MusicDish Industry e-Journal
MusicDish Industry e-Journal
Find Out About: Artistopia™
'The Ultimate Artist Development Resource'
By: Anne Freeman, The Aspiring Songwriter® (Editor-in-Chief)
2005-05-15
Artistopia™ -The Ultimate Artist Development Resource, is an online, comprehensive artist development service that focuses creating a place on the Internet where music artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry professionals can develop and do business. Artistopia™ features tools for music marketing, productivity, community development, and advanced technology to support artists’ sites on Artistopia™ and the many services it offers its members and end users. Artistopia™ also offers several levels of membership services to suit the budgets and career needs of all of its members.
A comprehensive list of Artistopia™ services includes:
· Music Marketing Tools: Comprehensive artist bio profiles; unlimited song / track uploads; event, gig, and performance listings; industry experience listings; formal education / training listings; web links for additional references; press releases publication; photo albums and slide shows; member message boards; and profile search engine inclusion.
· Artist Productivity Tools: Press kit builder with professional layouts; submit press kits to anyone via email; receive and approve press kit requests; build and manage newsletters; online development tutorials and lessons; email alerts on messages received; maintain a fan base with fan list manager; unlimited classified ad postings; business relationship manager; and extensive directory of online resources.
· Community Development: Dedicated member support staff; maximum privacy protection; receive internal and external messages; discussion boards and forum threads; events and gigs calendar; real-time and all-time song charts; and industry news and press release service.
· Advanced Technology: Content and feature rich website; eye pleasing and user-friendly interface; architecture lends feature scalability; optimum backbone for surf speed; multiple servers for processing horsepower; daily backups and failover redundancy; and technology built by renown experts.
In the following MusicDish e-interview with Artistopia™ Marketing Director Donna Liguria, we discuss why Artistopia™ was created, the philosophy behind Artistopia™, advice to indie artists, information about some new services that are in the pipeline for Artistopia™ members, and a free indie artist offer!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Donna, who founded Artistopia™, when and why?
Donna Liguria Artistopia™ was ultimately founded by iCubator Labs (ICL), its parent company. In 2003, Yaser Chanaa, our CEO, came up with the concept and vision for Artistopia™ to scale ICL in a direction/market he felt strongly about. The credit in building, marketing, and fostering Artistopia™, however, belongs to everyone from the management team to the front line staff. We are all music lovers here, and Yaser himself was an indie at one point early in his career.
Yaser’s vision for Artistopia™ is to provide the indie community with a comprehensive site that offers every tool the indie or unsigned artist needs to excel in their careers. We found that each indie portal specialized in one tool or another, so the thought was why not combine them all under one umbrella and provide indie artists a web site where they can build a permanent base, for life.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Tell us a little bit about the Artistopia™ staff.
Donna Liguria Well, to better answer the question, I need to tell you a little secret of ours. We are technically savvy and rely tremendously on our technology for automating many aspects of our business process whereas many of our friends and competitors have to hire to make do. With that thought in mind, we are an extremely lean organization that houses experts in each of the needed business fields.
To start, we have Yaser Chanaa, who is in charge of the overall direction of the company, technology architecture and infrastructure, artist development process, and overall marketing strategy. We have Donna Liguria (me!), who is the online marketing director ultimately responsible for our online reputation, traffic throughput, advertising, and cross-promotional strategies.
Then we have Ismael Halidou, who is our business development director in charge of unearthing business opportunities, establishing partnership channels, and making pitches to large-scale industry players that will help Artistopia™ achieve its corporate mission.
Last and definitely not least, Dina Kennedy is our finance and operations director. Dina is the one with that keeps us legal, on time, productive, and doing business with a conscious. We have a few other folks that fill in as needed; however, this is the team in a nutshell.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] I saw artist pages for both independent and professional artists on the site. What criteria are used to determine an artist’s category and why are both included?
