D.I.Y.

See.Me Includes Musicians, Adds Donation System To Artist Portfolios And Contests

See.me_logo_2012Artists Wanted, a web portfolio platform featuring visual artists, relaunched in December with $1.5 million in funding and expanded to include other disciplines such as music. Recently, in its new incarnation as See.Me, the site added a "contribution" feature that includes rewards for those making donations. Though it still feels like a visual artists' platform, it might be worth checking out if you're looking for a stylish portfolio for your music videos and related visual content.

In an email received by Hypebot back in December, See.Me announced its relaunch stating that the platform had 500,000 members and $1.5 million in funding from investors.

See Me Overview from Artists Wanted

Last week See.Me [aka See.me, See Me or See | Me] announced that they've grown to 650,000 members and are rolling out a "tip jar system" in beta to "select users." Supporters can donate $1, $7 or an amount up to $500 designated by the artist.

Artists that wish to participate in the donation system have to prime the pump, so to speak:

"Artists will be able to accept monetary contributions after depositing $7 into their account and giving away those dollars to seven different artists. 'We want to encourage the social aspect of the contributions from the start,' said [Founder and CEO William] Etundi. 'Mutual support is a core principle behind what we do.'"

Aaron Taylor Kuffner is presented as an example.

You can check out his portfolio and click on the "Support Me' button to see how things operate. Kuffner is director of the Gamelatron Project that:

"draws on the thousand-year-old sonic tradition of Indonesia–Gamelan–and the emerging field of robotics to create magical, viscerally-powerful, site-specific performances and temporary and permanent installations."

Despite the audio elements in his work, his portfolio presents only a lovely array of photographs of an installation/performance, a long chunk of text with no breaks followed by a link to the Gamelatron Project's website and a section marked "Community" that shows he has "not liked anything yet" and that "1 Creatives Like Me."

Nevertheless he's amassed 10 supporters since the new program began. However, if you click through on the supporter pics, you'll see that many of them are See.Me test accounts and one is that of William Etundi.

Somehow Mr. Kuffner doesn't seem like the best example to share with musicians given the lack of music and his minimalistic take on community and "mutual support." But it's noted in the release that additional participants include Questlove, Reggie Watts and DJ Spooky. In fact, Questlove and Reggie Watts are included in recent videos in what appears to be an effort to show the broad reach of See.Me.

Despite my reservations about Kuffner as a representative of the See.Me concept, the site itself is beautiful.

In addition, given that their history has been primarily focused on the visual arts, musicians who feel comfortable in a gallery or concert hall setting might be a particularly strong fit.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at All World Dance: Videos and maintains Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Share on: