ABOUT MYSONGCAST - Overall
1. Mysongcast is a site built by musicians for musicians to provide an online indie music community connecting the FANS, ARTISTS and VENUES.
2. Mysongcast wants to provide a safe community where original material can be seen and heard. We want you to be able to share these with your friends at home and around the world.
3. We have built in RSS personalized subscriptions, get feeds on the music/band/genre/ in the location you want to know about anytime it comes in. Find out more in the RSS box on the home page - and no you don't have to pay for this kind of subscription!
4. Mysongcast also understands how competitive the music industry is, so we want to help you get your music exposed. We run a FREE monthly competition where you can enter your original songs in audio or video format. Your friends and fans can VOTE FOR YOU ONLINE. At the end of the month the overall song with the most votes will win that month's song contest. There will be a prize for the runner up as well.
5. We are securing great prizes each month and you could win US $1000's per month. Not only that but each of the overall winners in each genre will get a credit for that achievement.
6. At the end of each competition your votes are reset to zero, but your number of views always remains and accumulates. We will give you statistics on how you went.
7. Everyone can have a free page. You can sign up as a FAN, where you will have a home page where you can create your own playlists of songs, add your favorites, send messages to your friends on the site and just find the music you like by browsing and searching the site.
8. As an ARTIST you get BOTH an Artist AND a fan page as well. So with just one login you can have your own page to network away on and your artist page where your music can be seen and played. You can upload as many songs as you like and create or order them in your own albums. You can add photos and edit your upcoming gigs. People can add themselves as your fan and you can build a fan base from home and around the world. Even better you can manage all your fans with a fan base mail out, just send all your fans a message when you want to let them know about new songs and gigs etc. Get industry attention as you fan base builds.
9. COPYRIGHT is an important issue. YOU retain control of your own copyright material – any melody, lyrics and images – what we call 'your catalogue'. You grant us a temporary, NON exclusive license to broadcast and promote your catalogue online and around the world. You can remove any of your catalogue items at any time. Of course should you be found to have uploaded material you don't own, this will be reported and you may lose your account with mysongcast. You need to tell us if you have publishing or royalty commitments to any collecting bodies such as apra/amcos (or others around the world).
10. We are also including home pages for VENUES! We know you want to get out there and perform live…. And your fans want to see you…and we all know the venues are looking for both of you….so we are putting you all together. You can favorite any of the community. So if your favorite venue is not on here, tell them about us.
11. Yes you can link to your own website, or to your myspace or youtube page.
12. Check out the FAQ's on our home page to find out more.
ABOUT MYSONGCAST - The ANTI SPAM POLICIES
1. Mysongcast will not spam you in any way, nor do we artificially inflate votes or views. We DO NOT sell your email.
2. Check out the terms of use and privacy policies on our homepage for more information on how we respect your rights.
ABOUT MYSONGCAST - The Crew
1. Mysongcast will tell you who we are… founded by Janine, Dean and Helen.
2. Janine is our director, and this is what she has to say about herself:
"Hi, my name is Janine, I developed the concept of mysongcast mid 2006, and we have been working on it for about a year. I never imagined how much work would be required behind the scenes… boy, building a website is way more complicated than I ever imagined, but I have had amazing opportunities open all along the way and we have tried to stay true to our belief in the artist and their music. I have learned a lot about strange languages and lawyers that I am happy to never really hear about again! Anyway that's right - about me, well I write my own songs, but I am afraid that my voice was always going to limit any thoughts of stadium gigging… so I keep writing them and strangely some people even have them on their ipods. I like to dabble with recording my stuff at home and that is a lot of fun. Maybe one day I'll get a publishing contract, I think that would be cool."
Check out more of her profile under Nene on the site.
3. Dean is our web designer and was a professional musician for many years in Australia. Dean's band 'the Aardvarks' won a triple j unearthed competition in 1998 for their song 'fly away' (the song you hear on the sign up page) .They are on the triple j unearthed album number 7. He knows what it means to have people hear and see your music and is excited to see what success we can help you achieve on mysongcast. Check out his profile under the Aardvarks on the site.
4. Helen – well she never really wrote any songs….but rumor has it she was in a band, and we will find that video footage! Although she actually is a classically trained singer and can sing really clever music like Ave Maria, and can belt out 'climb every mountain'… I think even Julie Anthony might hear it from Australia! … Also she makes a mean salmon loaf without which it is unclear whether this site would have gone very far! Maybe we can convince her to reveal the recipe on the site.
5. Other Crew members include the very important software engineer, Rob, who has put in big hours to deliver this to you! He has built the background code from scratch, but he has got us addicted to the Nintendo Wii, and chocolate cookies and cups of tea (well he is from the UK!). Then there's Lauren, Janine's PA, who looks after our myspace and blogs, and Mia, our specialist event planner.
