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Monday, March 18th

Musiqtone back on the uptick; forges key relationship with marketing firm

Musiqtone is back on the up of a roller coaster ride this year in 2006 and brass hopes it continues to come up. After beginning the year with a bang with well over 125,000 hits, the music site experienced its first downturn since 2003 when June, July, and August all were down months. By April, Musiqtone only registered just over 42,000 hits despite Teddy Geiger coverage, leading Musiqtone brass to believe they would never get their advertising program off the ground. But after a relatively rosy May (just over 60,000 hits), Musiqtone has begun June with a big bang, hovering at the sub-100,000 hit mark with just over half a month to go all part to the reemergence of the voter-driven Love It or Hate It and the major-label artists driven Artist of the Month, the Indie Chronicles, and the introduction of new features such as Gone Local and Spinning the Music. Also Musiqtone is finally reaping the benefits of their current association with Universal Records, where MT staff have tackled Ashley Parker Angel and Big 10-4 and coming up Oklahoma act Hinder.

In recent developments, Musiqtone has virtually inked another key relationship with a music promotions firm, this time Total Assault LLC, whose clients include Korn, Madonna, Daniel Powter, the Veronicas, Head Automatica, and Augustana. This expands Musiqtone's hand into the mainstream, giving them further access into the biggest stars of the mainstream while helping indie acts get driven to them in the future. "Our new relationship with Total Assault and Pop Generation will help in our drive to return to the mainstream. This is in no way a complete departure to our indie coverage and we will continue to unearth the gems in the indie and the underground. We are simply looking to return to our primary objective and that is to achieve a balanced focus into the music industry," said Alan Ho, founder and chief head of the music site.

Links:

Musiqtone
Total Assault
Pop Generation
Universal Records
IE Marketing


Musiqtone lands success; massive traffic surge


Hoffman Estates, IL

The results are finally coming in for Musiqtone after three years of experimentation, helping slay the file-sharing dragon, survived a few bullets that almost took the-then MusicMania down, and a name change.  The site, obscure still yet until this week has hit massive success out in the no. 1 market in the country, LA.  8 days ago, the site made 16 year old LA-area native Britney Christian no. 1 on the hotly contested Digital Tracks Chart, which created both major buzz for the young up and comer as well as for Musiqtone, which saw a 300% spike in traffic within six hours of the announcement. 


Musiqtone bolts for Yahoo; cites discovery of porn site on current web host

Hoffman Estates, IL

Musiqtone is on the move again. In what could be considered the biggest decision made my Musiqtone brass, the growing music site is risking a small dent in their already growing numbers by bolting from their current web host, Indianapolis, IN-based CarbonBlock LLC for Sunnvale, CA-based Yahoo's proven and pricier Business Web Hosting. The site cited frustration with CarbonBlock LLC's services and their frequent requests for the site to give up sensitive information and also the discovery of a adult-related website on the CarbonBlock servers.

"I will not associate Musiqtone's name with a web host that unashamedly allows the hosting of inappropiate content on their servers," said founder and chief head Alan Ho. "Yahoo is a known entity and a name we can trust to handle the hosting of our website. And yes, I do know that so-called adult content is hosted by Yahoo and that is something we can't hide from. But I know from reading that such content is not tolerated by Yahoo when it comes to serving their Small Business customers. I would like to think that pornography is harmful to minors, right?"

Musiqtone also cited that the low-cost, high benefit hosting service kept on requesting the readmission of sensitive information, such as bank information in order to keep their service and patronage, which frustrated Musiqtone's financial backers to no end. In addition, there are allegations of whether or not CarbonBlock is really a registered Indiana company as they claim to be since the 'LLC' label is put on CarbonBlock. A check into Indiana's registered businesses database on the Secretary of State's website proved the nonexistence of CarbonBlock as a business operating in the state of Indiana.

The move will be costly, jumping their total yearly cost from $85.80 with CarbonBlock to a bit under $240 with Yahoo's services. But Ho prefers to see things in the long-term.

"This is most definitely a long-term move, not some short-term thing where we would have put cost into consideration. I believe that there are sacrifices to be made and this is a sacrifice that has to be made. I am willing to eschew keeping costs down now for the knowing that we are being handled by known entity like Yahoo and the security of knowing I won't be disclosing bank information every single month."

The move is pending the final approval of their financial backers. The move will also cause an expected downtime as Musiqtone officially migrates into the Yahoo servers and also the uploading of the files into the servers. The site recently cracked the 4000 mark in visitors and the 100,000 mark in total hits.

Musiqtone is temporarily based in Hoffman Estates, IL and Yahoo is based in Sunnyvale, CA.



Musiqtone roars back to life; reporting larger-than-expected traffic numbers


Hoffman Estates, IL

After spending the first four months in obscurity once again after spending the previous year in high exposure, Musiqtone, formerly MusicMania, has suddenly roared back to life. The site is reportedly seeing better-than-expected traffic numbers, aided by a sudden jump from 1,169 unique visits and just under 27,000 hits in May to 2,847 and just under 62,000 in June. This represents a nearly 2.5 times jump from May to June and also a return to levels that hadn't been seen since November 2004 (2,309, 67,867). "I am a bit surprised by how fast we've come out of hibernation, I mean it wasn't too long ago we were fishing for ways to improve our traffic numbers and we were worried about meeting goals and projections before July came around," said Musiqtone chief head and founder Alan Ho.

