Presskit.to: A Cross-Platform Portfolio Web App For Music

(UPDATED) Hypebot contributor Natalie Cheng (@ncswim881) is also the MusicThinkTank Community Manager. She writes about and works in digital music marketing, social media and technology.

Creating  and distributing press kits just got easier. Boston-based music tech  startup, Indie Ambassador, has launched its first product, Presskit.to, as a cross-platform portfolio web app. I conducted an interview with CEO, Ben Maitland-Lewis, to learn more about it:

What led you to start Presskit.to and what experience do you have in the music industry?

I’ve  been working in the music industry for over 12 years as a touring  musician, manager, label rep, advisor, and now as an aspiring  entrepreneur. I have a music business degree from Berklee College of  Music, and did college & retail marketing for SonyBMG for 6 years on  both US coasts. While in college I started Sidehatch Entertainment  Group, an artist development & management company that’s released 23  records, a documentary DVD, and worked with many high profile artists  and festivals.

Currently,  I am the CEO & Founding Alchemist of Indie Ambassador, a music  media & technology startup building tools for the new music  entrepreneur. Along with my co-founder and business partner Chris Cave  (also a musician and a music industry grad from Northeastern  University), we set out to develop simple solutions for creative  individuals seeking to build sustainable careers in the new music  economy.

We  realized there was no tool designed to allow that demographic to neatly  and securely showcase their projects in a manner that was ideal for  industry professionals to access and interpret. Our flagship tool,  Presskit.to, is the music industry’s first cross-platform portfolio web  app designed to aid individuals in organizing, protecting, & sharing  their creative identities. Consider it a digital business card for the  21st century that houses all of your relevant career info and media  without the clutter of social networks and official websites.

How do you differentiate yourselves with other artist sites like Artist Ecard (http://artistecard.com/)?

Addressing  Artist Ecard directly, I would say that our Presskits are much cheaper,  and that they house not just your best audio, video, and photos, but  also files (riders, stage plots, press releases, etc.) and a resume-like  list of achievements we call "Wins." Each Presskit comes with a clean  “Presskit.to/YOURPROJECT” URL at no additional fee, and we work on every  internet-connected device. Presskit.to is a responsive web application  built with HTML5 and CSS3, that automatically formats content for the  best possible user experience, regardless of device or browser. No need  to download an app, it just works! Finally, users can create more than  one Presskit per account and manage them in a centralized dashboard.  This is advantageous because in today’s music landscape, every artist is  a music entrepreneur with multiple creative identities.

Outside  of Artist Ecard, there are a few good sites out there that are trying  to tackle a similar issue, but they often act as a splash page or hub  for your various social identities. Presskit.to is much more of a  standalone vessel for all of your curated content pertaining to a  particular project or initiative, all of which can be set to public or  private with the owner in control of setting the duration of access.

Is Presskit.to only for independent musicians or is it open for musicians signed to labels as well?

It’s  not about drawing lines between artists with varying levels of success.  Presskit.to goes beyond this distinction, and can make life easier for  any music entrepreneur who finds themselves in need of a mobile  portfolio, signed or unsigned. (See the final answer of this interview  for specific examples.)

Ever  since we launched into private beta at this year’s SXSW, it’s been  extremely exciting seeing who is using Presskit.to and for what. The  Presskits we have seen created across the country and abroad have run  the gamut from those for traditional music entrepreneurs like bands,  solo artists, managers, and engineers to those for other creative  individuals and endeavors like high profile public speakers, publicists,  bloggers, non-profit organizations, films, and music festivals.

I see that you use SoundCloud for the site. Are you looking to add other third-party services to the site and if so, which ones?

We’re  extremely excited to integrate with SoundCloud as the first of what  will be many third-party services that can sync with your Presskit. We  are going to continue to seek out the most important services to sync  with our users’ Presskits and work to incorporate them as quickly as  possible. Services like Bandsintown for syncing tour dates, and Google  docs and Dropbox for file sharing, are all on our radar.

Will the site charge musicians to use the platform?

We  will be rolling out a multi-tiered subscription-billing model for  Presskit.to in the coming weeks, but we plan to always offer a free  Presskit that’s powerful but not as feature-rich or with as much storage  space than the paid versions. We are also working on partnerships that  will offer our users discounts on industry support systems like PR  Newswire, Music Pro Insurance, and others.

Is Presskit.to going to concentrate on the music industry or expand to all creative industries?

We’re  beginning our focus in music, the area we know best, but we fully  intend to cater to all creative industries down the road. Authors,  filmmakers, producers, and brands are already using Presskit.to, so the  potential to grow is there, but again, right now we are best positioned  to grow in music.

What trends and developments do you see in promoting music today?

Another activity we are involved in is a monthly music industry panel in Boston called RockShop,  and one of the big things that stood out to all of us from hearing  musicians speak was that bands have everything–media, press quotes,  achievements, bio, you name it–spread out all over the place and have  trouble setting aside those little gems to showcase at a moment’s  notice.

Thanks  in part to this dissemination of musicians’ info and content across the  web, in-person promotion is a trend we see growing rapidly. Connecting  with other musicians and industry professionals is much easier on a face  to face level than it is online, and we wanted to build a product that  helped people go beyond the one-and-done handshake and non-existent  follow up that is all too common when networking. Because Presskit.to is  a web-app and operates identically on every web-connected device, music  entrepreneurs can now pull their phones out of their pockets or iPads  out of their bags on the go and physically show someone what they’re up  to, whether that’s an artist playing clips of their tracks for a  could-be collaborator or a producer showing a potential client pictures  of his or her studio. Presskit.to being optimized for mobile use; users  don’t have to worry about the annoying pinch and zoom that comes  attached with viewing non-mobile sites on a mobile device.

Presskit.to  is much more of a B2B tool for musicians and industry pros than it is  another, massive fan-facing platform. We are in business to strengthen  the creative arts industry and contribute to its future development.

Check out a video intro to Presskit.to:

Here are two examples of what a musician press kit would look like on the site: http://presskit.to/emiliechick and http://presskit.to/Carosel.

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