Industry News

TechCrunch Disrupt's startup alley hosted a handful of companies looking to shake up the music space at today's conference. Highlights included:

- Fizziology: This start-up, which monitors online chatter and sentiment, has had a lot of success in the movie space -- it can predict which movies will do well based on online sentiment. Based on their calculations, Fizziology predicted that "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" would bring in $95 million on opening weekend, while industry estimates pegged it as doing $110 million (the film brought in $90 million). While they've stuck to film, the technology could easily work in music to predict which artists will have big opening weeks, whether a single should be worked or not, or which new bands are crating the most buzz.

- Let's Listen: First, nerds created Turntable.fm, and it was good. And now plenty of other companies are jumping on board to see if they can create competitors to the online DJ service. Let's Listen describes itself as a more mellow version of turntable -- users can DJ with small groups of friends using their own libraries. While the interface isn't as snappy and the catalog depends on your own collection, it could be a nice alternative for those intimidated by turntable's crowded and often opinionated rooms.

- Back at You: This fans rewards platform has been working with Tenth Street Entertainment to make sure fans are always rewarded and keeping bands top of mind, even if they are off the road. Back At You allows artists to set up contests based on taking actions like retweeting items, "liking" on Facebook, and so on.