▼[Sticky] Great community-related news ;-)
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Dear Jamendo community,
I'm very happy to share good news with you today ! ;-)
As many of you know by now, we have found a partner able to secure the financial future of Jamendo. It was hard and we had to let some of the Jamendo employees go, but we're now on sight of breakeven (thus, sustainability) this year. We'll present our partner and the "new" Jamendo team over the next few weeks.
Best news is, after these moments of introspection, Jamendo's mission is now clearer than ever : be the best platform for artists to manage and share their works, for listeners to discover great music for free, and for professionals to license commercial uses of these songs for a fee, hence creating a sustainable ecosystem.
That's the goal. Now, how do we get there ? We have a series of announcements to begin the journey :
- We're removing all display ads on Jamendo! We may put up a few banners once in a while to promote some new features or partners, but everybody (except German users for now, we have a specific ad contract there) will now enjoy an ad-free & faster Jamendo ;-) Even if we shared all ad revenues 50/50 with the artists, we feel they impacted the browsing experience too much compared to the small revenue they provided. That's effective tomorrow! :)
- In a time when most of the other music websites and apps build walls between music and users, finding new ways to avoid them listening "too much" for free, we feel it's our duty to go the other way : OPENNESS ! ;-) Thus the following :
- A "Jamendo Community Group", recently created around the "Save Jamendo" initiative, will make Jamendo more democratic, giving everybody in the community a way to discuss and vote for new features, ask questions to the staff and report any problems. They are in the process of setting up the tools for these interactions ( information center at http://communitygroup.jamendo.net/ ), but if you want to help now or start reporting issues you can join the group here : http://www.jamendo.com/group/jcg . The community page will be updated to feature the group and various other things, up to you! Forums will also be updated to give more importance to these kind of dedicated groups :)
- Album release process : we are opening up the infamous process of "moderation" of new albums. The details are not yet fixed, but we want to give the community more control over the music, and give you more tools to help the artists have a better experience. One way would be to introduce a early access for members to new albums, so that in the first 24 hours or so, they can report and fix any problems with the music or artwork, and start writing the first reviews ;-) Discussions about this to be managed by Jamendo Community Group, and effective ASAP.
- Developer API : we have been providing an API for developers to create players or integrate Jamendo music in mashups for a long time, but it will now be on our top priority list to have a strong ecosystem of third-party Jamendo apps flourish. We'll provide consistent support, documentation and code samples in a specific developer group.
- Torrent & OGG situation : Both of these features are currently semi-broken, and too expensive to maintain (both in time & $) for us compared to their usage ratio. So! We'll take an "intelligent" approach for both : 1) Torrent seeding will be officially stopped, but we'll continue to generate .torrents with open trackers, that will be accessible with the API like they currently are. It will be up for those of you who want to to continue seeding them, and possibly using them in third party clients. However since every album is available for direct download on the website, we're not sure if that will be useful. Time will tell. 2) Ogg support : We've acknowledged the pro-OGG voices on the forum ; So here's our proposal : contact us if you have an idle linux server (some of you already did), and we'll setup a Jamendo OGG miror on it. That way we'll continue generating OGGs but won't host them ourselves as long as there is enough support from volunteers to help. An "OGG fans" group will be created to coordinate this.
- We're open-sourcing some of the core components of Jamendo. First, our ranking formula : we'll let you experiment with it, let anyone make changes, to finally choose the best one to be implemented on Jamendo. We think it's the best way for the charts to be transparent and more efficient at making users discover new music.
- Second open sourcing, our translation system. Everybody will soon be able to start translating Jamendo in a new language or fix a few of our mistakes. We feel it's important for the community to grow beyond its current borders and to give artists a more international audience! We'll probably use Pootle ( http://pootle.locamotion.org/ ) which is a standard tool used by many open source projects.
- Some of you also complained about the "similar albums" feature. Well, in true Netflix spirit ( http://www.netflixprize.com ) we'll organize a similarity/recommendation algorithm contest so that you can come up with better results than us and improve the discovery!
