Guguchu

David Rocks Goliath and Bloodies the Ticketmaster.

2011-03-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

SXSW: Guguchu Innovates Ticketing App and JavaScript APIs While Bigger Companies Watch and Wait.

AUSTIN, TX (March 18, 2011) – Everyone at SXSW 2011 agrees that the music industry’s future will be founded on a band’s direct-to-fan communication. New York City’s Guguchu is taking on the big corporations with a sling shot... and winning. One of just a handful of integrated direct-to-fan platforms, Guguchu celebrated its first anniversary by releasing its direct-to-fan ticketing solution as well as STORE and PLAYER JavaScript APIs.

“In direct response to requests from bands and labels, Guguchu unveiled two features that can potentially eliminate ticket brokers, even the 1000 pound gorilla, Ticketmaster, as well as cookie cutter direct-to-fan music sites,” says Bernd Strenitz, CEO of Guguchu. “Fans of live music and musicians alike despise Ticketmaster and ticket brokers because of the outrageous fees that they attach to ticket prices. So we have developed an easy mobile technology app for bands to sell their own tickets directly from your band page and potentially bundle tickets with other products like downloads or merchandise,” he adds.

“We are encouraged that even though our company is small, like David, we can be nimble and compete and even lead against established Goliaths like Ticketmaster. We’re excited to see that one other company (Topspin), with a similar app, was released just one day after Guguchu’s,” Strenitz reveals. “Both Guguchu and Topspin are in the market to offer a better alternative to ticket brokers. There are challenges, but all summer long, we’ll be introducing this app at small New York City venues, street festivals, and Brooklyn rooftop shows. We’ll show that it can be done.”

Today’s musicians expect the ability to easily create customizable band websites that can be an online gathering space for fans and a place for their music store, song samples, gig information, show lists, merchandise, biography, discography, and tour booking tools.

“In addition to our easy-to-setup band page, our STORE and PLAYER JavaScript APIs offer bands the ability to easily create unique experiences with the same level of flexibility that artists use when creating album artwork,” says Florian Hoenig, Guguchu’s CTO.

How can these APIs be utilized?

“For one thing, we recognize how tech-savvy today’s independent labels are. They miss the expressive power of CD booklets and album artwork and have turned to creating unique online experiences. These people are highly creative and the age of digital downloads at iTunes has not provided them an outlet for this,” Hoenig says. “Traditionally, custom website integration was mostly done by adding widgets, which works well in many scenarios, but is also limited by a boxy, similar look-and-feel. Independent labels and small one or two-person outfits have been asking for custom APIs that can match their own uniqueness. How creative do you want to be in visual branding and band artwork? With these APIs, you can be as creative as your music is unique.”

“In cases where bands prefer having their own band website, blog, release page or other online fan or customer destination, but need a secure streaming infrastructure or music store, they can now use our JavaScript APIs and embed those features seamlessly on existing fan destination sites. The API is still in BETA and in our next release we’ll roll out the merchandise bundling solution to all accounts,” adds Hoenig.

Celebrating Guguchu’s first anniversary of its launch at SXSW with exciting new features!

2011-03-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hey artists,

As many of you are preparing to head down to Austin for this year’s SXSW, we are celebrating Guguchu’s first birthday with two important and exciting feature releases. During SXSW Music week we are expecting to roll out your very own advance ticket sales solution as well as new powerful STORE and PLAYER APIs to all accounts.

Sell advance tickets for your shows with mobile ticketing: Fans can purchase tickets directly on your band page using credit cards or PayPal. Fans are issued printable tickets via email or simply show up at the gig and get their ticket confirmation code scanned straight off their smart phone display with the Guguchu Ticket Terminal iPhone app now available free of charge on Apple’s App Store. You get paid instantly and directly.

Create unique fan experiences with new APIs: Is the band page too much or too little for what you want to achieve? Get complete creative freedom with the new Javascript STORE and PLAYER APIs. Design your own HTML website to promote a release, event, single, album or your band and use the STORE and PLAYER APIs for seamless and secure purchasing and listening experiences while maintaining complete creative freedom. No need to develop or pay for a substandard, standardized music player or shopping cart solution. Use the APIs and, best of all, you keep control of album plays and the check-out process.

Find out more about existing and new features here.

