My thoughts are with Mr. Jobs his close family and friends. It must be empty and overwelming. The internet now says it all. He was the greatest man in technology for the past decades and changed the way we work, buy music, call, interact, entertain ourselves and so forth. R.I.P
On April 14, 2011, IIP closed a round of funding with informal investors to fuel growth and create extra capacity within the FUGA development team.
Martijn Tjho, CEO of IIP
“ 2011’s going to be a exciting year for all of us at FUGA! With the best and most easy to use plaform in the market, an extremely loyal and satisfied customer base and a sharp vision of FUGA’s future, we’re ready to become the source of all our clients’ music and media data.
Our growth expansion plan is to give ALL music companies the ability to set up their digital operations under their own brand in the market place. This without the financial burden of housing an expensive and less effective IT department.
We’ll use our knowledge and resources to gain more exposure for the FUGA platform and continue to develop very advanced features that will expand our clients’ business reach more efficiently.”
Today FUGA offers Asset Management, Product Management, Release Scheduling Management, Encoding & Delivery Management and Basic Reporting Functionalities.
On May 1st, FUGA will offer “Territory Based Release Dates”. This highly requested feature will assist clients to configure a release schedule and set different pricings for their product ”territory by territory”.
By May 15th, we’ll release the FUGA “Tagging Framework”. This time-saving feature will give our “larger catalog” clients the much needed ability to tag Assets and Products so they can quickly assemble a particular selection of their catalog for fast delivery to business partners.
During the 2nd week of June, we further exhibit FUGA’s power, by releasing a “Cross Licensing Network” on the FUGA platform. Our clients will be able to collaborate on and license each other’s assets & products. This feature also allows the creation of multiple sets of meta data for one Asset or Product. (For example, the allowance of a Chinese set of meta data.)
Martijn Tjho, - “ I couldn’t be more proud or enthusiastic with the results of our development team. They’ve managed to implement my ideas, respond to the needs and requests of our clients, and utilize their own thoughts on improvements when needed. Soon, I’ll be focusing my ideas more on Business Intelligence and Data Connection to every party in the music eco system. I believe that by providing our clients the platform that powers their business and connects their data to, collecting societies, future digital music services and any other partner that needs the data, will boost our clients business. FUGA will become the heart of any digital music business pumping the data around on the internet, making sure that the content owners monetize their content in the most effective and profitable way.
The future of the music business will evolve around how good companies can manage all their data and FUGA is and will be the best platform to do this.”
The journey keeps becomming more interesting. After restructuring IIP and get "Exactly" done what needed to get done, its time to play ball in 2011 again. People tell me never reveal your ideas, because people will steal them. I always think if they want to steal my ideas, they must be good enough to continue. The value of an idea is huge, but without execution worth nothing. My head just goes bananna's with all the ideas coming all the time, everywhere and from a place I can't find in my awareness. So for 2011 we have some great things planned for FUGA and we are working on it for several months now. The fundamental idea has always been that people buy music after they heard it somewhere and liked it. So HEAR - LIKE - BUY
So lets think HEAR: On the street, in the car, in a shop, in a restaurant, through a friend, through a friend on Face Book, through your favourite DJ etc etc. All the places where you don't create the playlist and press play.
LIKE: When you HEAR something you LIKE you want to hear it again. Nothing we or anybody else can do anything about the LIKE. You just LIKE it or LOVE it, both are good.
BUY: I remember the many times I went to the record store and tried to figure out with the guy or girl behind the counter what I exactly LIKED or LOVED. I miss those days, but that's beside the point.
Today you HEAR and try to remember the artist > google > Bingo or the lyrics > google > Bingo, or the title > google > Bingo > (google > Bingo > Digital Service Provider (DSP))
FUGA is created to power this dynamic. So what's there and what's coming?
FUGA NOW!