That's it for today! We have some work to do now to implement all of the above, and start fixing the top requested bugs. We're very confident the Jamendo Community Group will be very efficient in communication for the community. The details for each of the announcements above will be discussed there, so feel free to join the discussion!
Next will be some more cool announcements. Still being discussed but we'll probably be more involved in real-life meetings, like "community town halls" where we can all share a drink and talk future projects ;-) However the next few weeks will be mostly centered around bug fixing and the open sourcings above.
Comments welcome!
cheers,
Sylvain. -
Comments welcome!
cheers,
Sylvain.
THANK YOU SYLVINUS
SORRY FOR FRENCH
eh bien merci Sylvinius ,
pour ce mesage qui répond a beaucoup de questions et à beaucoup d attente
l avenir s éclairci.....................
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CommentAuthororangeupurple
- CommentTimeFeb 17th 2010
Yes, thank you Sylvinus,
We appreciate your wonderful letter and answers to our questions.
Many of the ideas are exciting and I am looking forward to seeing
a new and improved Jamendo.
In the meantime the community of Jamendo is very happy to hear
from you.
-Barbara -
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CommentAuthorcoriandolo
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
EVVIVA!!!!!
Merci Sylvain!!!
De mon coeur, Merci!
- Daniela -
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CommentAuthorfrank.harper
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
Thanks for your elaborate statement and the promising outlook, Sylvain. I'm somewhat baffled about the scale of changes. I need some time to arrange my impressions.
My first thought is that during the last weeks (to months or even years) we noticed the most important field to work on are bugs. Correspondingly you mentioned bug fixing to be the work of the next weeks. In addition you now introduced some major changes and mentioned JCG to coordinate discussions. But I guess to be as effective as possible we need to focus and a course. Where shall we start? You know, we thought about collecting known bugs and setting up polls to prioritze them. Or would it be better to forward them all? Perhaps there are bugs which are subsequent errors so it would be more effective if you decide about priorities. Tell us.
Regards of the album release process please clarify the topics of the discussion you imagine the JCG to manage. By saying "members" you mean users, artists or both? It's somehow mixed, because users/listeners write reviews, but fixing of problems with the music should be restricted to the artists I think.
Hmmm, lot to do. Setting up a reasonable plan will be as important as the work itself.
Best wishes
Frank -
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Hi Sylvinius, good to read the good news.
Regarding the OGG problem, what about replacing it with Flac for people who actually buy the track or album ? -
There are no words to express how happy this makes me. I feel like any minute I'm going to wake up and that message was a dream.
Thank you so much! -
those are breaking news ^^
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Great news, Sylvinius, and good community related initiatives. Jamendo has potential to be a great free music success story, let's realize that potential together!
Doc -
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CommentAuthorThe Chilling Spirit
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010 edited
What about archive.org for the Ogg Vorbis hosting? They already said they would, right?
How much data is it (I estimate about 1500 GB now)? About 50 albums per day (2009 had ~44) of 40 MB each would be about 2GB, so 3GB per day would be a safe guess for a while.
How much traffic does Ogg Vorbis do?
I have free time for a while and I am willing to invest a lot of time into this. -
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Good news for Jamendo but not for for those who came here to found CC music under free standard.
Freeless "musthave" player's users while appreciate, I, who is selecting hardware with a maximum of codecs like ogg (also available on my 25€ dvdplayer) and flac can look away.
Still no voluntary to take the way of inform and to educate users with the same argument of ratio.
Delete mp3 owner's system instead of ogg.
Gas-oil is the same even if there is different providers, traffic light don't care about the brand of the car/truck/bike, current is the same even if it's provide by a wind generator or a nuclear plant. There's a technical standard for every thing. After I use the car/truck I want with the gas-oil, I plug what I want whose NF or CE normed and I respect the worldwide standard of the red light.
It have to be the same for music but you don't want it. -
Hello, how much space does the OGG repository require? If the number of downloads is as small as you say, we can go for big cheap disks. Could we have a cost estimate? Would a cheap OVH storage server be ok?
If there are enough OGG freaks like me around here, we could start a fundraising just for this feature, Jamendo would get the money and declare it would use the money just for OGG mirroring - so just put the bills online somewhere so we can check where our money goes. -
It's not to us to pay for ogg, it's the advertising and the money given to Jamendo when someone gives money to an artist.
