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Root Music: BandPages on Facebook

Remember when the tables turned and MySpace went from being the coolest social networking site around to a shady place for scantily-clad teens in questionable photos and, well… musicians? Despite the seizure-inducing animated gifs and glittering madness that came with the pimp-your-profile craze, MySpace somehow still maintained its role as THE place for musicians. Your band maybe had its own website if, you know, it was all fancy and stuff. But your band definitely had a MySpace page!

Then Facebook came along and soothed us with its minimalist design and all its tangible real-world benefits, and rocked our collective worlds. And yet, the musician was always left to fend for him or herself.

Enter Root Music. Musicians now FINALLY have a home on Facebook. This clever little San Francisco-based startup has created a way for musicians to share their stuff right from within Facebook. The BandPage is a tab just like your photos, info, or wall tabs. While they browse your page, fans can listen to your music from the embedded SoundCloud player. Want to place a banner on your page? Easy! Just upload the picture you want to use. No need to create a custom one. Every section of the BandPage is easily editable. Just drop, drag, and customize as you wish.

What you end up with is a sexy place within your Facebook profile, which you already use and people are already looking at, to share all your stuff (info, photos, shows, twitter feed and much much more) with your fans. In the place where they are already hanging out! It’s an elegant solution to an obvious problem, and Root Music has done it with aplomb. Once you setup your Root Music Bandpage on Facebook, be sure to set it as the default landing page so that it’s the first thing fans see!

MobBase Doubles Number Of Apps In Just One Month With 100+ iPhone Apps Released


MobBase is again proving the market for iPhone applications that connect musicians with fans, more than doubling the number of apps released in just the past month. MobBase is the new service that makes it easy for musicians and music companies to create, launch and manage their own, custom iPhone applications.

“The MobBase adoption curve is getting steep, fast,” said Charles Feinn, CEO and co-founder of MixMatchMusic, MobBase’s developer. “It took about 90 days to launch the first 50 apps and just 30 days to get to 107. It’s more clear with every day that artists are adopting mobile apps to help build their careers, and that they choose MobBase as the fast, easy and inexpensive way to get their own app.”

MobBase is a low cost way for musicians to share music, photos, videos, tweets, news, information about shows, merchandise and other content with fans on their mobile devices. MobBase apps are priced for starving artists and also artists who remember what it is like to starve, with many artists paying as little as $0.50 a day for their own custom iPhone app.

Prominent artists including Pepper and Everclear are among the bands that have built and launched their own MobBase apps. Feinn said growth is also coming from long tail artists, such as Tribal Seeds, Cash Lewis, NatStar the King, Radagun, Supreme The Eloheem, and indie label, Let It Burn Records. The MobBase platform has also been used to create the official iPhone app for Showtime’s Nurse Jackie soundtrack.

MobBase is a great solution for established acts,” Feinn said. “It’s also a fantastic solution for artists with small but devoted followings who are making music for the love of music. The extremely low price, the super ease of use and the ability to customize it to reflect your own look and feel makes it perfect for artists in the long tail.”

Music distribution powerhouse, IODA, and indie labels including Silverback Music/Controlled Substance Sound Labs, SMC Recordings, Welk Music Group, Vanguard Records, Sugar Hill Records, Town Thizzness, Red Bull Records, Sargent House, and 429 Records are offering MobBase apps and promoting MobBase to their artists.

Feinn said there have been more than 60,000 installs of MobBase apps by fans.

MobBase Gains Traction with 50+ iPhone Apps

Some great news straight from the MixMatchMusic garage (aka HQ)! MobBase is proving the market for iPhone applications that connect musicians with their fans, with more than 50 applications launched since the service debuted this past November.  MobBase is the new service that makes it easy for musicians and music companies to create, launch and manage their own, custom iPhone applications.

“The Pepper iPhone app is helping us stay to connected with our fans 24/7 and the connection has been amazing,” said Bret Bollinger, a founder of Hawaii’s premier rock band. “We’ve seen a huge influx of new fans and have been able to reconnect with long time fans through our app’s integration with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and many other sites since its launch.”

Pepper fans have installed the band’s MobBase iPhone app more than 25,000 times since the start of 2010, and have streamed Pepper’s music more than 500,000 times through the app. The Pepper app was featured in iTunes’ “What’s Hot” section in mid-January.

“For Pepper it starts with great music.  They are also a great example of a band using all of the tools at their disposal to connect and engage with fans online and on their mobile devices,” said Charles Feinn, CEO and co-founder of MixMatchMusic, MobBase’s developer. “A custom iPhone app is an important part of that mix, and key to the equation that results in engaged fans buying more concert tickets, band merchandise and music.”

MobBase is a low cost way for musicians to share music, photos, videos, tweets, news, information about shows, merchandise and other content with fans on their mobile devices.

Bands like Everclear, RX Bandits, Rebelution, the Jacka, and Jump Smokers are finding it easy to create their own custom iPhone apps, and easy to add, manage and update content in real time through the MobBase dashboard.

IODA, one of the world’s leading digital distribution companies, is promoting MobBase as its premier solution for iPhone applications.

“We have had a great response thus far from our clients to MobBase’s iPhone apps,” said Adam Rabinovitz, vice president of marketing at IODA. “Mobbases’s web interface enables real time updating which is great for touring artists and busy, on-the-go label managers. We’ve also been testing the product ourselves with the IODA Promonet app and have been very pleased with the results.”

Additionally, indie labels Silverback Music/Controlled Substance Sound Labs, SMC Recordings, Welk Music Group, Vanguard Records, Sugar Hill Records, Town Thizzness, Red Bull Records, Sargent House, and 429 Records are also offering MobBase apps and are promoting it to their artists.

MobBase is priced for starving artists and also artists who remember what it was like to starve, with many artists paying as little as $0.50 a day for their own app. So, start building your app today! Or contact us to learn more about how to build mobile apps.

MixMatchMusic Selected as Finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 Award

We’re excited to announce that MixMatchMusic has been selected as a finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 award! We are thrilled to be included in this very prestigious list that honors the year’s most promising private technology ventures from around the world.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of 1,200. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.  This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

Finalists for the 2009 edition of the Red Herring Global 100 award are selected from the regional recipients or finalists of the Red Herring 100 awards in 2007, 2008, or 2009 ranging from Asia, Europe, and North America. For the past three years, the award has been given to the top 100 global technology companies based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health.

What a great way to kick of 2010 for MixMatchMusic!

Nominate MobBase and MixMatchMusic for the Crunchies!

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Have you heard of the Crunchies? As stated on the website, they “are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood.” This event is co-sponsored by GigaOm, VentureBeat and TechCrunch and for all of us start-ups, being considered for an award gives us some nice exposure. And the chance to win!

This is where we need your help. It literally only takes a few seconds, and you can vote everyday. You have until Friday, December 4th, but instead of putting another item on your to do list, why not just nominate us right now?!

If you want to be even more awesome and help us get the word out – or if you are a social media geek and can’t help but document your every move – you can easily broadcast your nomination on Twitter and Facebook or embed a voting badge on your blog (like we did below). Thanks!

MobBase is up for Best Mobile App:
And MixMatchMusic is up for Best Boot-Strapped Startup: