(Lykke Li by ToastyKen used under CreativeCommons)
News. News. News. What’s that all about?
It’s how we keep in touch with our artists. All of us know that we enjoy keeping up to date with information about our favourite artists just as much as we need to discover new ones. That’s what Gigulate is all about. We’re obsessed with all kinds of music information. You’ll be able to find out what your artists have been up to, and News is just the start of it. The Gigulator’s going to start crunching up all sorts of juicy snax that will make sure you’re more informed about your artists than you’ve ever been before.
We’re putting some extra effort in to make sure everything works really smart before we let the riff-raff in. We’ve decided to invest in some super-clever technology that will give us the chance to really blow each other’s mind in 2009. Do keep us posted with things we can fix and keep up the great ideas – it won’t be long, now.
Until then, here’s five stories from the last week that we discovered first on Gigulate.
Coldplay, Chris Martin hints at imminent retirement – Contactmusic
Sheikh felt ‘betrayed’ by Michael Jackson – Yahoo Music UK
Lykke Li announces brand new American tour dates – Pitchfork
Jimi Hendrix’s drummer, Mitch Mitchell found dead – NME
Kanye West denies assaulting photographer – People
More updates from us, soon.
xx
Sorry this is only the second post on here so far. We’ve been quite busy. See, people have been saying nice things about Gigulate and we’re still building it.
There’s a lot of thinking going into how the clever little robot we’ve built works, it’s the pulsating heart of this here thing we’re doing and we’re pouring a great deal of our love and energy into it. The Gigulator is our guide through the world of music, ingesting all the juiciest Music News, Gig Listings, Blogs and general information at a rate you wouldn’t believe, crunching it up like crazy and spitting it out in a nice clean digested bolus, a bit like an owl. The Gigulator is employee #1.
So Duncan Amey has been sat on the top deck of a big red London bus for an hour every day with a notepad and paper, he won’t mind me telling you that technically, he’s The Gigulator’s father. Duncan is one of the brightest, brainiest, nicest chaps you’ll ever meet. He has a knack expressing something very complicated in a way that everybody can understand. That said, what he’s building with Music News, Blogs and Gig listings has stretched that a bit for me – I’ve kept up so far, just.
John Martin is our chief creative brain. I’m in no doubt that John conceives, designs, codes and pieces together whole new websites using the 80% of our brain that the rest of us haven’t yet worked out how to use. You’ll find his charming personality and razor wit sprinkled through every visual message, chart and page on Gigulate – John surprises and excites people with what is possible. That’s what he’ll shortly be doing for you.
So there’s three of us (including me), and now our little Gigulator. There’s still a ton of work to do, but we’re almost ready to show you the first bit. If you haven’t already, drop your details in at http://gigulate.com and we’ll be in touch soon. Promise.
Ben Perreau
x
We’ve been sat on this for a little while, not too long. Weeks, not months. Sorry. It’s come from a few little discoveries we’ve all had working with music over the last few years: Namely, that good quality music information is hard to find, and that you’d be silly to rely on one place for all of it. In the past, I’ve often found myself listlessly sifting through various websites on the lookout for the latest, most useful information on a band I have just been listening to, or loved and missed. Of course – I eventually found it – but I’ve never been sure who was the most reliable source. Who got to the story first? Who has the best access to the information? And which site merely read the story, copied it and rewrote it?
Likewise, Music fans like us rely on music information a fair bit: to tell you when a band announces a tour, a new record, to tell each other what we think of it, or even just to find out what artists are up to. Most importantly (and this is the irritating bit) there’s nowhere to go to find out who the most talked about bands of the moment are and just find a way to see them play – we’re all agreed that it’s the only way to know if they’re any good.
Gigulate has been designed with the help of music journalists and writers to quickly solve that little conundrum. Our mighty wizards are almost done creating a machine able to find out who’s talking about bands you love, and who everybody is talking about that perhaps you don’t know. In the shortest space of time, you’ll be able to get right up to speed.
All of this information will help you decipher music without wading through endless pages, the Gigulator is designed to work out who the most authoritative sources are, and bubble up the best stories with Gigs for every band available right next to them so that you can book tickets to the most talked about bands easily. This very second, it’s sat in the corner of our tiny bedsit, sifting through the mass, and learning as it goes. Less time spent = more time for fun.
More on how it will work soon,
xx