Ogg (or flac) is a standard, mp3 is a kind of brand. -
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CommentAuthorbrendaclews
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
This is super great news! I am in tears. Jamendo roars back to life. With an even more exciting future. Thank you so much, Sylvinus, for your vision, all your hard work, and for your deep love of people, music, sharing, belief in a united spirit in promoting creativity. The changes in store for Jamendo look wonderful. We're emerging from this crisis as a stronger, more cohesive, more supportive and connected community, which can only benefit Jamendo and all its musicians and reviewers, as well as those who purchase music offered here for various venues and projects. Jamendo is alive and Jamendo is strong and I am ecstatic! Thank you! xoxoxoxo -
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CommentAuthoriamnotlefthanded
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
Awesome! This is such amazing news, well done guys, you've made a lot of people very happy
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By the way, it was never announced I think but we've stopped taking 0.5 euros on donations for several months now. Everything goes to the artist minus the paypal/bank fees.
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CommentAuthorbrendaclews
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
No cut of donations to artists? Incredible, Sulvinus - your entire vision is incredible, and the site and community that has developed here is phenomenal.
I left this note at the bugs & issues site, and feel like leaving it here too:
My biggest wish is for a decent translation tool. For me, it's not listening, or downloading, or leaving reviews, or the stats, but that I can sadly read only English. Google offers a translation widget for webpages which enables 'whole page' translations, not perfect, no, but enough 'to get the gist of.' Surely Jamendo can offer something *like this* on each album page? Then at least we can semi-read the titles and album notes if there are any, and often many of the comments. How often have I *not* given an artist my full attention because of the hassle of copying and pasting urls or text into another tool in another window?
A tool to translate the page, as well as comments in a diversity of other languages into one's language would more than blow me away.
It'd make for an even closer, more cohesive community, the ability to 'communicate' more easily with each other, even if through mechanical translations.
And could only help facilitate the Pro side since it would be easier for prospective purchasers of licenses to more fully understand a musical work if they can read titles, notes, comments in their own language.
I *do* note that Sylvinus mentions a translation tool is in the works.
This I especially would like to support. -
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CommentAuthorThe Chilling Spirit
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
The translation tool surely means a tool to translate the site itself, not the user content. What browser do you use? In Opera you can select->rightclick->Translate. I guess there is some addon for Firefox too. -
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So, ogg's (or free codec) problem is fix, little users can talk about it away from the main tread, like talking to wind. Really good feeling, Really good.
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Great news.
I think that any musician would find his/her place here.
Those who want to share their music for free, for pleasure.
Those who want to get money for their music and work (50% for artist and 50 % for jamendo, this is the usual deal of most independant labels which are using CC licences).
and for the listeners, the opportunity to download and listen to music coming from all the world for free, ok, it's mp3, but if there is a place to find the ogg or flac files, it's not that bad.
In a way, this is a middle path for everyone, of course some purists wouldn't agree, but this path has something nice in it: people who want music for commercial use will pay for those who just want to enjoy music, so that "professional" musicians wouldn't feel cheated: the price for commercial use will be recognized and at the same time, it makes possible free access to free culture.
It doesn't sound incompatible to me.
And i'm sure that the community through all those task groups (JCG, Ogg group, ...) is ready to take up this challenge.
Thank you all.
@ karimcf
You could join the Ogg group and try to find together the best and more creative solution. -
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CommentAuthorThe Chilling Spirit
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
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yep, just seen that, fix in next few hours, sorry
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In a time when most of the other music websites and apps build walls between music and users, finding new ways to avoid them listening "too much" for free, we feel it's our duty to go the other way : OPENNESS ! ;-)
It's refreshing to read an announcement that has clearly taken many users wishers into consideration.
openness,transparency & honesty are all credentials that as individuals we wish from others & if all politics,business & society's were run under these key ingredients for emotional growth, we'd all be far more consciously wealthy/healthy for it .
Here's to a successful future for Jamendo.May the idealism of the creative commons license that has taken root, grow a strong 'Earth' community that distributes natures wealth evenly among it's people.
