Apple
7. Rope'n'Fly 3 - From Dusk Till Dawn, Robert Szeleney
8. Facebook, Facebook, Inc.
9. Draw Something Free, OMGPOP
10. The Weather Channel for iPad

London's Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has a history of featuring orchestra members in promo campaigns to emphasize that "not all orchestras are the same." This year they decided to feature members of their audience with "strong looks" to point out that not all audiences are the same either. The resulting digital brochure and related videos are available online with more publicity to follow for this innovative orchestra.

While writing recent posts on classical musicians developing new audiences and exploring new repertoire I was often reminded of earlier innovations by the Kronos Quartet. Another group that has been exploring alternative approaches to classical music for over 20 years is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) whose current marketing campaign reveals that they are just a bit different from the usual orchestra.

The OAE and Me - Call for Participants

The OAE began its 2012-13 season campaign with a call to audience members that have a "distinctive look" and stated:

"With this campaign we not only want to celebrate something very important to us, our loyal audience, for without you there would be no orchestra, but also to question who classical music is for. You’ll often hear people say ‘oh that’s not for me’, ‘that’s for posh people’ or likewise…so we want to make people take notice of us, and perhaps challenge their assumptions. As you and we know, the music we play is for everyone."

Judging from the online brochure and the video below, they succeeded in both the "distinctive" and "strong" categories.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment 2012-2013 Brochure

Based on material currently posted on their homepage, the campaign will include a variety of additional elements:

"Over the coming weeks we’ll be profiling everyone featured in the brochure on our blog and showing off the full set of pictures, as we couldn’t quite fit them all into the brochure! Plus, look out for further pictures on banners, programmes and adverts, especially once the concert season starts in September...We’ll soon be releasing a video featuring behind-the-scenes footage and an interview with the designer and photographer."

Check out The Guardian for more on the 2012-13 campaign from the OAE communications director and the creative director of design company Harrison & Co.

More:

• Classical Musicians As 21st Century Entrepreneurs
• Classical Music Embraces Indie Ethos: Fifth House Ensemble & wild Up

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith blogs about business at Flux Research: Business Changes and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Facebook Revises S-1 Again: Adds 83,818,263 Shares Of Class A Stock, Could Raise $16B (TechCrunch)

• In the case of Grooveshark vs. Digital Music News, the judge failed to quash the subpoena in LA Superior Court yesterday. DMN publisher Paul Resnikoff tell's Hypebot that it's a setback, hints he'll fight on. More as the story develops.
• UMG Q1 revenue up 9.1% as Vivendi profits exceed expectations. (Music Week)

MORE:

• Pirate Bay Under Major DDoS Attack From Unknown Enemy Over Last 25 Hours (TorrentFreak)
• Thefuture.fm brings its DJ mix platform to the iPhone (GigAOm)
• Thanks to online pr tool StoryAmp for including Hypebot in their fune Music Tech trading card series on Pinterest.
• NARM's digitalmusic.org, will help aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own music companies by bringing its Music Start Up Academy sessions to Los Angeles on Thursday, June 7, from 12:45-6 p.m. at The Grammy Museum.