Guguchu is first integrated direct-to-fan platform to offer DIY ticketing for everyone.

2011-03-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

Enables bands to sell pre-show tickets on their band page accepting credit card and Paypal. Fans are issued QR-codes, which can be scanned at the door off a printable ticket or their smart phone displays using an iPhone app.

NEW YORK, NY (1 March 2011) – Guguchu, the provider of an integrated, direct-to-fan ecommerce solution for bands and record labels, has introduced DIY ticketing enabling bands to pre-sell tickets to shows on their band pages.

When announcing an upcoming show by selecting a venue from Guguchu’s database of nearly 15,000 venues, bands can elect to offer pre-sale tickets, at a discount if they choose to do so. A buy button is added to the band’s page and a notification informs fans about the pre-sale on all connected social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Fans are issued printable tickets with a QR-code by email or simply show up with their smart phone at the gig and get their ticket confirmation code scanned straight off their smart phone display using a ticketing terminal app which runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Bands get paid instantly and directly. No hassle, no mailing of paper tickets, no relying on the venue's existing infrastructure. DIY at its best!

“With this latest feature release, we show once again that it is absolutely possible to offer powerful and easy-to-use direct-to-fan solutions for everyone regardless of existing fan bases, resources, sales volumes or affiliation. Topspin has been offering its ticketing solution for some time, but to a select group of a few thousand invited artists only thereby denying hundreds of thousands of artists access to their solution. This may change in the coming weeks when Topspin will open up its platform to everyone, but it remains to be seen how easy and intuitive their new version will be and therefore how accessible it will really be to everyone. We have been working relentlessly on releasing powerful direct-to-fan solutions for everyone taking the odd MySpace page to an entirely new level. News Corp. has put MySpace up for sale and it is difficult to see a buyer emerge who will take a particularly strong interest in its music business, given that bands only make up a fraction of MySpace’s total user base. We therefore invite all bands with a MySpace account to join the growing community of artists benefitting from Guguchu’s powerful direct-to-fan solutions for everyone”, says Bernd Strenitz, CEO of Guguchu.

About Guguchu

Guguchu is a powerful one-stop direct-to-fan ecommerce platform for bands. Its team has set out on a mission to enable every artist, band, manager and label to manage the relationship with their fans directly, provide data-driven unique insights and cut down on the overhead needed to build everything from scratch. So far, the platform offers a range of features and Guguchu’s team keeps going:

Easy to set up, fully customizable and professionally looking band pages
A music store with instant and direct payments and some of the lowest fees around
A sleek mobile ticketing solution
A rich HTML newsletter composer with embeddable music tracks
A smart media kit allowing bands to track the level of interest by venues
A venue database with 15,000 gigs with contact information
Embeddable widgets allowing bands to sign up fans and sell music anywhere on the Web
Unique fan experiences on band websites through API-driven feature integration

Guguchu also works with independent record labels on their own custom-built data-driven promotion and store solutions. Guguchu was founded in 2009, launched in 2010 and is based in New York City.

Lauren Keyson from NY Convergence reviews the January NY Tech Meetup

2011-01-12T08:23:00.000-08:00

NY Tech Meetup: From Uncomfortable to the Inspirational

January 12, 2011 at 10:33 am

By Lauren Keyson

Three types of startups demonstrated their products/services on Monday at the NY Tech Meetup: some that were interesting from a social and cultural perspective, some that were “safe” bets for investment, and others that were simply audaciously clever and technologically imaginative. There was even one company that made the audience feel uncomfortable. This one was sitesimon, whose tag line is “what people are looking at,” as the company shares your clickstream manually or automatically using its browser add-on. This basically means that users get to see every single page that their friends and family have been visiting. The site programmers are working on a solution to stop the sharing of inappropriate content.

Munchly, on the other hand, seemed to be a fairly safe bet. Its application allows customers to purchase concessions without waiting in line. While early unexpected obstacles encountered by the founders included having to scale down their technology so that 14-year-olds could use it, the company is already well on its way, having signed one major theater chain and a handful of stadiums. Munchly’s Greg Pelly called their market “an industry that’s behind the times,” and the NY Tech Meetup audience loved it – a few attendees even gave it a standing ovation.

