Riffage.com Rocks Fans and Bands With a New Source for Getting the Latest in Cutting-edge Music On the Web
BUSINESS WIRE - June 07, 1999 10:24
PALO ALTO, Calif., Jun 7, 1999 (BUSINESS WIRE via COMTEX) -- New Internet Music Service Offers Unique Tools to Match Fans
with Similar Tastes in Music and Lets Musicians Post Songs for Purchase by Download, Sell Merchandise and Promote Gigs
Ask musicians and consumers about their experience with music websites and you often hear the same comment, "can't find the music I like, too difficult to use." For fans and bands who are tired of sites that offer an ocean of music titles to choose from, but do little to assist people with finding songs that they actually want, the future just got brighter.
Launched today, Riffage.com (http://www.riffage.com) is a hip, new web-based music service that houses a large selection of authorized digital music for purchase by download, in addition to CDs, T-shirts and more. Aimed at "connected" musicians and fans worldwide, Riffage.com combines powerful community, communications and e-commerce capabilities to deliver the most comprehensive source for numerous music genres on the Internet.
"The vision behind Riffage.com is to be the Internet destination for consumers who want access to the plethora of music that traditional music stores don't usually carry, including hot, new indie artists, and to provide bands with an exciting avenue to distribute their music and build a fan base," said Ken Wirt, CEO and founder of Riffage.com. "As the premier second generation Internet musicsite, Riffage.com is the only one to bring fans and bands together with special emphasis on how the site meets each group's needs, such as personalized fan pages, song ranking charts based on actual customer ratings (rather than by download numbers) and customized home pages for each band."
Riffage.com Makes Shopping for Music Easy Riffage.com targets Internet-savvy consumers with a wide selection of music and fan merchandise from popular and new, breakthrough indie bands. For consumers, the ability to purchase single songs by download or an entire physical CD from the comfort of a home, office, school or any "connected" location, makes Riffage.com an enticing alternative to shopping at a traditional retail store.
One of the key features that differentiates Riffage.com from the growing ranks of online music distributors is unique personalization tools. These tools enable users to quickly receive recommendations on music that will appeal to them using individual preference profiles. Riffage.com also provides an online community where fans of similar or varied music tastes can converge to discover and discuss independent artists and their music. Other key features include user written reviews and ratings of new releases and the ability for consumers to produce their own album (playlist) or "radio show."
Riffage.com Offers Customers the First Complete Digital Music Solution
Riffage.com provides users with the most advanced music playback, recording and management software solution available for download from the site at no charge, including RealNetwork Inc.'s RealJukebox. RealJukebox is the first complete digital music center that turns Internet PCs into digital jukeboxes, including features for playing, recording, managing music collections from personal CDs and helping users find additional music from the web.
"Experienced Internet music fans, in addition to new web users, will really enjoy Riffage.com for its breadth of artists and personalized user features," said Alex Alben, vice president of music at RealNetworks, Inc. "Riffage.com customers will need an easy-to-use music software solution as they become aficionados at discovering and downloading fresh, new artists and creating their own customized playlists. RealJukebox downloads in minutes and delivers the capabilities necessary for the full digital music experience."
Riffage.com Gives Musicians the Tools to Build an Audience Riffage.com provides musicians with a direct marketing and distribution channel to the consumer through the Internet, replacing the traditional music industry paradigm of artist-label-distributor-retailer. Unlike some of the other well-known digital music distribution sites on the Internet, Riffage.com enables artists to deliver their music using either direct downloads or through physical good fulfillment for selling of CDs, T-shirts, posters and more. Fulfillment of goods will be handled through a company owned by the Navajo Nation.
Musicians utilizing the site build fan awareness by publishing upcoming concert dates, music previews, artist news and band merchandise, doing live chats and posting to discussion boards through their own personalized Riffage.com web page. They can also participate in company-generated promotional activities. For easy tracking, Riffage.com artists have access to daily generated reports of current sales, rankings and customer lists.
"Riffage.com gives independent artists who don't have the backing of a major record label an incredible opportunity to spread their music beyond the local scene and into the mainstream," said Bill Cutler, manager of Spike 1000 (S1K). "In fact, Spike 1000 sees selling music over the Internet as a clear win-win situation, because it enables music to be available for sampling and purchase 24 hours a day/seven days a week globally."
The Internet Music Market Outlook The Internet has forever altered the music industry. Numerous factors have contributed to the rapid acceptance for distributing music over the web, including the availability of faster communication technology (i.e., DSL and cable modems) for downloading of digital content and the availability of mass-market portable Internet music devices that allow people to play back Internet music anytime, anywhere.
Digital music delivery allows consumers to sample a vast selection of content, to purchase music at lower costs and to create their own custom compilations without quality degradation. For musicians, the benefits include easy access to distribution, closer connections to fans and higher margins. For online music retailers, digital music delivery offers higher gross margins and better profitability due to the elimination of shipping costs, returns or out-of-stock merchandise.
Riffage.com's Management Team and Financials Riffage.com's management team is comprised of top executives from the technology, radio broadcasting, Internet and music industries. Ken Wirt was formerly vice president of corporate marketing at Diamond Multimedia and drove the launch of the company's ground-breaking Rio portable MP3 music player.
Riffage.com board members include Michael J. Levinthal, a general partner of Mayfield Fund which has more than $1 billion of capital under management; Jan Henric Beuttner, a founding partner of Bertelsmann Ventures and the first general manager of AOL Germany; Sanford "Sandy" Climan, president of Entertainment Media Ventures and former president of Worldwide Business Development for Universal Studios and a member of the senior management team at Creative Artists Agency, Inc. (CAA); and Michael R. Weinstein, a prominent radio industry executive formerly of Granum Communications and New City Communications.
Riffage.com has secured first round financing from Mayfield Fund and Bertelsmann Ventures. Mayfield Fund is a leading venture capital partnership that provides investment and strategic counsel for entrepreneurs of unique, technology-driven products and services. Specializing in information technology and healthcare, Mayfield Fund focuses on new companies that have the potential to reach a market capitalization of more than $200 million within five years. Today, Mayfield Fund investments consist of businesses that together comprise more than $110 billion in total market value. Bertelsmann Ventures is a private venture firm with funding from Bertelsmann AG, the world's third largest media company.
Riffage.com is a privately-owned company. More information on the company's products and services are available at riffage.com.
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