Exclusive Interview With Sonicbids CEO Panos Panay
Sonicbids has acquired ArtistData, a popular platform that many musicians and labels use to simultaneously update their content across the web. The move signals an expansion for Sonicbids beyond its popular electronic press kits and gig opportunities to also helping artists promote their shows after they've been booked. ArtistData founder Brenden Mulligan has been named Vice President of Strategic Development for Sonicbids.
According to the company, more than 245,000 musicians use Sonicbids for EPK's and ArtistData has 25,000 members who use that site to enter gig-related information in a central dashboard and publish it to fans, social networks, concert databases and local newspapers.
Sonicbids plans to integrate ArtistData’s functionality into its product by the end of this year. ArtistData’s free offerings will continue to be free and the premium offerings will be free through September 1st.
HYPEBOT: Does the acquisition signal the start of a transition to becoming a more broadly focused artist services provider?
PANOS: Sonicbids is about helping bands connect with promoters and book gigs. By integrating ArtistData tools into Sonicbids, we also want to enable artists to better promote these gigs, recruit fans and by extent, make each gig impactful. So, yes, we are broadening our scope but not drifting from our core focus.
HYPEBOT: In addition to the integration of Sonicbids and EPK, will both products also be available as standalone services?
PANOS: Our plan is to fully integrate all of ArtistData within Sonicbids over the next few months. Anything that’s free on ArtistData will remain free on Sonicbids. You will not have to have a paid membership plan with Sonicbids to enjoy all the free AD features even after integration.
All premium AD features will be fully integrated into paid Sonicbids accounts (Gold features within Sonicbids Standard; Platinum within Sonicbids Supersonic) at the current membership levels ($50 and $100 per year respectively). So, customers of both AD and SB will get huge added value for a lot less money (currently AD premium packages cost $9.99 and $24.99 per month). In addition, until September 1, 2010, we are picking up the tab for all AD customers so all premium AD offerings are available to AD customers for no cost to the artist, courtesy of Sonicbids.
HYEPBOT: Can you tell us what’s on the drawing board for Sonicbids? Are you open to other acquisitions?
PANOS: Yes, we are absolutely open to acquisitions of companies that fit our strategy, our product road map, and who employ super smart people that we can bring into the fold and learn from. We have some amazing announcements coming up in the next few months that will completely change the way that our members experience Sonicbids.
We’ve also been busy building a great management team. It’s now been nearly 10 years since I founded Sonicbids and I’ve never been this excited about where we are headed.