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CommentAuthororangeupurple
- CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010 edited
the speed of the forums is now like lightning - how great is that? Super - thanks for fixing that
most annoying bug!
M^^W
edit: maybe I had some trouble adding this comment - it sat there and I had to stop the loading - but the comment was there
as usual. . . . hmmm -
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so it is the joyce cause you know i feel the cost to cost kellog's for a long time in a everybodyboygeorge chemistry of the incredible leguman !!!!!!!!!
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@ Nikila,
Sorry but I don't want to be place on a far far land on far far server. Just want to be a part of this, around the same table, only feeling my difference by the music I'm listening from my neightbour if we're different. -
Frank: let's open a thread on the jcg group to discuss short/midterm priorities !
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CommentAuthorfrank.harper
- CommentTimeFeb 19th 2010
let's open a thread on the jcg group to discuss short/midterm priorities
Done:
http://www.jamendo.com/de/group/jcg/forum/discussion/168/priorities
BTW, it took about 2 minutes to save the new thread. -
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CommentAuthormusictomyears
- CommentTimeFeb 24th 2010
Wow that is excellent stuff sylvinus.. excellent powers from save jamendo group, Sylvinus and your stuff you do have left and to your new partner.. new brush sweeps clean but this is good news no bad..
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I've just read the good news. Great outcome, with some good ideas to take forward and the basics remaining intact. Good to hear from sylvinus and to see the activity throughout the community. I've been browsing the forum on farmats, but I think I'll leave that discussion to others. Thanks Frank, Orange(Barbara)upurple, bmccosar, The Chilling Spirit and Dawn for keeping us informed and initially spurring us into action with the Save Jamendo campagne. I'm sure this had some significant effect on the outcome. Great move with the JCG which must be a positive step. Now for the move forward which looks like a huge amount of bug fixing.
We breathe again.
Hope we don't go through this again anytime soon.
MM. -
Sounds way better than one dared to hope. Now let's hope it will all work out as smooth as possible.
Then let's hopefully get back to routine and curse at the album upload, damn the stats and flame each other on the forum - always aware that Jamedo still is the best thing to have appeared on the web and that it might go away, which would even be worse than it always has been.
I believe I would even miss that dammned Jamloader if was gone...
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CommentAuthoridiotprogrammer
- CommentTimeMar 3rd 2010 edited
I realize you have your priorities, but I wish there was a way to rate a playlist. Most of the playlists suck, but I'm sure a small number of them are good or interesting. I don't have any way to find the good ones. (Also having the ability to tag playlists would help a lot).
If you had these features, I would be interacting with jamendo only through the playlists. But right now, there is no way to know which playlists are good and which ones suck!
I LOVE jamendo -- but I have not been happy with the possible ways to browse through music. As it turns out, I spend most of my time browsing through artists who appear on your donation page.
I wrote more about this here
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/special/11-incredible-musicians-you-can-download-for-free-best-of-jamendo/(for the record, my fave playlist is one I created here http://www.jamendo.com/en/playlist/152307 )
If someone knows of a better playlist than that, I beg you to email me :) idiotprogrammer @ fastmailbox.net -
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yes! we always wanted to give the playlists ratings, and reviews. however the issue we had is that the playlists can change, so a playlist at the moment of the review might not be the same than 1 month later when somebody reads that review. any idea on how to solve that ?
cheers -
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CommentAuthorErich Iseli
- CommentTimeMar 6th 2010
@sylvinus: yes, it's very easily solvable. Let users "publish" their playlist. From that time on, the playlist cannot be modified any more and it can be tagged, reviewed and rated. Non-published playlists could be considered as "work-in-progress" and not yet "public" (though one might want to debate about that - maybe it could be public anyway, but just not reviewable...) -
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Congratulations to the Jamendo team for securing funding and for deciding to amend/improve the website. Onwards and upwards!
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@sylvinus: about torrents, could Jamendo simply HTTP REDIRECT its tracker to tracker.openbittorrent.com ?
