Something happened and there are hundreds of people in Cambridge, MA listening to the song.

I don't know why that particular city would have so many users and a link: search on Google reveals nothing.

@SteveSokolowski my first guess is some MIT kid bet yes and is automating plays to manipulate the market. Classic college student shenanigans

o3 did research and believes that the latest songs can reach the level of a "mid tier" artist (#12000 to #35000 in the world) with the right promotion.

I am going to set aside a few thousand dollars and test that hypothesis after I write the response brief to the defendants' motion to dismiss in our case, which I hope to finish by mid-June. So there's going to be money put into this. Music is pay-to-play, and I'm going to see if it works.

@SteveSokolowski good luck 🫡

I just "claimed" the artist profiles for Spotify and Apple Music. It's going to take a long time to do so at the other 40 sites that Soundcloud "distributes" music to.

Once they get back to me in 3 days, then that allows me to associate other data like the website and social media accounts.

Apple is about 6 weeks behind the time when I submit music for distribution. It's amazing how slow these services are.

I'm curious whether anyone here would be interested in earning some of the remaining money executing parts of a plan like this:

https://chatgpt.com/share/68039bd4-33a8-8004-94d4-2df774103320

In terms of making the music gain views, my time is likely better spent producing additional great content, rather than focusing on marketing. That's why paying someone might be a good option.

So one thing that's interesting about this song is that 47% of YouTube viewers listened to the entire song, which is incredible. I've never seen a figure like that before.

By comparison, "Valentine Beat" has a 6% rate of people listening to the entire work.

@SteveSokolowski 47% of 51 views? I'd guess the number will go down as a lower fraction of the views become people you deliberately sent it to

@bens No, what that means is that of the people who listened, 47% of them played the entire video from start to finish.

"Valentine Beat" had a retention rate of 6%, by comparison, even though it was a pop song, which shows that "SPINNING PLATES" has something special about it. Additionally, the average retention rate for any video type on YouTube is 30%, so this song has significantly outperformed the average video.

It's just a matter of breaking through the noise and getting more people to start playing the song.

I completed all alterations on the website and it is now ranked in Google search. It took several days of optimizations to get the mobile pagespeed score to 85. The desktop score remains at 99.

The next step is to release two additional tracks that are more "radio friendly" than this song.

The track was distributed to Spotify and Apple Music. It has a release date of April 25. I also just added several other tracks.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4l1BM7j5N4K9COry40LvGH

@SteveSokolowski do Spotify streams count for the purposes of this market?

@Ziddletwix I don't think we can count them, because they weren't in the text of the market. I'm willing to hear from others, but there may be people who bid because they believe that the song can get exposure there but not on the listed sites.

@SteveSokolowski I opt for sticking with SoundCloud and YouTube for this market.

OK, the website is now available at https://stevesokolowski.com/.

The next step is to change all the links I have everywhere to reference this new website, do the basic search engine stuff, and so on.

Later this week I'll begin building a marketing plan. I also think that there are a few quick things I discovered - stereo widening being the most high-impact - that can "remaster" existing songs for cross-promotion.

Comments welcome on this brand identity from YES bidders. These two colors will be the color scheme. The "SS" in the lower right will be deleted.

@SteveSokolowski As a no holder, I think it's bold of you to lean into your SS initials when public officials are making Nazi salutes.

@WrongoPhD so there is such a thing as a YES holder? I salute that.

@KevinBlaw The argument for YES is, as far as I can tell, that perhaps advertising might work. But, having looked at SoundCloud & YouTube advertising costs briefly, even pouring a full $100 into advertising would not be especially likely to deliver 10,000 video views or track plays. Given that money is being used for branding and web hosting, I have convinced myself to purchase extra NO by writing this comment.

@Twig Good point. A previous track has reached 4k listens without advertising from Steve, so it is not entirely unlikely, but I will stick with my NO orders at 42% and 47% for the time being.

@Twig Only $6.98 was devoted to the website and branding. There is still plenty of money left, so you're incorrect that the money will not be used for advertising.

The best advertising is producing more content, which I will also release along with the website. But I also don't believe that simply buying ads on Google is likely to lead to anything. I've never had any success with general clickthrough advertising for any product, music or otherwise. Therefore, once I get the website together, I'll work with Deep Research to develop an advertising plan.

@WrongoPhD A while ago, I made a blog post somewhere and someone said the title was a Nazi title. And I've posted comments on X that get replies saying I support Nazis. Surely you know that everything on the Internet always will devolve into conversations about Nazis.

And to everyone: I was delayed a few days because, as you can see, the world is falling apart and I'm not sure whether I'll have any money left. I lost hundreds of thousands so far. I've beat the market by 10% CAGR in the past few weeks alone, which most people would call extraordinary, and it still doesn't matter.

I've also been driving around stocking up on stuff like a doomsday prepper - it's just like February 2020 when I did the same. But I still hope to get the website done by Tuesday now.

The Manifold money will arrive in the account by Friday; I just got a notification.

So my goal is to use only this $98 to dramatically increase the listeners to this song. I decided that the backbone of this is that I need to create a website, rather than just posting songs in different places. I will then feature all the songs on the website. There is now enough content for people to be able to like one song and listen to them all.

I'll have Gemini 2.5 Pro generate the site and for the human-written songs, assist in writing description of the inspiration, etc. Then, I will have it ensure it is optimized for SEO, and I'll link to it from all platforms and profiles.

The bare minimum of any "business" (even though there is no money to be made here) is to have a website. Even if for no other reason, simply having a registered domain makes it seem as if a person is a professional musician.

So I will get this website up by the end of the weekend. Then, the second part will be to create a distinct brand and logo and add that to the site and everywhere else; that will be next week. The third will be to post a newer song within two weeks, which also is designed by AI but is more radio-friendly, and cross-promote.

All of that should only cost $10, so there will be plenty of money left over once the fundamentals are in place.

I am sure this market is an April Fools joke.

Can we make this 10007 listens? It was so bad that I made 6 other people at work listen to it, and by all rights that should not count. I'm afraid if anything, it may go viral for being so terrible.

@KevinBlaw