Guguchu also seemed to be a winner. This is a powerful platform used by bands, band managers and labels to assist with outreach to fans, as it is a way for them to make more money through their own endeavors, without having to rely on iTunes, where songs go for as little as 99 cents. With their own slick band page, musicians can create albums, tracks and box sets and sell more music, shows and merchandise. Another demoing company that was fascinating from a cultural perspective was dump.fm, a chat room-oriented site built around graphics. Users can paste, upload or snap photos from a webcam then riff with each other and create dialogue through photos.

But the company that stood out was VYou, a conversational video app that allows users to send messages and get video responses — imagine YouTube as a live, personal conversation. While it’s intimate, it has the reach of broadcast. “It’s really freaking cool,” said Brandon Diamond, one of the group’s organizers. Part of VYou’s demo included messages and responses from Kevin Smith, the director. In one of his video responses to a question, Smith said nothing, but chose to pick his nose for several moments. Outrageous? Yes. But genius too.

“I don’t know if I’d invest in all the companies that showed their products tonight,” said Diamond. “But folks don’t come here for investment purposes; they come here to see magic happen.

Read the article here.

Guguchu at the NY Tech Meetup

2011-01-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

Guguchu will present at tomorrow's NY Tech Meetup to 751 technologists. Should be fun. See you tomorrow in case you managed to grab a ticket. The meetup is sold out. Further infos available on NY Tech Meetup's website.

Get your music ready for sale in 5 easy steps

2010-12-11T08:03:00.000-08:00

This tutorial explains how to make your music available for sale using your own music store in less than 15 minutes.

More exciting news! A powerful selling solution and a brand new band page

2010-10-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

We’ve introduced Smart Payment Routing™ allowing you to sell both single tracks and higher priced items while minimizing Paypal fees, bringing you the best selling solution for artists.

KEY FEATURES OF THE POWERFUL SELLING SOLUTION

Sell tracks and albums
Get paid instantly and direct to your account
Set the price or let your fans choose how much they want to pay
Give away free tracks or offer them in return for your fans' email addresses
A 4-step check-out process ensures you don't lose potential customers along the way
Smart Payment Routing minimizes Paypal fees

LEARN HOW TO SELL YOUR MUSIC IN 5 EASY STEPS AND START SELLING TODAY

View this quick tutorial on our blog and start selling today in 5 easy steps. We’ve also added additional tutorials on other Guguchu features in the “Help” section of your band manager.

WE’VE CREATED AN ENTIRELY NEW BAND PAGE…

... and automatically ported your existing band page. The new pages look great, but make sure you log in and check the colors, banners and logos.

Key features:

A nice, clean, simple solution to get you going with your own branded destination site
No ads, high quality and secure streaming, no fuss
Customize it with your own background images, logo and colors
Easy fan sign up to your newsletter, Facebook and Twitter
Allow fans to spread your music across their social nets
Announce shows and news, feature photos and videos

GUGUCHU IS AHEAD OF ITS TIMES WITH SMART PAYMENT ROUTING

On Tuesday, Paypal took stage with Facebook to unveil micropayments for digital goods. Paypal fees are now $0.10 for a $1.00 track whereas previously fees were around $0.33. Guguchu offers this solution to its bands since last week and automatically routes transactions under $12.00 as micropayments, bringing you the best selling solution for artists.

With this great news we’d also like to share with you how Guguchu makes money. Signup and using Guguchu stays free, while we keep a flat 15% of your sales. Paypal fees are covered by you. That’s it. No hidden fees whatsoever.

Here's an example of selling a single track...

You sell a track for $1.00
Paypal fees: 5% + 5 cents = $0.10 (using Paypal standard payments this would have been $0.33)
Guguchu fees: 15% = $0.15
You keep: $0.75

And an example of selling a higher priced item...

You sell an item for $14.00
Paypal fees (automatically routed as standard payment): 2.9% + 20 cents = $0.61
Guguchu fees: 15% = $2.10
You keep: $11.29

Note that an additional fee of approximately 1% may apply for international transactions, i.e. if your fans buy your music from abroad.

Keep well, The Guguchu Staff

Sell your music today in 5 easy steps

2010-10-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Guguchu is first to make selling single tracks attractive through Smart Payment Routing™.

