JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Mentor Questions Forum Our Stage - New JPF Community Partner (Feedback!)

Dave,
I haven't heard of Showcase Your Music until now, but the basic concept does look interesting. I just visited their site to get a quick overview for who they are and what they're doing. Along my fact-finding mission I found a few things I'll list here:

1. Artists can upload unlimited songs, videos and images for free, but no price list is shown for other services, so either something is "hidden" from view or the site must depend on advertising or other sales to support it's business model.

2. According to WhoIs, their domain was registered in May 2006 using a Godaddy private listing (registration) service. This is neither good nor bad, but please readon on...

3. When you click "Contact" at bottom of page it only opens up your email program and there is no other contact info about the owners, management, address, phone number and no "About" page to learn more about the company, mission statement, or background/credentials, etc.

4. Their tag line says: "The Official A&R Resource System". It's one thing to say "An Online A&R Resource System" but to claim they are "The Official" one sounds more like hype than a reality they can support with proven facts based on track record. For example, are they associated with one of the PROs, the RIAA or a major label, etc.?

5. They claim high traffic rankings, but in the last year their rankings have dropped sharply as shown here: Showcase Your Music - Compete Rankings. Compare with OurStage.com which keeps zooming up since they launched around the same time.

6. On their "success" page they say: "You'll get something you probably don't have right now, the opportunity to get your music heard by people who are looking for what you've got."
Ok, that's nice, but we've all heard of artists being heard & found on many places including MySpace, CDBaby, Taxi, OurStage, and on their own websites. For example one of my songs (New Every Morning) got into a nice indie film project via a direct contact through my SoundClick profile a few years ago. So, could it happen on "Showcase Your Music"? Sure, but it could happen anywhere and even more likely as a Grand prize winner on OurStage. So how can they backup their promise?

Summary:
Companies and services that are transparent and reachable will tend to do better then companies that have to "hide" their business and contact information. Personally I would not be comfortable doing business with a service that has a "faceless" name. I'd be much more comfortable if I knew who the founder was, maybe a bit about their management team, background, interests, qualifications, mission statement and telephone number in case I'd like to call. I like dealing with real people and not just a faceless machine, or at least it would seem more appropriate for the music business.

It's the lack of these elements & credentials that make the whole site appear somewhat distant, removed and out-of-touch with the artist community. But then again, maybe this is what artists want and where the new music biz is heading?!

That's "just plain" my perspective!
Michael