MUMBAI: Official.fm, a leading platform for music creators and industry professionals to manage audio content and customize their digital music footprint, has expanded its operations beyond its Geneva, Switzerland headquarters to the United States. The U.S. offices add three key hires from the digital music industry to the Official.fm team. The company also announces two content partnerships this month with two leading music events, the CMJ True Till Def and the Pitchfork Music Festival Paris.
In addition to opening outposts in San Francisco, CA and Brooklyn, NY, the company recently added three seasoned digital music executives to the team – Lucas Gonze, Jason Herskowitz and Chuck Fishman as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Partnership Relations Director, respectively. Together, Gonze and Herskowitz will be focused on defining and developing the evolution of the platform, while Fishman will be driving strategic partnerships and key business development initiatives with content providers and technology partners in the digital music space.
New CPO Jason Herskowitz joins Head of Content & Business Affairs, Amaechi Uzoigwe, in Official.fm’s New York office, located in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, an area well known as the home of NYC Internet start ups. Herskowitz has deep experience developing digital music products including Limewire, TotalMusic and AOL. Herskowitz founded Prodigal Sun Records, one of the first record labels to provide streaming audio clips of artists online.
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New CTO Lucas Gonze and Partnership Relations Director Chuck Fishman will be growing the San Francisco office, looking for top technology and digital media business talent. Well known for his innovative work in open-source music technologies, Gonze created one of the first technology standards for music playlists (.xspf). Gonze also managed technology initiatives for the music subscription service MOG, Yahoo! Music, and Webjay. Fishman managed Cisco’s partnerships with major media and entertainment companies. Prior to his work in digital media, he developed new content programming ventures for The Wall Street Journal and CNET. Both Gonze and Fishman are passionate about digital music tools, as they are also musicians, with Gonze specializing in Americana music, and Fishman spending off work time collaborating with George Clinton & Parliament / Funkadelic.
These staff additions come on the heels of Official.fm’s first premium offering. For just $30 a year, artists and labels can go PRO and upload as many as 200 tracks for distribution and tracking across the Internet. Each audio track can be very large, up to 500MB in file size. PRO account holders also gain access to a best-in-class desktop track manager, advanced analytics, embeddable tour widgets, and the ability to offer fans downloadable playlists in exchange for email addresses. Jeremie Abisshira, CEO of Official.fm offers: Our ultimate goal is to provide a product that helps music professionals save time and effort when it comes to managing and tracking their online activity. The coming months will show that this is our leitmotif.”
October is a busy month for Official.fm as the company embarks on two new content partnerships with the Pitchfork Paris Festival and the True Til Def CMJ 2011 Showcase. Head of Content & Business Affairs Amaechi Uzoigwe explains Official.fm’s involvement: We’re really pleased to help customize and amplify the digital music experience for both of these amazing events. For example, via our embeddable music players, the event organizers will be able to offer fans customized and branded playlists from festival artists….