The sudden traffic increase and exposure for Musiqtone is buoyed by the increasing popularity and the increasing profile of You Gotta Know, a monthly feature where the site promotes up and coming talent. This month's You Gotta Knows, Lydia Gray and Jeremy Hopkins are the biggest ones they have yet and rumors are flying in the Musiqtone camp that the staff will outdo them by showcasing a pair of rising talents, Nathan Morris and Curtis Peoples. The You Gotta Know feature is slowly putting itself up against MTV's 'You Hear It First.' In addition, Musiqtone is finally seeing the mass residual effect of being indirectly associated with entertainment giant AOL/Time Warner's AOL Music, which allowed the site to integrate AOL Music content and to link up with AOL's music archive, the largest available on the Web.

Musiqtone is looking at yet another large traffic increase, making a projection of about 136 visits a day, which would make their monthly visit projection for July to just over 4,200 and projected total hits to eclipse 75,000 hits.

Musiqtone is an emerging music/entertainment site, keeping its users and visitors abreast of what is going on in the music world. Its mainstream focus provides news, videos, songs, and more while its indie/underground focus introduces its visitors to new talents and their material. Musiqtone is a supporter and partner of CDigix, an Englewood, CO-based digital entertainment company providing music, entertainment, and educational software to 30-plus schools around the country. Musiqtone's main operations is temporarily based in Hoffman Estates, IL, about 30 minutes northwest of Chicago. Musiqtone is originally based in West Lafayette, Indiana.


Yellow Brick picks up another Indiana talent; tentatively agrees to jump to label

Indianapolis/West Lafayette, IN

The state of Indiana could become more than just the state that gave you Guns N'Roses, John Mellencamp, and the late late Jeff Buckley. According to sources, scouting head and Musiqtone chief head has tentatively signed former You Gotta Know and Indianapolis native Amanda Shelly, which would be the first big contract, once finalized that Yellow Brick has had yet. Already armed with demos and an EP already released, in addition to radio airplay from a Hot AC station in nearby Carmel, she is in position to release her first full-length. She would be the first recording artist from Yellow Brick to do so as the other recording artists on the roster are either recording demos and/or EPs.

"Amanda is going to be a wonderful addition to the label and will most definitely aid Yellow Brick around Purdue," says Ho, also remarking about her being a student at the West Lafayette, IN-based Purdue University. "She is already a veteran of sorts in the industry but it just came down to how she would make a permanent stamp on the industry and I think she chose the right path by settling down with our label."

"Yellow Brick will welcome Amanda with open arms and I look forward to working with her," said chief head and Yellow Brick founder Peter Burke, who also doubles as sound and studio engineer.

Yellow Brick Records is based in West Lafayette while Musiqtone is temporarily based in Hoffman Estates, in Chicago's Northwest Suburbs.

Musiqtone develops new college concept; band soon to release first EP on Yellow Brick

Hoffman Estates, IL(official press release)


Musiqtone, now looking towards the future, aims to keep their college roots and market alive with the development of a new concept. The concept, MusiqtoneU and the newly formed Musiqtone On-Campus Network will serve the college market specifically. The site will be college-oriented, similar to content offered by MTV's MTVu.com, but with the addition of content specifically on-campus. This is where the Musiqtone On-Campus Network comes in. The network will be nothing more than small sites for each campus that decides to carry Musiqtone and is rumored to be starting at CDigix partner schools, where prior relationships, students, and infrastructure is already in place to test the ambitious concept.

"Musiqtone as a whole has grown beyond the college market but creating MusiqtoneU really has been a work in progress and I'm glad we finally have the time and resources available to finally test the concept. We won't forget our collegiate roots and we intend to continue to grow that segment of the music and entertainment markets. There's much ground to be covered," says chief head Alan Ho.

Such a concept has been thrown around in the past and Musiqtone's relationship with CDigix, a digital entertainment provider to 20-plus schools around the country, only served to fuel such talk. Ho is widely rumored to make his intentions known the CDigix brass in the near future.

Musiqtone is temporarily based in Hoffman Estates, IL and CDigix is based in Englewood, CO.



West Lafayette, IN (official press release)


Yellow Brick Records was just a business plan, an idea, and a concept considered almost a mere year ago. As previously reported, after almost nine months of caretaking, Musiqtone chief head Alan Ho ceded complete control to co-founder Peter Burke in a trade of duties, ceding complete business control to the chief head. In the three, four months time as head (doubling as a sound engineer), Burke has signed three talents, all bands from the Lafayette area, with more signings in the distance, which hinges on the success of Lafayette-based rock/emo band A Line of Symmetry, currently in the Yellow Brick studios recording demos and an upcoming EP, which would be the first mass release for the suddenly nascent record label.

Yellow Brick is a development record label, signing aspiring talent and giving the roster a taste of the recording industry and then shipping them off the bigger pastures. Talks about signing established talent are underway but such a move will not happen for a long time.

"I didn't think this would come quickly, but given a chance to sign some talent, I did just that. I'm really excited about the opportunity about running a record label, it's something I've always wanted to do," said Yellow Brick chief head Peter Burke. "I'm really stoked with what I can do with A Line of Symmetry. It'll be fun to see how I can market them and give them a taste of what the industry is like."

Promotional opportunities for the band are pending. You can listen to the first demo track at
Myspace.