Donna Liguria The bottom line is that Artistopia™ is first and foremost an indie community and will always remain so. Ninety percent of our technology and marketing thrust is geared toward indie artists. Through our marketing efforts, indies eventually end up on Artistopia™ and start off with the free plan. This way they get an insight on all the comprehensive tools available to them. Should they decide to upgrade and expand their access to more powerful artist management and productivity tools, they may do so by signing up for the Professional Indie Plan. Otherwise, the free plan is enough for members to integrate themselves into the community and become a productive member.
As for the pro artists’ area, we felt this would give indies more insight on what it takes to be a professional artist. We have an automated mechanism for entering them into the pro artists’ area, and the majority of the pro artists we foster are ones we want indies to take notice of. Eventually, when indies hit the big time and decide they don’t need us, we will roll them over to the pro section. The other strategy for having pro artists on Artistopia™ is, of course, to help us generate funds. Through our partnership with Amazon, we are able to extend discounted album sales to music lovers across the world, and to our members as well.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Briefly describe the services that Artistopia™ provides its membership.
Donna Liguria One of our main goals is to build the ultimate artist development resource. You can’t do that by giving artists a few tools and pointing them into a direction without any goals to aim for. Artistopia™ provides its artist members with all the necessary tools essential to their career development. Examples of such tools include the basic profile bio with a mission statement, music discography (MP3 uploads and album sales through Amazon.com), event/performance listings, experience and award listings, education/training listings, classified ad postings, community wide rankings, chart inclusion, and private member message boards.
Extended tools include press releases, external site references, customizable press kit builder/submitter, fan list manager, contact relationship manager, newsletter editor, online artist development lessons (through partnership with Berklee College of Music), inbox central, privacy protection, bullet-proof spam audits, …and I’m running out of breath here. Again, we are a technology powerhouse and have the capabilities to deliver state-of-the-art solutions on an ad-hoc basis.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What promotional activities does Artistopia™ provide to its members, if any?
Donna Liguria To start, Artistopia™ is search engine optimized so that all profiles (in time) will appear in at the top of search engine results for relevant keywords such as the artist’s name. As Artistopia™ grows its community, more and more indies will be heard and exposed by the highly targeted traffic that visit Artistopia™. The bottom line is that we have the framework for indies to excel in their careers; however, the work does have to come from them.
Our ranking system places hard working member artists in high profile areas of the site, and they know this. We get many artists that join and expect us to immediately place them on charts and register downloads by the millions. They quickly find that Artistopia™ is not the place to be because we aren’t built for the faint of heart, nor is it designed to push ego buttons. We are in the business of real-life artist development on the web, not payola.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] How do your services differ from other similar service providers?
Donna Liguria:
· First: We are by far and large technically superior to any and all of our competitors, and are ready to take the Pepsi challenge against them any day.
· Second: We push our artists through the well-designed and thought-out artist development process. Our ranking technology is not based on “god knows who” reviews like our competitors. Instead, the ranking technology analyzes the members’ credentials based on the length of their careers, and gives special weight and consideration to certain aspects of their respective talents.
· Third: Our support is almost real-time. Members find themselves getting the help they need immediately, provided they submit their request within business hours (8 a.m. – 8 p.m. EST).
· Fourth: We aren’t looking for today’s dollar; we are in it for the fame of revolutionizing the music industry as a whole. We are privately held and cash flow positive, meaning we have no institutional pressures and are focused on honing the online artist development process. For the most part, everyone else does MP3 hosting only. The bottom line is our members feel like they are truly a part of Artistopia™.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What are the most common questions that you get from artists using your services?
Donna Liguria Because we use “pros” terminology like “Music Discography,” the most common question is how and where do I go to upload my music. It usually comes from beginner indies who aren’t used to industry terms and verbiage. Another popular question is how does the ranking technology work. We have an informative page that explains all that needs to be explained for members to know what has to be done. Other than that, ranking is a well-kept secret of ours.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What particular service on Artistopia™ do artists find the most useful/helpful?
