A personal blog of Andrew Apanov, founder of a digital marketing agency for the music industry Dotted Music.
My first ThingLink interactive image, a feature for PLAYMA's website. Absolutely loving the deep integration with services like Topspin and Soundcloud.
Will see how it's accepted by PLAYMA fans, but so far I see this tool as a perfect replacement of featured images and slideshows on websites' home pages (plus there are way more other ways to use it).
PS: Turns out Posterous doesn't support ThingLink, which is kinda addnoying, so check out the image here.
Skrillex has taken home three awards as well: his "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" album won Best Dance/Electronica Album, the title track earned Best Dance Recording, and his remix to Benny Benassi's "Cinema" won Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical. The dubstep phenom is vying for Best New Artist against Bon Iver, The Band Perry, Nicki Minaj and J. Cole.
I feel this year will be bigger as ever for dubstep (and for Skrillex, definitely). Good times.
It always happens like this. In December I imagined that I would write a loooong, long post here, covering my departure from Ultimate Guitar, the company I had been with during the last eight years, almost since its foundation.
But instead, I just want to sincerely thank my colleagues and my boss, Eugeny Naidenov, for all the knowledge, experience, and the opportunities that I gained during all these years. It was a damn fun ride, but I have found a better way of using myself to make this world better.
So, I'm an entrepreneur now. Anyone who's interested in knowing me is welcomed to read my new bio, written by Dotted Music's editor Samuel Agini. It sums up my past pretty well (wouldn't ever think to see so many words on one page, all dedicated to me; thank you Sam!). And while you are there, take a look at the relaunched AndrewApanov.com.
Now, let's get back to improving the world.
Look forward to gaining lots of new experience (and having fun!) tomorrow, February 4th.
PS: Yes, and this flyer was made in about 5 minutes with Phoster. Loving the app.
Playing with Webdoc today, which recieved quite some buzz on MIDEM this past weekend (a dedicated blog post is coming up today on Dotted Music).
Not fully convinced with how everything is organized there, but it is cool and very useful service without a doubt!
Check out a video my wife Katya did from a PLAYMA photo session in December 2011 (the photographer is Vika Konovalova).
Pretty much speaks for itself ;)
Tool used: http://qrnot.es/
PLAYMA is revealing their new track and a first music video, filmed by Dotted Music (my wife Katya)!
Titled Cuz We Are PLAYMA, this 4x4 masterpiece with a crunchy dubstep breakdown shows a pure PLAYMA energy and style - you will love it. Created out of days worth of footage, the 3-minutes video for Cuz We Are PLAYMA chronicles their journeys of 2011: from the day in Kaliningrad when PLAYMA was founded to our home rehearsals and the first live gig in Paris' La Bellevilloise club.
Get a full MP3 version of Cuz We Are PLAYMA for FREE at http://playmamusic.com
Filmed and directed by Katya Apanova
Howard Bloom: Success in Music Industry Select comments by Howard Bloom at IdeaFestival 2010 on his past experience as a publicist in the music industry
Another cool little app I discovered and tested this week is called Smore.
Currently in Alpha (yes, not even Beta), the service allows to instantly create simple pages and share them on social networks. This kind of a digital flyer is great for announcing events, and so I tried it out yesterday with a page dedicated to next week's premiere of PLAYMA's new music video for "Cuz We Are PLAYMA."
THE RESULT: Cuz We Are PLAYMA announcement on Smore
THE PROCESS:
Basic statistic are available, showing the admin how many views the page got (without any details at this point). I loved that each page goes with a Facebook comment plugin, which is very appropriate considering the social concept behind the service.
Overall a fun and handy tool, which of course needs to improve to become something that you can use on a regular basis (but it's alpha afer all). The two creators of the service have done a great work so far.
If you want an invite, let me know in the comments or Twitter @matterandrew and I'll try to get you one!
PS: For full disclosure, I am not affiliated with Smore, but do manage PLAYMA. Watch that video on Tuesday, it's awesome!
