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b5media launches music channel

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b5mediab5media Inc. announced the launch of its new music channel featuring a wide variety of blogs focused on bands, genres and geographical locations. This is b5media’s 14th channel, bringing number of blogs within the network to 230.

“Since b5media first launched in September of 2005, we’ve felt the music scene was being vastly underserved by professional blogs,” said Jeremy Wright, b5media’s CEO. “We believe that by bringing together thought leaders in the music space, new music bloggers and plain old music phreaks that we can provide a real place where music lovers from around the world can find bands, music, reviews and content they’ll love!”

The music channel portfolio, headed by channel editor Mike Laba, features blogs focused on genres such as the metal, jazz, blues, industrial and crooner scenes, as well as hotspots such as Nashville, the U.K. and Australia.

As part of the music channel’s launch, b5media is giving away three iPod Shuffles, three Memorex MP3 players pre-loaded with MusicIP’s kick-ass music discovery software, and three $25 iTunes certificates.

Originally posted on July 9, 2007 @ 7:36 am

Getty Images acquires Pump Audio, enters commercial music licensing business

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Getty Images Acquires Pump AudioGetty Images, world’s leader when it comes to creating and distributing visual content, is acquiring Pump Audio, the leading provider of quality independent music to content creators.

With this acquisition, Getty Images enters the commercial music licensing business, in its pursuit to meet the growing content needs of media, advertising, and corporate users and clients. Getty Images, over the past 12 years, has largely contributed to the visual content industry. Starting today, they hope to contribute to the music industry as well, to benefit both customers and creators of music.

Getty Images now allows users to license professional quality music to enhance their film, video, and advertising projects with Pump Audio’s platform which makes it easier and more affordable for users to license music for commercial use, while allowing artists to keep ownership of their music.

“Today there is wide agreement in the music industry that the market for commercial music licensing is fragmented, inefficient and confusing, just as the imagery market once was,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. “We are confident that bringing our digital distribution, e-commerce expertise and our customer relationships, as well as our understanding of intellectual property, to the music industry will have a similarly positive impact.”

Sources say that Getty Images acquired Pump Audio for approximately $42 million.

Originally posted on June 24, 2007 @ 11:11 pm

Vibe Magazine picks KickApps to power search for next great rapper

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verses.jpgKickApps Corporation announced that it was selected by Vibe Magazine to provide the social media and viral video functionality for the Vibe Verses Rap Battle contest. The contest challenges aspiring rap artists to submit videos performing their original lyrics over pre-selected music tracks. The ultimate winner, to be selected by votes from other VIBE Verses community members, will get a $10,000 cash prize, a full page profile in Vibe Magazine and a recording contract from Actual Eyes Media

Over 12,000 members have joined the Vibe Verses community, uploading over 2,700 pieces of media and creating more than 500 videos that have been viewed over 472,000 times – and counting.

“The response has been phenomenal,” said John DeMarchi, General Manager, Vibe Digital Media, “The KickApps platform was easy for us to deploy and, more importantly, it’s easy for Vibe Verses contestants and members to use. It’s allowed hundreds of talented, new urban artists to be heard, seen and promoted.”

Originally posted on June 21, 2007 @ 5:04 am