Online gigging, an iPad guitar and gamified fan campaigns triumph as Midemlab’s winners are revealed

30 music-focused startups were shortlisted, and over the past two days they’ve pitched their wares at music industry event Midem in Cannes, France. Now the four Midemlab winners have been announced.

The competition spans three categories; Music Discovery, Recommendation & Creation; Marketing & Social Engagement, and Direct to Consumer Sales & Content Monetisation, with the aim of highlighting the greatest innovation the tech sector can offer the music industry in 2013. There was also a special prize from the French Minister for SMEs, Innovation & Digital Economy.

Jury members this year included Deezer’s Axel Dauchez, Rackspace’s Robert Scoble and Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka.

Winning the Music Discovery, Recommendation & Creation category, Instru-Magic offers Songful, a $2.99 iPad app that lets you strum through any chord page from Ultimate Guitar’s 200,000-song collection. When our own Josh Ong wrote about Songful in November, he noted that it was particularly useful for those who haven’t already learned to play a real guitar.

Sporting the tagline ‘Amplify your fanbase’, Jamplify won the Marketing & Social Engagement prize. This service allows musicians to set up ‘jampaigns’ that are designed to motivate fans to promote a defined website. Fans compete to drive the most traffic to the site, and rewards are offered to the top promoters.

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Sounding a little like a more involved version of the ephemeral messaging trend led by Snapchat and Facebook Poke, StageIt won in the Direct to Consumer Sales & Content Monetisation category. This service allows performers to stream live and interactive experiences from their computer – interestingly, these shows are never archived, hopefully replicating the ‘you had to be there’ experience of a good gig. Fans are able to request songs, tip musicians, and make comments on shows.

Finally, Fleur Pellerin (the French Minister for SMEs, Innovation & Digital Economy)’s Coup de Cœur special prize went to Audience.fm. This France-based startup measures artist-fan engagement across the Web and allows artists to reward top fans, encouraging “meaningful interactions with their core fans.”