IndiePodcasting.com Offers Music from Indie Artists to Webcasters, Podcasters and Music Journalists

May 9, 2005 -- One of the Internet's latest crazes, podcasting, has been off to a running start with new podcasts popping up daily. Most podcasts emulate radio programs, which listeners can download and listen to on their iPods or other mp3 device whenever they wish. However, podcasting can have other entertainment uses. It can also be used by a music promoter to distribute individual songs as promotional samples to subscribing webcasters, podcasters, music journalists, etc. who are looking for music to add to their projects. A service called IndiePodcasting is taking advantage of this fact to market songs to potential sources of artist exposure.

Having been involved in programming online radio for five years, IndiePodcasting's founder, Tony Alexander, had screened literally thousands of bands for airplay when podcasting first hit the scene. "I was getting tons of music from everywhere. Indie bands and managers were submitting their CDs through regular mail and sending links to MP3's via e-mail. When my CD racks ran out of space, I eventually had to limit submissions to presentations from an online electronic press kit service called Sonicbids, which presented a nice package for review.", says Alexander. "I try my best to listen to everything, so it can take a long time to go through that much unscreened material. Much of what arrives is pretty average, but there are some real winners out there."

Shortly after hearing about podcasting, Alexander began to develop the idea for IndiePodcasting. He was sure that other radio programmers and media sources looking for bands to review would welcome the idea of using a screening service to save time. Podcasting would allow such a service to submit prescreened music to subscribers on a regular basis and also save the hassle presented by opening CDs or visiting tons of artist websites. Instead of wading through heaps of CDs and emails, all a subscriber has to do is check an RSS feed reader or podcast receiver for updates.

According to Alexander, "What we do is weed out the less talented, those with weak production, weak songs, or poor recordings. We check submissions for overall quality, then promote their material to potential sources of exposure. Decisions are not based on personal likes or dislikes. We leave that up to the podcast subscribers. We do, however, guarantee that a subscriber will not be presented with out-of-key vocals, poor quality recordings, or obviously weak songs."

Those who subscribe to IndiePodcasting feeds receive two minute versions of songs from all of the currently promoted artists within a given genre. Every time a new artist is added, the subscriber automatically receives the new song. Each artist remains in a podcast stream for three months. Therefore, if 500 people subscribe or are already subscribed to a feed during an artist's three month promotion, 500 subscribers will receive his or her song. There are currently two genre related feeds, one covering rock/pop/alternative and one covering hip-hop and R&B. Interested parties can subscribe to either or both. If a subscriber finds an interesting artist, the item description for the artist's mp3 enclosure contains a short bio and website information to contact the artist. The IndiePodcasting website also has an artist directory which contains artist information.

Artists who sign up for the three month promotion benefit from the large potential for additional exposure. In addition to the promotional podcasts, IndiePodcasting sponsors groups on community building sites such as MySpace.com that promote the artists and their music is also played on Alexa Digital Radio, an IndiePodcasting affiliate and one of the Live 365 Radio Network's top online stations for both rock and hip-hop.

For more information, visit the website at www.indiepodcasting.com. Musicians interested in submitting material for promotion consideration should visit www.sonicbids.com/indiepodcasting. Alexa Digital Radio can be found at www.live365.com/stations/aamedia.

To subscribe to IndiePodcasting RSS feeds/podcasts, use the following URLs:
Rock/Pop/Alternative URL
http://www.indiepodcasting.com/podcasts.xml
Hip-Hop/R&B/Urban URL
http://www.indiepodcasting.com/urbanpodcasts.xml