ABOUT MYSONGCAST - The site in more detail
A: Navigating your way around the site
1. There are 5 main tabs at the top of the home page, Home, Browse, Competition, Forums and a Resources section.
2. There are a number of other links on the bottom of the page that you have probably seen, where you can find - terms of use, privacy policy, copyright, contact us, advertise with us, and a help link.
3. The Login and signup links are at the top right hand side of the home page. You can also sign up to your account directly from the top left box on the page that tells you about the different accounts – Artists, Fans and venues.
B: Home page
1. We will have a number of areas for you to look at, at the top are all the signup, login links, and once logged in will always show your username and artist name (if signed is as artist). Also an inbox showing any mail and a friend request box, if you have any of these pending.
2. At the top left inside the page is a rotating box which outlines the 3 different memberships that you can sign up from. Click to sign up on the one that applies to you. Note you get a fan account as well as your artist account if you sign up as an artist.
3. We have an interactive box in the top right corner, which will have a revolving number of different categories, such as most viewed, a recent upload, most played and our competition leader, runner up and the wooden spoon... ok so it's funny till you are it, but just think you won't stay that way for long as people will click on you!
4. Other areas will include a recent upload box, a featured box, what other people are listening to, information about RSS and the competition, as well as a hot tag box. Well we will try and rotate many artists through the featured artist section but of course not everyone will be a featured act. Although if you get a lot of fans you have a good chance of being featured, and then we know the industry will be watching - so get signed up, and start building your fan base!
5. We have included a 'Hot upload' where you may be featured if you gain a lot of views in the last 24 hours.
6. There will be information on the current competition and prizes up for grabs. Also from there you can click through to enter the competition, or to check out the next months prizes.
7. We will also feature a 'Gig of the week' on the home page. This will be one that we have handpicked from the pack. Maybe you have found a good one for us… send us feedback from 'contact us' at the bottom. This email goes to admin@mysongcast.com
C: Browse page
1. Under this tab we have included 4 categories for you to peruse your way around in a few different ways.
2. When you first open the page there will be several different boxes to look at which include a sliding list of recent uploads and most viewed. Under this are some random songs and what others are listening to now.
3. Genre is the first one to look at, when you click on this all our genres will open, click on one of those and the boxes will change to recent uploads in that genre etc.. you will get the idea..
4. The same applies to artists and fans, where you will see a 'welcome' to our recent members and our most popular fans and artists... Also at the bottom of the page is a directory so you can browse around by letter...
5. In the venue category we will have some upcoming gigs to check out. If your favorite venue isn't in the directory, tell them to get on with it and sign up.
6. Oh yeah there is a big spot at the bottom for advertising and we so need someone to put something there :)
D: Competition Tab
1. There is heaps to look at in the competition page... well songs in the current competition but in all sorts of ways... like the top 10, top 100 and most voted genre, the songs with the most views. Stuff like that.
2. Also there will be past winners once we have some... This hopefully won't be too far away!
3. YOU VOTE ONLINE for you favorites... just sign up and login and you are away. One vote per login/per song so as to make the voting credible and less spammable (is that a word?)
4. Also another way to enter the competition and the current prizes.
5. Here we will have a RISING STAR – where the song with the most votes in the last 24 hours will be featured. Of course if the site gets really busy this may become hour by hour!
E: Forums
1. These will commence once we go live so we have some topics with people to talk about them.
2. In the meantime we have put a feedback box in there, so send us something nice… pretty please?
F: Resources
1. Here we have a hand selected and personally checked out... collection of the sites that are most useful for you as a musician and music fan... so everything from writing a better song... and there are some great sites out there... to buying sheet music to finding out about copyright and music magazines. We have tried to put these into useful categories and link to all the ones we use ourselves.
2. Let us know if there are... and I know there are plenty... of useful sites we should add, and we'll go check them out.
G: About the Black bar MOST's
1. We have put together all the MOST's we could most think of... so most viewed/recent and favorited. In these you can show them by time frame or filter them by genre.
2. Also this is where you can quickly see the RSS feeds....that is the orange button that says RSS... it will take you out of the site to the feeds... click back to get back to us.
Are you still here? You really deserve credit for making it all the way to the bottom!
Well for more detail on your pages and what they will have on them or the rest of the site check out the FAQ's at the bottom of the page, or click on the ? at the top for help.
If you want to contact us at mysongcast, email admin@mysongcast.com. You can even write to us at:
Mysongcast Pty Ltd
P.O Box 506
Milsons Point
NSW 1565
Australia
Our company phone number is +61 447 668614
Bye for now... Keep checking back at this exciting page as I will continue to update the page with exciting news of new buttons to look at.