Yesterday, Paypal took stage with Facebook to unveil micropayments for digital goods. Paypal fees are now around $0.10 for a $1.00 track whereas previously fees were around $0.33. Guguchu automatically routes transactions under $12.00 as micropayments and thereby brings you the best selling solution for musicians.

Signup and using Guguchu is free. Guguchu makes money by keeping a flat 15% of your sales. Paypal fees apply. Guguchu's Smart Payment Routing™ enables you to sell both single tracks and higher priced items while keeping the Paypal fees minimal.

Learn here how to set up your own selling solution in 5 easy steps and start selling today.

Unsigned The Magazine on why you should "Guguchu"

2010-09-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

By: Mut "I Know What I'm Talkin Bout" Asheru in the latest edition of Unsigned The Magazine.
Read the full feature here.

Ah, dear, sweet and lovely artists here’s a great tool to help you keep up with the marketing/pr/gig booking aspect of your business. The concept of the electronic epk is not new. Companies allowing bands to put together a workable kit on their servers is nothing new as well. Enter Guguchu. With this program you get the ease of putting together a stellar epk kit that painlessly allows you to gather critical market data.

The obvious plus to Unsigned is the fact that artist can actually track their kit activity. No more asking…”did you get it?”, “have you looked at it?”…etc. Providing valuable market research bands will have the ability to see how much time someone spent with your kit and what they looked at you can actually create and build a more target campaign.

With their database of over 16,000 venues across the United States (for show booking purposes) the band / artist will be able to track who has opened their kit and what was viewed when they opened it. You will also have built-in newsletter and press-kit building capabilities. You got merch? Guguchu has an online store where artists can sell their wears and sounds.

Last but not least we all know good social media skills is key to your marketing and promoting efforts and the good folks at Guguchu have incorporated social media capabilities into the kit. Artists can manage their Myspace, Facebook and Twitter accounts from one convenient location.

The interface of the kit is clean and simple. The technology is very intuitive and customizable. They have helpful tutorial videos should you need any additional information on just how to work your kit.

Co-founder Bernd Strenitz says that the company has even more tools in the works that will only make this platform better. Get in on this beta action as right now it’s a free service.

How to embed the Guguchu music player on the new MySpace profiles

2010-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Guguchu is an integrated platform for bands, band managers and record labels that helps them better understand their fanbase across social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook as well as the bands’ own websites. If you are a musician, the ability to engage, understand and interact with your fans across the Web is essential. Guguchu helps you do that.

Recently, MySpace launched their redesigned profile layouts letting you have further choice of the music you are publishing and the form in which others experience your music. Changes include a cleaner, simpler look; dozens of new themes; the ability to create your own header; easier navigation; and more.

For users of Guguchu, another important addition is that MySpace has simplified the process of embedding other media players in your profile. So, why not use your Guguchu player?

The advantages of embedding a Guguchu player in your profile are that you can:

track vital statistics from your newly embedded player on Guguchu
let people share your music across their own social networks thus inducing viral growth
choose from a range of different players to suit your own needs and design preferences
avoid your fans just becoming MySpace fans
offer downloads in exchange for your fans’ email addresses and grow your email list and promote and sell to them at a later stage
keep your music automatically updated on MySpace by embedding your Guguchu profile player
keep your download offers fresh by managing them directly from your Guguchu account

Setting up the Guguchu player on your MySpace profile is easy. Here are the necessary steps:

Opt in to the new MySpace profile type
Click on ”Profile”’ and go to ”Customize Profile”

Click on the ”Modules” tab on the pop-out “Editor” box

Disable the current music player by clicking ”Remove” on the music player icon

Click ”Add” on the HTML Box icon

Copy the embed code for your player from the Guguchu ”Viral Tools” section, then paste the embed code and hit publish
If you need assistance setting up your embeddable Guguchu player, watch the video here

Now you have an awesome player on your MySpace profile allowing you to track vital statistics; create your own, personal look and feel; grow your fanbase virally; and keep your offers up to date by managing them from your Guguchu account!

Check out an example of a MySpace profile with an embedded Guguchu player here.

Try it out for yourself and let us know what you think!

Enjoy and keep well,

The Guguchu Staff!

Guguchu – Promote music, only better!

Product release: Viral promotional tools now available on all accounts

2010-08-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK (24 August 2010) – Guguchu releases the loudest buzz creators on the circuit.
Allows artists to embed widgets seamlessly anywhere on the Web.