I mean "redirect" - this way:
- Jamendo won't have to rewrite all .torrent files,
- existing downloaders and seeders can see each others again immediately - without redownloading all their .torrent files
It would still be good to rewrite .torrent files so they include several trackers (ex: openbittorrent.com _and_ publicbt.org _and_ the tracker.jamendo.com redirector, so that there's no single point of failure again), but that could be done in a second step. -
@Beuc: good idea, we've just done that. can you report success ? thx
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Looks like it works :)
tracker.openbittorrent.com accepts the requests, despite the extra ".php" extension that jamendo used. -
@sylvinus: yes, it's very easily solvable. Let users "publish" their playlist. From that time on, the playlist cannot be modified any more and it can be tagged, reviewed and rated. Non-published playlists could be considered as "work-in-progress" and not yet "public" (though one might want to debate about that - maybe it could be public anyway, but just not reviewable...)
I think playlists by their nature will be dynamic, so a static would be difficult with albums coming on stream all the time. One thing we could do, as mentioned, is to have a semi-published stage where the playlister can edit the list. Then once the list is published the playlister may add tracks but not remove anything. In theory, if a playlist is rated good, it is likely to get better with addition as the core is still present.
If practical, it may be useful to have comments on unpublished playlists which are available to the playliser only, rather like a private messages connected to the playlist. These comments could then be deleted in the process of publishing the playlist.
Just a few thoughts, which may possibly be more work than the benefit if we don't use playlists. -
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CommentAuthorThe Chilling Spirit
- CommentTimeMar 16th 2010
I find it very bad that crucial discussion is forked off these forums into the JCG group forums. First of all one cannot easily follow that from eg http://www.jamendo.com/en/forums/discussions . Secondly one has to join the group to be able to comment. For JCG "interna" I do not care but if you discuss general community and user-support related issues this keeps out people. And that is bad. -
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Sylvain informed me that Jamendo just ran advertising revenue share for Oct-Dec 2009. So you see another indication for the now stable state of Jamendo.
Frank Harper / JCG -
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CommentAuthorstrangeseraph
- CommentTimeMar 28th 2010
Oh thank goodness! I was worried about Jam for awhile, so glad its here to stay. :) -
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I'm glad to to advise you of Jamendos Easter egg for our artists. The last revenue share for public places was in Aug 2009. But today they ran that revenue share till Jan 2010.
Happy Easter!
Frank Harper / JCG -
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CommentAuthororangeupurple
- CommentTimeApr 8th 2010 edited
Luxembourg, 08/04/2010
Jamendo se rapproche de MusicMatic
Jamendo annonce ce jour l’acquisition par MusicMatic de l’ensemble de la participation
que Mangrove Capital détenait dans la société et une augmentation prochaine du capital.
L’augmentation sera réalisée par MusicMatic et les fondateurs de Jamendo.
Cette opération a pour objectif de pérenniser la place de Jamendo, plus grande
communauté mondiale de musique sous licence Creative Commons.
Jamendo pourra ainsi développer son réseau commercial en France, Benelux, Espagne
et Allemagne et proposer pour la fin du second trimestre une offre produit enrichie et
innovante.
Aujourd’hui Jamendo représente plus de 18.000 artistes et 200.000 titres disponibles
gratuitement pour le grand public. Ce catalogue est proposé aux professionnels qui
peuvent acquérir une licence globale d'utilisation à un prix plus équitable que celui
pratiqué traditionnellement. Jamendo se chargeant de reverser directement à l'artiste une
partie des droits.
Jamendo s’inscrit dans les nouveaux modèles économiques de la musique qui rapproche
l’artiste et l’utilisateur.
Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO de MusicMatic, devient le nouveau CEO de Jamendo et
remplace Laurent Kratz qui garde son poste d’administrateur.
À propos de Jamendo :
Jamendo est la première plateforme mondiale de téléchargement de musique gratuite et légale. Disponible
en huit langues, le site propose le plus vaste catalogue musical libre et gratuit : 200.000 titres par plus de
18.000 artistes du monde entier. L’innovation du modèle économique de Jamendo permet à la fois la gratuité
des téléchargements pour les visiteurs et la rémunération des artistes, basée sur le partage des revenus
publicitaires et des utilisations commerciales.