Donna Liguria The fact that Artistopia™ is a one-stop shop with an affordable lifetime membership. They get all the tools they need, and never have to leave and re-establish themselves or start over elsewhere.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Who are your typical Artistopia™ end users, and what are the trends you are seeing in end users?
Donna Liguria Well, we get music fans, artists, musicians, songwriters, professionals, and businesses from all walks of the music industry. The current trend we are seeing is that indie artists are in dire need of a trusted home that won’t shut down tomorrow. We have seen many indie portals disappear overnight without notice, only to affect indie artists’ trust for using the Internet as a viable mean to be heard and discovered. That will not happen at Artistopia™, and that is a guarantee.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What do you see are the greatest barriers to independent artists’ careers, and how does Artistopia™ help overcome those barriers?
Donna Liguria The biggest barriers indies face are their understanding of the music industry and what it takes to make it in an industry filled with much heartache. Many still believe in sending demos into outer space only to never be heard. Since our mission is to build an artist development resource, a large part of our effort and process is educating members on the harsh realities, and encouraging them to plow ahead with a certain strategy in mind. By the third or fourth month of their membership, the ones that stick around are the ones you know are serious and dedicated.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Would you give us an example of an Artistopia™ success story?
Donna Liguria Well, we would love to, but in our promise for privacy protection, we won’t name names. Occasionally we get requests to expire accounts because members have been signed to a label. We feel it is a self-indulging practice for us to boast which members became alumni; however, the wishes of our fearless CEO is not to hail it for business development reasons, but to see it as something for us to expect over and over again. Other success stories include opening up members’ eyes into the harsh realities of this business. We get many, many thank yous for giving them the home and education they need to excel. It is very gratifying for us to see our members absorb the knowledge because then we know we are doing our jobs.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What trends are you seeing regarding the artists who are using Artistopia™ services?
Donna Liguria Reality quickly sets in and you see them want to go and push that extra 100 miles. They quickly notice the competition and step up their game. It’s like a moving walkway. Some jump on and fall flat on their butts and say this isn’t for them. Some jump on, fall, get up and say to themselves, “Ok, I think I got it.” Some jump on, wobble a bit and rebound. And some jump on and go as if it’s another day in their lives. We are always watching the ones that stick around because deep inside we know finding your niche and competing on Artistopia™ is no walk in the park. Let me take a moment and plug our tenacious and relentless members: CHEERS Y’ALL!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the independent music community today?
Donna Liguria Knowledge and trust. No one is willing to give up the knowledge first hand and trust just has to be earned. In essence, what came first, the chicken or the egg? This ultimately impedes their drive and is quite distracting in deciphering what is knowledge and who means well. Yes, we can get into the indie record labels challenging the big 5 or 6 or whatever, and how the industry is so fudged up. To us, that is a cop out.
Any good and mature artist can get signed provided they play the game right. I mean think about it, Tupac started as a roadie for Digital Underground. He rose to become not only one of the best rappers in the history of music, but also became a pillar in music all together. Learn the game, play it with your head, get in, gain popularity, THEN and I mean THEN you can call the shots. Until then, listen to what the pros are telling you. Consume the knowledge and think strategically. Do business with your head and play music with your heart.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Any advice for artists?
Donna Liguria Please note the above statement. And check out Artistopia™ …
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Does Artistopia™ have anything new coming down the pike?
Donna Liguria We have many modules in the works, if not wait-listed. One piece we are working feverishly on is an interactive indie webcast that displays member profiles as their music plays. Some other examples include a hybrid online chat with a music trivia game, e-cards, and possibly enabling artists to host their own webcasts. Those are some ideas with some prototypes in the works, but shhhhh … we don’t want our competitors to know, right!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Thank you, Donna, for talking to MusicDish about Artistopia™.
Donna Liguria I thank you for the opportunity to share Artistopia™ with your readers, and we welcome all indies out in cyberspace to visit us and take up on our free offer !