Watch the video and create your own widgets. Add hundreds or thousands of new fans per campaign.

Guguchu widgets collect data down to a very granular level. The company is continuously improving its analytics and users will have access to all data back in time shortly.

Wise with Widgets

2010-08-08T09:46:00.001-07:00

http://sxsw.com/node/5282

Unsigned The Magazine pre-announces widgets to its community

2010-07-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.unsignedthemagazine.com/wordpress/?p=1195#more-1195

Hybebot pre-announces launch of Guguchu's widgets for bands and band managers

2010-07-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/07/guguchu-first-gen-widgets-coming-soon.html

Mi2N - Music Industry News Network on Guguchu's widget launch announcement

2010-07-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=132216

Review: WeAllMakeMusic.com reviews Guguchu's widgets

2010-07-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

http://weallmakemusic.com/guguchu-launches-customizable-widgets/

Spread your music virally and drive traffic to your band website: Guguchu to release widgets for artists and their managers

2010-07-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

Offering secure and high quality streaming, one-click sharing across social networks, widget grabber and fan email collector. Customization allows seamless integration with any page style. Backend tracks viral spread across the Web, reveals top performing widgets and location of fans.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK (19 July 2010) – Guguchu, the provider of an easy to use integrated data analytics, marketing and sales platform for bands, band managers and indie labels is due to release the first generation of its widgets.

“While Guguchu offers a band page creator that is particularly relevant for young start-out bands looking for an effective and inexpensive way to create a Web presence, we believe that any aspiring artist should ultimately aim to have a dedicated band website. Widgets are a powerful way to easily incorporate vital marketing and sales functionality, drive traffic to the band website, reach larger crowds, make more fans, and sell more music. Over the coming weeks we will incorporate additional functionality with the aim to offer the best widgets available to bands and their managers”, says Guguchu’s co-founder and CEO Bernd Strenitz.

Highlights of Guguchu’s first generation widgets

Quick and easy setup
Secure and high quality music streaming
One-click sharing on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google Buzz, StumbleUpon and Tumblr
Fully customizable interface allows seamless integration with any page style
Track against email or simple fan email collector both available
Allows fans to grab their band’s widget and place it elsewhere on the Web thereby increasing the band’s reach even further
Tracks how the widgets spread virally across the Web
Shows where the fan base is located for more targeted marketing and promotion

Pricing, availability and future plans

Guguchu’s integrated platform for bands, band managers and indie labels is currently available free of charge with the aim to implement a flat rate, commission based structure later this year. Bands and their managers are invited to sign up to the platform at guguchu.com.

In the coming months, Guguchu will continue to improve its offering for the benefit of bands, band managers and indie labels continuing their bi-weekly release cycle.

Tell us what you need

2010-07-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

IMPROVED FEEDBACK FEATURE

Share your ideas. Ask us questions. Report a problem. Or simply praise a feature you like. Also in this newsletter: Guguchu pre-announces the release of the first generation of its widgets and is looking for talent to join its growing team.

THANK YOU AND CALL TO ACTION

We have set out on a mission to create the best promotional tools for musicians and their managers. Your feedback is paramount in creating those tools. Continue telling us what you need to increase your reach, make more fans and sell more music.

Thank you for all the feedback you’ve shared with us so far. We have improved our feedback feature to handle your suggestions more efficiently.

You will notice the new feedback feature immediately after logging in. Click the orange feedback button on the right hand side of the dashboard, and:

share your ideas,
ask questions,
report problems,
praise what you like, and
see if other users have asked similar questions.

SPREAD YOUR MUSIC VIRALLY (COMING SOON)

Guguchu pre-announces the launch of the first generation of its widgets.

A widget allows you to create a little application such as – a music player or a fan mail collector – and embed it anywhere on the Web. This means that you can spread your art virally by embedding these applications seamlessly on your band website, blog, your friends’ websites and many more places across the Web. Key features are:

Quick and easy setup
Secure and robust music streaming
Fans can share the streaming link to your music with one click on their Facebook walls, Twitter, MySpace, Google Buzz, StumbleUpon and Tumblr
Allow fans to grab your widget and place it elsewhere on the Web thereby increasing your reach even further
Collect fan emails and build your fan list
Fully customizable interface allows seamless integration with any page style
Everything is trackable. See how your widgets spread virally across the Web
Location, location, location. Know where your fans are and invite them to the next show

FAN US ON FACEBOOK

Fan us on facebook.com/guguchu for important product updates and community news. Our iPad Facebook contest has now closed and we will officially announce the winners shortly. Many, many thanks to all who took part!

