TuneGO Building Musician Discovery Platform That May Actually Help Artists

TuneGO is a new career development platform for musicians that takes a hybrid approach to addressing the needs of artists from building a fanbase to connecting with industry professionals. I spoke with co-founder and CEO John Kohl who addressed my initial skepticism regarding their claims to connect artists to big producers leading to new opportunities. He convinced me that TuneGO has the potential to succeed where many have failed and pointed out that the proof would ultimately come in the form of the actual success of musicians on the platform.

TuneGO's John Kohl shared the history of the company, what the platform's designed to do and the vision for what it may yet become. The bigger picture is that they want to "change how the world discovers music" by, among other things, providing a platform that allows artists to cut through the ever-growing noise of the world.

But it's not the discovery platform you've grown to expect and ignore. I have to admit, not only am I suspicous of platforms that claim to connect everyday musicians to big time producers but when somebody starts talking discovery I tend to move on if at all possible. In fact, I resisted initial contact due to my admittedly kneejerk response.

Fortunately I took a closer look and realized I needed to find out more about TuneGO when I got a sense of the overall service. Kohl convinced me that they have the potential to address some real issues for musicians as well as companies who need to connect with musicians from labels to content providers.

Indiegogo Video: TuneGO Music Discovery Network

In January TuneGO opened up in private beta with a few hundred artists. They used that initial period to test the platform, get feedback and observe behavior and then closed again in preparation for a more open beta in January 2013 with plans to fully launch around SXSW in March. The service is free though premium options will be introduced in March.

You can sign up now and Kohl says that should put you in the first batch of users when they open back up in January.

How TuneGO's Process Works

According to Kohl they want to ultimately serve the whole music industry. A lot of their services can be used by musicians to build relationships with fans without buying into the ratings or review process. You can get a sense of those by heading to the home page and clicking on Services and Features.

You can also click on Producers which gives you some stats and leads you to a list of high powered names, people who will supposedly be seeking out new talent, reviewing music and generally helping talent artists connect with industry opportunities.

This is where my skepticism and resistance came in. We've all seen platforms come and go featuring big names with the expectation of fulfilling big dreams. They've either faded away or continued by profiting off the dreams of beginners who may or may not have the potential to go anywhere but are willing to pay to increase their chances of something happening.

So after an initial chat and intro to TuneGO, I asked Kohl about why they're going to succeed where others fail. To be honest, getting a convincing, no-bullshit response was not what I expected but that's what I got.

TuneGO appears to have developed a system to address the issues we've seen with other platforms.

Any musician can sign up and use the platform for free.

TuneGO then seeks to find out what that musician really wants with a questionnaire and related tools that Kohl says will allow them to understand each individual artist and provide services based on their actual interests.

TuneGO's also developed a system for evaluating fan activity on the platform and on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and SoundCloud. This activity combines for a score that can give a sense of overall popularity in the form of social proof while also identifying breakout artists whose fan response is showing serious momentum.

Artists that have visibly social fanbases or are showing momentum are then reviewed by the big named producers listed on the site. Kohl said that there will be premium services and that might include getting to the front of the line for reviews. But they've also experimented with providing reviews for artists who can get a certain number of fans to sign up.

Using social proof raised the issue of artists gaming the system. Kohl pointed out that the next step, reviews by producers, would address that issue.

Kohl says they have basic security measures in place and look for such things as fan responses on the site all coming from the same IP address. But even if that happens, they still have to pass human review to go the next level of opportunity.

Taken together the goals of the artist, the response of the fans and the reviews by producers result in a vetted pool of high quality content in contrast to many platforms that don't get past the giant batch of undiscovered musicians problem.

So What Happens With That Vetted Music?

Kohl shared some specific examples of what the top tier of musicians could recieve. TuneGO is creating a web radio feature on the site, TuneGO Radio, that won't just stream music but will also have some of the elements of live radio such as DJs discussing the artist and musicians shouting out the station. This gives it a bit of "warmth" that often eludes web radio.

Though deals with major companies are difficult at this stage, TuneGO has gotten a content deal with Spotify and TuneGO Radio artists will be part of a pool of musicians TuneGO will promote on the site.

They've also begun working with APM Music. Initially they simply provided vetted content but discussions headed towards licensing TuneGO's software leading to what Kohl says is an even bigger partnership that he looks forward to announcing.

In fact, Kohl says some huge announcements are coming between now and launch so that gives us something to look out for. And that also gives us a way to judge what TuneGO sees as major and whether or not they can pull off such agreements.

But Kohl pointed out that the real proof will come as artists get actual opportunities that will support them in achieving their goals. That may take a minute but if they remain transparent, then we'll be able to judge and the failures of precursors will be beside the point.

TuneGO's story is more extensive and there's more to learn about the platform itself but I feel Kohl addressed my primary concerns and revealed what's truly unique about their approach.

The best way to find out more, beyond checking out the site, is to sign up now and get on the platform in January so you can judge for yourself.

More:

• Trend Watch: More Music Tech Startups Are Turning To Crowdfunding

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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