Visit Artistopia™ - The Ultimate Artist Development Resource, at www.artistopia.com
Find Out About: Artistopia™
'The Ultimate Artist Development Resource'
By: Anne Freeman, The Aspiring Songwriter® (Editor-in-Chief)
2005-05-15
Artistopia™ -The Ultimate Artist Development Resource, is an online, comprehensive artist development service that focuses creating a place on the Internet where music artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry professionals can develop and do business. Artistopia™ features tools for music marketing, productivity, community development, and advanced technology to support artists’ sites on Artistopia™ and the many services it offers its members and end users. Artistopia™ also offers several levels of membership services to suit the budgets and career needs of all of its members.
A comprehensive list of Artistopia™ services includes:
· Music Marketing Tools: Comprehensive artist bio profiles; unlimited song / track uploads; event, gig, and performance listings; industry experience listings; formal education / training listings; web links for additional references; press releases publication; photo albums and slide shows; member message boards; and profile search engine inclusion.
· Artist Productivity Tools: Press kit builder with professional layouts; submit press kits to anyone via email; receive and approve press kit requests; build and manage newsletters; online development tutorials and lessons; email alerts on messages received; maintain a fan base with fan list manager; unlimited classified ad postings; business relationship manager; and extensive directory of online resources.
· Community Development: Dedicated member support staff; maximum privacy protection; receive internal and external messages; discussion boards and forum threads; events and gigs calendar; real-time and all-time song charts; and industry news and press release service.
· Advanced Technology: Content and feature rich website; eye pleasing and user-friendly interface; architecture lends feature scalability; optimum backbone for surf speed; multiple servers for processing horsepower; daily backups and failover redundancy; and technology built by renown experts.
In the following MusicDish e-interview with Artistopia™ Marketing Director Donna Liguria, we discuss why Artistopia™ was created, the philosophy behind Artistopia™, advice to indie artists, information about some new services that are in the pipeline for Artistopia™ members, and a free indie artist offer!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Donna, who founded Artistopia™, when and why?
Donna Liguria Artistopia™ was ultimately founded by iCubator Labs (ICL), its parent company. In 2003, Yaser Chanaa, our CEO, came up with the concept and vision for Artistopia™ to scale ICL in a direction/market he felt strongly about. The credit in building, marketing, and fostering Artistopia™, however, belongs to everyone from the management team to the front line staff. We are all music lovers here, and Yaser himself was an indie at one point early in his career.
Yaser’s vision for Artistopia™ is to provide the indie community with a comprehensive site that offers every tool the indie or unsigned artist needs to excel in their careers. We found that each indie portal specialized in one tool or another, so the thought was why not combine them all under one umbrella and provide indie artists a web site where they can build a permanent base, for life.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Tell us a little bit about the Artistopia™ staff.
Donna Liguria Well, to better answer the question, I need to tell you a little secret of ours. We are technically savvy and rely tremendously on our technology for automating many aspects of our business process whereas many of our friends and competitors have to hire to make do. With that thought in mind, we are an extremely lean organization that houses experts in each of the needed business fields.
To start, we have Yaser Chanaa, who is in charge of the overall direction of the company, technology architecture and infrastructure, artist development process, and overall marketing strategy. We have Donna Liguria (me!), who is the online marketing director ultimately responsible for our online reputation, traffic throughput, advertising, and cross-promotional strategies.
Then we have Ismael Halidou, who is our business development director in charge of unearthing business opportunities, establishing partnership channels, and making pitches to large-scale industry players that will help Artistopia™ achieve its corporate mission.
Last and definitely not least, Dina Kennedy is our finance and operations director. Dina is the one with that keeps us legal, on time, productive, and doing business with a conscious. We have a few other folks that fill in as needed; however, this is the team in a nutshell.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] I saw artist pages for both independent and professional artists on the site. What criteria are used to determine an artist’s category and why are both included?