Get the Guguchu wallpaper

2010-06-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

1440 x 960 download it here

1920 x 1200 download it here

Hello artists. We are looking for the best band page!

2010-05-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

We've seen a lot of good band pages since we launched the band page creator. Now we are looking for the best. Starting today a contest for the best band page will run for a full 30 days on the Contests tab of our Facebook page. Submit your band page and win an iPad that also works as your recording studio, and other prices!

Why a personalized band page matters?

Simply because it helps you on your way up. A personalized band page is one of the key elements in creating a successful relationship with your fans. Be in charge of your image. Show fans and professionals what you are about and what makes you special. Invite people to stay longer and make them come back. And - of course - sell more music and merch.

The prizes

So create, create, create and win a brand new iPad that also works as your recording studio!

We've teamed up with Sonoma Wire Works, the developer of this amazing multitrack studio recording app for the iPad. For the winner of our best band page contest they also chipped in a license of StudioTrack for the iPad and in addition a license for their RiffWorks desktop recording app and a licence of KitCore Deluxe for the runner-ups.

The contest

The contest has started on June 1 and will run until June 30. Enter by visiting the Contests tab on our Facebook page . Style your existing band page by using banners, logos, background colors, font colors, images...

Upload the URL to your Guguchu band page to the Contests tab on our Facebook page and include a screenshot of the page or an album cover and that's it!

Get the message out to your fans and get them to vote for you! After June 30, we will select a winner amongst the 20 bands with the highest public vote counts.

Bands, secure your next show!

2010-05-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

The new, improved media kit.

This week's release equips you with an even more powerful media kit. Choose from over 15,000 venues. Send a media kit. Track the venue's response. Secure your next show.

State of the art. Presented professionally and developed with the feedback from venues, this media kit will attract their attention.

Easy setup. You get what you see and it all can be done in less than 10 minutes from sign up.

One-click submit. 15,000 venues with verified contact information. Search by city or name, select the venue and submit your media kit.

Track the recipient's interest. Receive an instant notification and see if they opened the kit, listened to your tracks and looked at your photos. Book your next show on the spot.

Free. Sign up to Guguchu's free beta now.

How bands use Guguchu to promote themselves effectively and efficiently

2010-04-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

We All Make Music, the information site dedicated to helping musicians make it on their own terms, on how bands use Guguchu to promote themselves effectively and efficiently.

Read the full feature here >>

Music Ally review of Guguchu

2010-04-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Music Ally, a leading digital music business information and strategy company, takes a detailed look at Guguchu and provides an in-depth review of the powerful set of integrated promotional tools for bands in the latest edition of Sandbox.fm, its fortnightly digital music marketing report.

Guguchu released online music store today

2010-03-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

The new online store.

This week's release allows you to sell albums and individual tracks through the Guguchu Direct™ store. No middleman. Get paid directly and instantly.

Guguchu Direct™ - Feature Highlights

Keep 100%. You keep 100% of every album and track sold after Paypal transaction cost.

Get paid directly and instantly. No middleman. Fans pay directly and instantly into your Paypal account.

Set your own price point. You decide how much your fans should pay for your work.

Secure. Payments are handled via Paypal.

Quick and easy setup. Upload tracks, provide an album cover, connect to your Paypal account and start selling.

Sell through major retail stores (coming soon). Expand your distribution network and sell through major online retailers.

Sell on Facebook and your own website (coming soon). Increase your sales by placing widgets on websites and social networks allowing fans to make instant purchases.

Bundle merchandise and music (coming soon). Increase your income from your art by creating individual and special promotion packages.

Guguchu is now available to everyone

Guguchu launched its public beta at SXSW in Austin, TX, last week and is now available to the public. Thanks for testing and your immensely valuable feedback during the private beta phase.

Use the invitation tool in the band manager and recommend Guguchu to other bands.

