Iron Maiden never used Bittorrent and social media data to plan tours

Iron Maiden never used Bittorrent and social media data to plan tours

A few days ago the news that Iron Maiden was working in partnership with web analytics company Musicmetric was all over the web: according to the original article, posted by tech blog CiteWorld, the band was using the data from Bittorrent and social media to see where teir popularity was bigger and then booking tours and live performances there.

Unfortunately this click-friendly story was not true. Indeed, Musicmetric's head of PR, Andrew Teacher, then issued a statement explaining that the company never worked with or for Iron Maiden and that the original CiteWorld article was "sadly not substantiated".

Here is the full official statement:

"We never stated or implied that Iron Maiden had used our analytics to plan its tours. [On November 29] The Guardian correctly published Musicmetric data showing the band's BitTorrent and social engagement after the band was named one of the UK's fastest growing companies a London Stock Exchange report. They were far older than many newer names in the report and we wanted to see why Maiden were in there. The data provided an interesting insight, showing just how many fans they'd added through intense touring across emerging markets and highlighting via BitTorrent data precisely where they were popular. This is precisely how Musicmetric's analytics are used by artist managers and labels: to see where their artists are popular and what drives that popularity. However, the CiteWorld story is sadly not substantiated. It is a follow-up of a Guardian piece and it misrepresents our position by stating that the success was down to use of analytics, which we simply never said nor implied. Musicmetric never said Iron Maiden had used its data to plan a tour — we simply said where the band was popular and stated that BitTorrent data generally, could be useful to see precisely where an act is popular.