Donna Liguria The bottom line is that Artistopia™ is first and foremost an indie community and will always remain so. Ninety percent of our technology and marketing thrust is geared toward indie artists. Through our marketing efforts, indies eventually end up on Artistopia™ and start off with the free plan. This way they get an insight on all the comprehensive tools available to them. Should they decide to upgrade and expand their access to more powerful artist management and productivity tools, they may do so by signing up for the Professional Indie Plan. Otherwise, the free plan is enough for members to integrate themselves into the community and become a productive member.
As for the pro artists’ area, we felt this would give indies more insight on what it takes to be a professional artist. We have an automated mechanism for entering them into the pro artists’ area, and the majority of the pro artists we foster are ones we want indies to take notice of. Eventually, when indies hit the big time and decide they don’t need us, we will roll them over to the pro section. The other strategy for having pro artists on Artistopia™ is, of course, to help us generate funds. Through our partnership with Amazon, we are able to extend discounted album sales to music lovers across the world, and to our members as well.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Briefly describe the services that Artistopia™ provides its membership.
Donna Liguria One of our main goals is to build the ultimate artist development resource. You can’t do that by giving artists a few tools and pointing them into a direction without any goals to aim for. Artistopia™ provides its artist members with all the necessary tools essential to their career development. Examples of such tools include the basic profile bio with a mission statement, music discography (MP3 uploads and album sales through Amazon.com), event/performance listings, experience and award listings, education/training listings, classified ad postings, community wide rankings, chart inclusion, and private member message boards.
Extended tools include press releases, external site references, customizable press kit builder/submitter, fan list manager, contact relationship manager, newsletter editor, online artist development lessons (through partnership with Berklee College of Music), inbox central, privacy protection, bullet-proof spam audits, …and I’m running out of breath here. Again, we are a technology powerhouse and have the capabilities to deliver state-of-the-art solutions on an ad-hoc basis.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What promotional activities does Artistopia™ provide to its members, if any?
Donna Liguria To start, Artistopia™ is search engine optimized so that all profiles (in time) will appear in at the top of search engine results for relevant keywords such as the artist’s name. As Artistopia™ grows its community, more and more indies will be heard and exposed by the highly targeted traffic that visit Artistopia™. The bottom line is that we have the framework for indies to excel in their careers; however, the work does have to come from them.
Our ranking system places hard working member artists in high profile areas of the site, and they know this. We get many artists that join and expect us to immediately place them on charts and register downloads by the millions. They quickly find that Artistopia™ is not the place to be because we aren’t built for the faint of heart, nor is it designed to push ego buttons. We are in the business of real-life artist development on the web, not payola.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] How do your services differ from other similar service providers?
Donna Liguria:
· First: We are by far and large technically superior to any and all of our competitors, and are ready to take the Pepsi challenge against them any day.
· Second: We push our artists through the well-designed and thought-out artist development process. Our ranking technology is not based on “god knows who” reviews like our competitors. Instead, the ranking technology analyzes the members’ credentials based on the length of their careers, and gives special weight and consideration to certain aspects of their respective talents.
· Third: Our support is almost real-time. Members find themselves getting the help they need immediately, provided they submit their request within business hours (8 a.m. – 8 p.m. EST).
· Fourth: We aren’t looking for today’s dollar; we are in it for the fame of revolutionizing the music industry as a whole. We are privately held and cash flow positive, meaning we have no institutional pressures and are focused on honing the online artist development process. For the most part, everyone else does MP3 hosting only. The bottom line is our members feel like they are truly a part of Artistopia™.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What are the most common questions that you get from artists using your services?
Donna Liguria Because we use “pros” terminology like “Music Discography,” the most common question is how and where do I go to upload my music. It usually comes from beginner indies who aren’t used to industry terms and verbiage. Another popular question is how does the ranking technology work. We have an informative page that explains all that needs to be explained for members to know what has to be done. Other than that, ranking is a well-kept secret of ours.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What particular service on Artistopia™ do artists find the most useful/helpful?
