YOUBLOOM:GETTING NOTICED has always been the toughest challenge facing any emerging musician or artist.
Making it easier is YouBloom, a new Irish company that uses the internet and mobile phone technology to link musicians and artists from all over the world with global audiences.
“YouBloom is aimed at those hungry for originality and tired of being spoon-fed art and music,” says musician and founder Phil Harrington. “YouBloom focuses on emerging artists, providing them with a mechanism to be discovered and developed on a commercial basis and to make a living.”
The company’s first event, the YouBloom Song Contest, was launched last April and attracted 15,000 people to the site. About 3,000 performers entered songs and this, in turn, attracted about 28,000 voters.
Now it is seeking to raise €500,000 through the Business Expansion Scheme to boost membership to 360,000 by the end of next year. YouBloom says the return to investors will come from royalties, licensing and sponsorship income.
“We are on the way to providing what I like to call Fair Trade for musicians, singers and writers. This is a social enterprise aimed at benefiting performers and their fans but, like all start-ups, it has to be funded,” Harrington says.
“My vision is to build a new global economy of artists that will change the dynamic of the industry and drive the internet to deliver creatively and financially for artists. The current file-sharing and free-download culture makes it almost impossible for unsigned artists to make money from their music.”
Apart from providing artists with a performance platform, YouBloom will provide management services to artists and will facilitate seed capital fundraising, which allows those participating in the song contest to raise money from their fans for musical projects.
It will also feature live gigs from selected bands and singers streamed to friends and fans online. The company is planning a linked TV show and to expand its operations into Germany, France and Scandinavia in 2012 and into China, Latin America, Russia and India in 2013.
