Launch Features by admin, 07/17/07 22:41:59

Over the past few months, I have been putting together pieces for a side project of mine which is now known as Emugga.com.  Emugga is the first (that I know of) Social Networking site developed purely for the Americana Music scene.  This project is something I have wanted for years as I feel it's an important tool for connecting fans to artists.  It's also something I have tried to build into the mothership aka AmericanaRoots.com but after several attempts felt it would be better to separate the two.  With all the current legal issues surrounding Internet Radio, I felt we needed to hedge our best and build a method to keep the music up if royalty rates would pull the plug on our professional radio station. 

The Emugga Mantra

My own personal goal of Emugga.com and AmericanaRoots.com is to build a community based bridge between the musicians and the fans. I am a die hard music fan as are the majority 18,000+ people each month that drop by AmericanaRoots.com.  The idea of finding a new song and more importantly a new artist has always fascinated me.  The challenge of finding music has become a double edged sword in the new digital revolution.  On one hand, you have a plethora of ways to get music in the digital revolution. On the other hand, it's become almost a burden to find music that is often times stuck in the regional areas of Americana. The goal of Emugga is to build a fan friendly experience of finding new Americana music.  It's fun to explore and this site will demand that of you.  For the artist, this is one way to bring your music to fans that are looking for a piece of Americana music.  The bridge has been built, although like any major city, the construction is not always that pretty. We have been testing Emugga.com over the past few weeks and rolling in new features feverishly. Expect delays and potholes over the next few months as we continue to polish this Calabash'n tree.

For the Artist: What's in it for me?

• A new way to directly expose your music to savvy Americana music fans.
• Hawk your digital music through your own Digital Vault.
• Connect with potential fans by providing blogs, photos, videos & music each an every day.
• Sell online tickets to your shows through our automated Event Sales System.
• Customize the layout and design of your site to fit your audience.
• Send out e-mail blasts to all of your fans.
• View detail logs and statistics on every aspect of your site (e.g. Song plays, picture views, etc.)
• Include your Twitter id in your profile and post Twitter updates via your phone which will automatically post to your site.
• Chart your song impact via our daily music charts.
• Any uploaded songs to your Emugga account automatically get reviewed for inclusion into our AMA Chart Reporting radio station over AmericanaRoots.com as well as possibly being included in one of our very popular podcast shows.
• Your own Artist Message Board.
• For the artists that sign-up by October 2007 for our Pre-launch, we will give you a free lifetime premium access to Emugga.com. For those that sign-up after October we will continue to have a free account with limited space and a premium account for a nominal monthly fee to help us offset server costs. As a thank you for helping us launch this site, you will receive 85% of the net sale for each digital track you sell through the vault! Also, any physical merchandise you sell on the Emugga Merchandise section you will receive all 100% (minus the standard paypal transaction cost). You won't find that anywhere else.

• Setup you own music blog and reviews which will be public for all members of Emugga
• Easily setup your own streaming radio in your control panel and include any songs which are uploaded by artists in Emugga.com. You can build your own radio station and send your links to friends!
• Become a fan of these musicians.
• Join the Artist specific forums to communicate with your favorite bands.
• Your song reviews will help us choose which artist to feature on the AmericanaRoots.com podcasts.
• Purchase and download DRM free digital tracks instantly from your favorite artist.
• Best of all, it's free! Sign-up Today and start finding new music.

The Definition of Emugga

I have had a number of e-mails regarding the name Emugga.com, so for the record the name comes from a song title off of one of my favorite bands, SoulHat, CD's.  I like the name and found that it comes from the language SOGA and is also known as Calabash. The definition of Emugga translates to "Round gourd of the calabash tree".  I have no clue but as I told Ray Randall, what the hell does Google & Yahoo mean anyway?