Donna Liguria The fact that Artistopia™ is a one-stop shop with an affordable lifetime membership. They get all the tools they need, and never have to leave and re-establish themselves or start over elsewhere.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Who are your typical Artistopia™ end users, and what are the trends you are seeing in end users?
Donna Liguria Well, we get music fans, artists, musicians, songwriters, professionals, and businesses from all walks of the music industry. The current trend we are seeing is that indie artists are in dire need of a trusted home that won’t shut down tomorrow. We have seen many indie portals disappear overnight without notice, only to affect indie artists’ trust for using the Internet as a viable mean to be heard and discovered. That will not happen at Artistopia™, and that is a guarantee.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What do you see are the greatest barriers to independent artists’ careers, and how does Artistopia™ help overcome those barriers?
Donna Liguria The biggest barriers indies face are their understanding of the music industry and what it takes to make it in an industry filled with much heartache. Many still believe in sending demos into outer space only to never be heard. Since our mission is to build an artist development resource, a large part of our effort and process is educating members on the harsh realities, and encouraging them to plow ahead with a certain strategy in mind. By the third or fourth month of their membership, the ones that stick around are the ones you know are serious and dedicated.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Would you give us an example of an Artistopia™ success story?
Donna Liguria Well, we would love to, but in our promise for privacy protection, we won’t name names. Occasionally we get requests to expire accounts because members have been signed to a label. We feel it is a self-indulging practice for us to boast which members became alumni; however, the wishes of our fearless CEO is not to hail it for business development reasons, but to see it as something for us to expect over and over again. Other success stories include opening up members’ eyes into the harsh realities of this business. We get many, many thank yous for giving them the home and education they need to excel. It is very gratifying for us to see our members absorb the knowledge because then we know we are doing our jobs.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What trends are you seeing regarding the artists who are using Artistopia™ services?
Donna Liguria Reality quickly sets in and you see them want to go and push that extra 100 miles. They quickly notice the competition and step up their game. It’s like a moving walkway. Some jump on and fall flat on their butts and say this isn’t for them. Some jump on, fall, get up and say to themselves, “Ok, I think I got it.” Some jump on, wobble a bit and rebound. And some jump on and go as if it’s another day in their lives. We are always watching the ones that stick around because deep inside we know finding your niche and competing on Artistopia™ is no walk in the park. Let me take a moment and plug our tenacious and relentless members: CHEERS Y’ALL!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the independent music community today?
Donna Liguria Knowledge and trust. No one is willing to give up the knowledge first hand and trust just has to be earned. In essence, what came first, the chicken or the egg? This ultimately impedes their drive and is quite distracting in deciphering what is knowledge and who means well. Yes, we can get into the indie record labels challenging the big 5 or 6 or whatever, and how the industry is so fudged up. To us, that is a cop out.
Any good and mature artist can get signed provided they play the game right. I mean think about it, Tupac started as a roadie for Digital Underground. He rose to become not only one of the best rappers in the history of music, but also became a pillar in music all together. Learn the game, play it with your head, get in, gain popularity, THEN and I mean THEN you can call the shots. Until then, listen to what the pros are telling you. Consume the knowledge and think strategically. Do business with your head and play music with your heart.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Any advice for artists?
Donna Liguria Please note the above statement. And check out Artistopia™ …
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Does Artistopia™ have anything new coming down the pike?
Donna Liguria We have many modules in the works, if not wait-listed. One piece we are working feverishly on is an interactive indie webcast that displays member profiles as their music plays. Some other examples include a hybrid online chat with a music trivia game, e-cards, and possibly enabling artists to host their own webcasts. Those are some ideas with some prototypes in the works, but shhhhh … we don’t want our competitors to know, right!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Thank you, Donna, for talking to MusicDish about Artistopia™.
Donna Liguria I thank you for the opportunity to share Artistopia™ with your readers, and we welcome all indies out in cyberspace to visit us and take up on our free offer !
Visit Artistopia™ - The Ultimate Artist Development Resource, at www.artistopia.com
posted by Artistopia @ 3:01 PM
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