1. Asset Management: Audio files, Video files, Pictures, Meta Data, etc. The all have a creator and belong to a person or business;
2. Product Management: From assets our users create products. Products are offered/sold on DSP networks and sometimes just the asset is used (Think music video on Youtube);
3. Release scheduling: Our users want to be in control over when and where their products get shipped;
4. Delivery Management: FUGA delivers all assets and products to DSPs, according to their delivery standard. I wish it was true there is a standard like the CD, but in digital everybody uses different meta data and different file types, so all files need to be encoded. FUGA does all of that fully automated and in real time;
5. Sales Reporting Management: Usage of Assets and Products on DSP networks gets reported back and FUGA can present this in a nice manner so you understand your business. I wish all DSPs could actually provide us with real time understandable reports, but they don't. They will soon though, because it's in the general interest to understand the facts!
FUGA 2011 & 2012
6. CD/DVD repplication and distribution. It will take another 5 - 10 years before this will become a marginal business. So why not do it all from one place: FUGA;
7. Contracts with 1000 + DSPs and reports coming back and some DSPs selling less then 20$ per month: Thats too much for a company focussed on finding the right artists to develop and create together with or distribute and manage the relationships with all these DSPs. So FUGA will take care of this. This enables our clients to do a direct deal with iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and who ever and the rest will be governed by FUGA. We won't become a distributor taking care of promotion etc., but a pure business service on top of the tech;
8. Business Intelligence: Next to information about sales our clients need to understand the traction of their music and artist on the web. Combine that intel with sales info and you have a sure winner. Measuring = Knowing = No Fuck ups in promotion and marketing spend or at least less fuck ups ;-)
9. Open API: Our clients use many different software packages for promotion, Royalty calculation, etc etc. They can all connect over our API to FUGA and optimize their workflow;
10. Improve, its never good enough: FUGA must be faster, robuster, sexier, smarter, more fun to work with then anything elase in the market place, so we will do our best to incorporate all good tips and ideas of our clients. This we have always done and our clients know how good it makes FUGA compared to any other platform in the market place;
11. The FUGA-NETWORK (www.fuganetwork.com), launched q2 2011 and something you want to become a part of. Invitation only. TOP SECRET!
To be honest, it isn't, wasn't and will never be a walk in the park. Sometimes I wish, but the reality is that in 2010 I have learned more about doing business, about myself and about the value of the "no asshole policy". Its almost that time of the year where we all switch off, think of our families, our friends, our faillure, our success, our past and about our future. Or maybe just eat, drink and love a lot. From here a good moment to thank everybody that supported me with their love, knowledge, patience, passion, money, anger, frustration, dissapointment and what else mattered in 2010. Good or bad, all energy aimed at me and IIP made us stronger and made us do better what we do and I am gratufull for that. It's nice to know that we exist and people care enough to play a role. Some a very negative and luckaly for me most very positive.
2011 we will start with lots of great and exiting projects. One lesson I will will never forget is one step at the time and keep track of where you walk. For a chaotic personality like myself this is hard. A big thanks to my team that helps me stay on top of things and make sure all ideas become real and last longer then the 2 seconds they stay in my head. Have a nice day, a peacefull Christmas and a fantastic new years eve. May the force be with you. M
I love it when the sun shines and Amsterdam is starting up around 6:30 in the morning. Being up so early gives me some time to contemplate. About all I do and have been doing over the last couple of months and what is next. Working on a tech start-up that is taking of now and helping music companies to manage their digital business, helping my artist friends to develop their career and cut deals so they move up in the media food chain, creating more awareness with a foundation and helping any body that needs help with a project. It's a lot, but being the person I am I need lots of things to develop myself, at the end of the day that's my end game. Become what life has given me already and finding out if I can do it. I am so grateful for getting all these opportunities and happy that I have learned to focus. Other people like to watch TV, go shopping and have lots of things to do, so during the week they can focus on their job. I am not a one trick pony and love to engage with everything that comes my way. The art is to focus and filter when it comes and finish things you start. I am getting better at this and now taking a GTD course from my friend Cesar to enhance my productivity. The weekend was pretty relaxing and last week I met so many new and great people, that it will be hard to make this week one to remember.
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