Official.fm Expands to the U.S.

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.

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.”

The True Til Def CMJ 2011 Showcase, co-sponsored by Converse, takes place at Santos’ Party House in NYC on Saturday, October 22nd and will be hosted by the multi-talented artist Andrew WK. Artists performing include AraabMUZIK, Youth of Today, Action Bronson, and Mr. eXquire. At the very top of the True Till Def event web site you can see how Official.fm’s customizable player technology is being leveraged.

The Official.fm team looks forward to further discussing digital music distribution tools with music professionals and consumer brands at the CMJ Music Marathon 2011 and will be available for meetings. In addition, Official.fm will host an exclusive music industry mixer at its DUMBO office on Wednesday, October 19th from 4PM to 9PM. Please email cmj(at)official(dot)fm if you are interested in attending the industry event or scheduling a meeting with the team.

The sold-out Pitchfork Music Festival Paris takes place October 28th and 29th. The event brings Pitchfork’s popular US music festival overseas to La Grande Halle in Paris' Parc de la Villette and features top artists including Bon Iver, Aphex Twin, Cut Copy, Lykke Li, Washed Out, Four Tet, Erol Alkan, and many more. "We're excited to be partnering with Official.fm on our inaugural Pitchfork Music Festival Paris," says Pitchfork President Chris Kaskie. You can see and hear the Official.fm powered / Pitchfork branded playlist in action, with tracks from the festival top artists, at: http://pitchforkmusicfestival.fr/ 
 

About official.fm
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, Official.fm offers music professionals advanced uploading & hosting capabilities, data management, analytics, embeddable / branded audio widgets and other tools for digital audio. The platform gives its users the ability to dynamically & virally market music online for wider and deeper engagement with both fan base and marketplace. Official.fm’s team is composed of young talent from the technology & finance worlds plus established music business veterans, all working together to provide solutions in music’s new digital ecosystem. Hypebot.com recently named the company one of the  “10 Smartest Start Ups” at the 2011 San Francisco Music Tech Summit. Digital Music News also just cited platform as  “a rising underdog; already does an amazing job. Its in a good position to grab the best of the (competition)."