GUEST POST: by Matt Rewinski of AccessChristianMusic.com: Yesterday we took a look at how ArtistData cuts the time it takes to keep an artist's presence updated across a multitude of social networking and web sites. Today we sit down with company founder Brenden Mulligan.
Q: Could you shed some light on the site's history and how it came about?
A: I had experienced the pain of having to update too many sites for each artist I worked with. There was a lot of value to getting the information out there, but it took far too much of my time. I knew for something as simple as data management, there had to be a way to automate it. I found some people who shared the vision and we built a platform to solve the problem.
Q: ArtistData is fairly unique in that it doesn't require any expertise with HTML or much internet savvy. Do you think this has played a part in your success?
A: It's everything. You can't ask a non-technical person to learn how to program in order to update these sites. MySpace doesn't ask you to understand building a website to create a profile, so we shouldn't ask the same to update one. The goal of our system is simplicity. We're provide a simplified solution to a complex problem.
Q: Who do you find is the typical user of ArtistData? Is it management companies, independent artists, or labels?
A: All of the above. Over the past two months, about 100 music organizations have signed up their rosters. This includes smaller management companies, major labels, subsidiaries of majors, and top independent labels. Also, we have artists signing up individually.
Q: On tje site, the last step of the process an artist goes through is called "Measure Your Success". Could you elaborate a bit on how success is measured on your site?
A: Right now, we display a general idea of how much time we've saved the user with this tool. Soon, it'll be much more than that.
Q: Do you find that most bands sync to most or all of the sites you service, or do they typically stick with a few big ones like Myspace and Virb?
A: It's a mix, but generally, artists use our service to send information to as many places as we offer.
I think the site is useful for the independent bands who manage this information themselves because they need to spend more time writing, touring, and communicating with fans.
I also think it's incredibly useful for the representatives of major label platinum selling acts, because they usually have to manage profiles for multiple bands. So we really save them time because we provide a solution for their entire roster.
Q: Do you think the online music industry is getting over-saturated?
A: Not at all. We're seeing some really cool companies come to market with very unique ways of getting people excited about discovering and talking about music.
Q: What's in store for ArtistData in the future?
A: Can't give details, but our mission is to continue to find ways to let artists focus on what really matters, being musicians. We'll be building more tools to remove tedium and increase their online marketing effectiveness.