A propos de MusicMatic
MusicMatic, est une société basée en Belgique, France et Espagne. L'activité principale est de gérer les
réseaux de diffusion de contenu audio et vidéo dans les chaînes de points de vente. Grâce à une expertise
technologique et une créativité artistique, Musicmatic travaille pour plus de 50 réseaux et assure chaque
jour la diffusion de contenu audio et video dans des milliers de points de vente dans le monde.
www.jamendo.com
English:
Jamendo approaches MusicMatic
Jamendo announces this day the acquisition by MusicMatic of the whole of the participation that Mangrove Capital held in the company and a nearest increase in the capital.
The increase will be carried out by MusicMatic and the founders of Jamendo.
This operation aims to perennialize the place of Jamendo, larger world community of music under Creative licence Commons.
Jamendo will be able to thus develop its sales network in France, Benelux, Spain and Germany and to propose for the end of the second quarters an enriched offer produced and innovating.
Today Jamendo represents more than 18,000 artists and 200,000 titles available free for the general public. This catalogue is proposed to the professionals who can acquire a global license of use at a price more equitable than that practised traditionally. Jamendo being given the responsability to transfer directly with the artist one part of the rights.
Jamendo falls under the new economic models of the music which brings closer the artist and the user.
Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO of MusicMatic, becomes the new CEO of Jamendo and replaces Laurent Kratz who keeps his post of administrator.
In connection with Jamendo:
Jamendo is the first world platform of free and legal music downloading. Available in eight languages, the site proposes the vastest free and free musical catalogue: 200,000 titles by more than 18,000 artists of the whole world. The innovation of the economic model of Jamendo allows at the same time the exemption from payment of the remote loadings for the visitors and the remuneration of the artists, based on the division of the advertising revenues and the commercial uses.
In connection with MusicMatic:
MusicMatic, is a society based in Belgium, France and Spain. The principal activity is to manage the networks of diffusion of audio and video contents in the chains of sales outlets. Thanks to a technological expertise and an artistic creativity, Musicmatic works for more than 50 networks and ensures each day the diffusion of audio and video contents in thousands of sales outlets in the world. -
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CommentAuthorlittleFingers
- CommentTimeApr 8th 2010
LONG LIVE JAMENDO ! -
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Long live indeed ;-)
The official english version has been posted :
http://blog.jamendo.com/2010/04/09/jamendo-catches-up-with-musicmatic/
As a side note, I can add that the whole team is relieved to secure this successful turn of events. Musicmatic is an ideal partner as it brings us the "real world" experience we lacked, and allows us to concentrate our efforts on what we do best - the web :-)
We're now back in full swing development. A new Jamendo update is coming next week and we look foward to improving the website with your feedback through the jcg folks.
Also, feel free to ask if you have more questions :)
cheers -
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CommentAuthorlittleFingers
- CommentTimeApr 10th 2010
As a side note, I can add that the whole team is relieved to secure this successful turn of events. Musicmatic is an ideal partner as it brings us the "real world" experience we lacked, and allows us to concentrate our efforts on what we do best - the web :-)
I love this side note ! It is a beautiful awareness of the value of the new partner. Understanding and respect are the essential foundations of any relationships.
Cheers Sylvain. -
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CommentAuthororangeupurple
- CommentTimeApr 20th 2010 edited
I have notice that the English Forums seem to be at peace, and all is quiet for the last several days!
JOY - I believe! I have noticed that the Jamendo Administration is indeed making improvements, repairing bugs,
and implementing new ideas . . . WOW and thank you. It is my opinion that things will keep going in this general direction
and we can all focus on the music . . . I have found myself actually taking a big deep breath and beginning to once again
relax and enjoy the great sounds that appear on this wonderful site . . .
Thank you, Jamendo People . . . all of you . . . especially the Community because you are what makes this place exist in real time and real space . . .
and you are what matters . . .
Peace & Love
M^^W -
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CommentAuthorlittleFingers
- CommentTimeApr 20th 2010
THANK YOU ORANGEUPURPLE.
Thunderous applause to you, Frank, and others who raised to support our Community.
Pierre-Marie
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