Beat-Play releases Facebook app, connects music lovers with indie artists; empowers listeners to discover music for themselves without the influence of neckties.
Beat-Play, a technology start-up committed to providing the ultimate music social network, has announced its official public beta launch. Music fans can now download the free Facebook application or visit Beatplay.com to discover a wealth of independent music representing every genre imaginable (best used with Firefox for now).
“Beat-Play is the next major step in a music evolution that ultimately allows consumers to discover and filter music for themselves - music that fits their own unique styles and tastes, without the influence of labels and industry executives controlling their choices.” says Dante Cullari, Beat-Play founder and CEO.
Beat-Play’s technology promotes music to listeners based a number of different “Listening Modes” made available to the user. Each listening mode, almost similar to an “input” button on a radio or TV, changes how the music is introduced to the user. Currently, Beat-Play has only two of these modes active. One is Playlist mode, which is relatively self-explanatory, and the other is called Bump mode.
Bump is based on tags, or keywords, that the user types into a “Bump Search.” The user can use Moods, Locations, Artist Names, Genres, Activities or really almost anything, to describe the music that they wish to hear. Beat-Play then creates a custom playlist for the user consisting of both music and videos (via Souncloud, Youtube and Beat-Play itself) based on the songs that match the user’s tag search. These playlists are then updated in real time as new music is continually added to the service and tagged. Other cool, cutting-edge features that Beat-Play offers its listeners include:
- Allowing fans to organize the music that they find into playlists. They can then share these playlists with their friends through Facebook, like sharing mixtapes back in the good ‘ol days.
- With saved Bump Settings, music can now be organized by the type of mood a fan is in, or activity she/he is frequently involved in: “running”, “happy hour”, “electronic”, “crazy, funky”, “ben harper” - whatever.
- Fans can add their own Tags to songs, to suggestively help like-minded friends find the music more easily.
- Free Unlimited and Uninterrupted Streaming of independent and mainstream music and videos all in one place - more beats than you can imagine.
- Integrated Facebook Login, and of course, all personal information remains secure and confidential.
An independent artist himself, Cullari founded Beat-Play in 2007 collaborating with other independent artists in his vision to make music discovery, sharing and eventually, monetization, more efficient for artists and their fans. The company has introduced BeatPlay.com as a platform to promote independent artists and connect them with fans that are actively searching for better music. New music is uploaded daily, giving fans the opportunity to listen to fresh beats every single day.
“With so many music sites to choose from, the music and the fans are alarmingly fragmented now more than ever before.” Cullari claims. “Beat-Play aims at bringing the best of outside music and media services onto one central platform, to create one music environment online for fans to easily dive head-first into. Fans and artists alike will benefit tremendously from easier access to music, and now, with fans part of the conscientious promotion of the best music,” he continued, “it’s music without labels, and with a consciousness. Social filtering and recommendation will be a defining factor of the music industry’s future success, and Beat-Play plans on being a huge supporter of that.” 
Embracing Beat-Play as a platform to share their music directly with fans and gain a following, independent artists from around the globe are signing up with the site. Beat-Play encourages artists from all genres to sign on at no cost, and benefit from being a part of music’s ongoing evolution.
Benefits to Artists:
- Unlimited Music and Video Uploads
- It’s completely free, and there’s nothing to lose.
- By simply uploading their music, artists and bands will be promoting themselves, their collaborators, and their careers, while making it easier for potential fans to find and share their music. Users will not have to go out of their way to manually sort through music from multiple sources, but instead, the music will come right to them in one simple location
- Independent artists can connect with fans looking for truly great indie music.
- Beat-Play’s development will soon begin to focus on better ways to monetize independent music, where online stats will matter!
- This is just the beginning. Beat-Play plans on growing into a stronger platform, to support more of independent artist’s needs, with new features being rolled out on a regular basis.
For now, Beat-Play is still in beta, and in its early stages of development; but as time goes on, it is easy to see that this new service has amazing potential.
Here are some of the features that the Beat-Play team claims to be working on now:
- The tracking and reporting of listening statistics for both Artists and Fans.
- The introduction of a Beat-Play Music and Merch Store, Commercial License Sales, Music Equipment Sales, and more - where Beat-Play claims to only take 5.5% of sales made, and nothing up front.
- The introduction of a proprietary Ad Model that will not be obtrusive or interruptive to the listener, but instead plans to actually add to the listener’s experience through bonus content, while allowing artists to effectively monetize their music as the fans continue to stream for free. In this ad model, artists will own their own ad space and can leverage statistics from Beat-Play and Facebook to better negotiate sponsorships with interested advertisers. The potential here to curb piracy will be something to watch closely.
- Increased user customization of the listening experience.
- More Listening Mode choices, offering fans a wider variety of options for how they get introduced to music, including social network integration.
- Full mobile platform support
These are just the features that Beat-Play’s CEO, Dante Cullari, was willing to talk about right now. There are many more to come, he assured. Beat-Play plans on having many of these main features up and running within the next year, and plans to be at full power by 2013. For the sake of the music industry, let’s hope that Beat-Play’s upcoming features will be as instrumental as they now seem (stupid pun sadly intended).
Dante continued: “Most of all, we need artists and fans to really take ownership of this community, and take advantage of the free options we’re putting out there. This really does need to be a team effort, and I think we have the strength and the ability as indie artists to build something huge, so we can have the kind of impact that we need in order to benefit all of the incredibly talented independent artists out there that are struggling right now, and also to impact the fans that are missing out on a lot of great music because of it. We’ve had a great response from artists so far, and we’re confident that these solutions will bring some big changes to the way the music industry operates in the coming years. The best is yet to come!”
Music is a universal language, and a global business. It is a part of millions of people’s lives around the world. The Beat-Play team, comprised of mostly indie artists, has dedicated itself with unparalleled commitment to connecting real music fans with true diehard artists in an effort revitalize music for everyone. “It’s time for real solutions with real results.” says Cullari.
Beat-Play’s proprietary software tools and applications have revitalized the strengths behind an evolving digital music industry, and Beat-Play’s beta offers a promising start to what will seemingly be a very bright future for independent music. Visit BeatPlay.com and discover a smart and easy new way to filter the best music that may never have been heard.
Beat-Play: It’s about time.
To get you started, here are some awesome playlists courtesy of the Beat-Play team – over 6 hours of great tunes:
Beat-Play Launch Mixtape (dubstep, house, indie, hip hop, r&b, electro, other)
Mellow Music Mix (reggae, indie, dub)
Kendrick Lamar Mix (hip hop)
Also check out an extended interview with Beat-Play CEO Dante Cullari.
IF YOU’RE AND INDEPENDENT ARTIST AND NEED SOME PROMOTION – music reviews or interviews – CONTACT US at info@musicwithoutlabels.com and we’ll do our best to get you on the blog. If we have an ambassador in your city, maybe we’ll come to your show!
For further questions or comments regarding Beat-Play, please contact: David Botero 717.798.7128 or Dave@MusicWithoutLabels.com. Thank you.