What Bands Say About Guguchu

twitter.com/BLUEfiveone: guguchu is the greatest band app I’ve seen my whole life

twitter.com/thekeithsmith: just stopped by the guguchu table at SXSW! It’s a great service for artists to use. I strongly suggest taking a look at it

twitter.com/theASHOK: just met guys from guguchu at SXSW. Looks like an amazing app for bands

Guguchu Online

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/guguchu and become part of our growing community.

John, Bernd & Flo

Guguchu launches innovative web apps for bands at SXSW

2010-03-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

Offers next generation platform for gig booking, fan development, communication, promotion and distribution

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK (23 March 2010) – Guguchu, the provider of easy to use rich web apps for bands, attracts the attention of bands, artist managers and indie labels with the public launch of its platform at SXSW in Austin, TX.

Guguchu supports and encourages full integration with existing communication and retail channels thereby removing the complexity of handling multiple online services at once.

When bands sign up to Guguchu, they can quickly find and book new gigs, communicate with their fans through all major social networks and customized newsletters, review vital statistics about their fans and success across the Web and sell albums through its online retail store leaving artists with 100% of the transaction value less Paypal cost.

“Guguchu makes the lives of bands, artist managers and indie labels so much easier by allowing them to manage all their gig booking, fan engagement and communication from one place. The launch of the basic platform already equips them with a powerful set of easy to use tools and makes Guguchu essentially the hub for all online promotional activities”, said CEO and co-founder John Farrugia.

“Over the coming weeks, we will engage in a frequent release cycle, which will allow bands and their managers and labels to know who their fans are, where they are, and how valuable they are as fans across the Web, enabling targeted marketing and fan engagement. We are also integrating the platform with all major online retail channels in order to maximise the bands’ monetization opportunities”, said COO and co-founder Bernd Strenitz.

Highlights of Guguchu’s web app for bands

Database of 14,000 predominantly US based venues with verified contact information
Trackable media kit and instant notification that a venue is looking at the media kit allowing bands to secure the next show on the spot
Integrated outgoing and incoming social media stream enabling a band to communicate through all major social networks from one place
Trackable and fully customizable email newsletters
Online store with 100% of the transaction value less Paypal cost going directly to the artist
Fully customizable band page potentially replacing an expensive band website
Analytics tracking a band’s success across all major social networks and informing the band about who their fans are, where they are based and how valuable they are as fans

Pricing, Availability and Future Plans

Guguchu’s public beta is available free of charge to encourage the spread of its service.

Guguchu launched the public beta of its platform at SXSW and is now accessible to bands at www.guguchu.com.

In the coming months, Guguchu will continue to improve its offering for the benefit of bands, artist managers and indie labels engaging in a weekly to bi-weekly release cycle.

About Guguchu

Guguchu provides web apps for bands for fan communication and professional music career development. It offers easy to use, rich products for gig booking, fan development, communication, promotion, distribution, and more. Guguchu was founded in 2009 and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

The new band page creator.

2010-03-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

The new band page creator.

This week's release allows you to create your unique band page in under 10 minutes. No need to pay for an expensive band website. No need to spend hours updating or featuring an out-of-date band website.

Feature Highlights

Customizable band page. Upload background images, photos and logos. Choose from a full range of colors and color scheme.

Viral spread. One-click sharing of your band page on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Player. Secure streaming of entire albums or individual tracks.

Tour dates. Announce upcoming shows.

Fan collector. Quick and easy sign-up of new fans. Fans will be added to your address book and newsletter distribution list.

Music and merchandise store (coming soon). Sell digital downloads, physical CDs and merchandise through Guguchu and major online distribution channels straight from your band page.

News. Feature latest backstage news and important fan updates.

Pics. Add images of your band, shows and rehearsals.

Analytics. Track the number of plays, profile views, fans, comments and other key metrics across all major social networking and music web portals.

Guguchu Live

Visit us at SXSW 2010.

Exhibit Hall 3, Stand 206, opposite the Trade Show Bar. Get a one-on-one tour of Guguchu and collect an exclusive give-away.

17 to 21 March 2010, Austin, TX.

Guguchu Online

Follow us on twitter.com/guguchu for important updates on product releases and to learn more about how Guguchu helps artists.

Fan us on facebook.com/guguchu and become part of our growing community.

John, Bernd & Flo

Guguchu - Promote music, only better