The stage is nearly set for us here at American Music Channel, the only online discovery platform built and operated by music industry professionals!
There’s a lot to cover as we are almost ready to officially launch, so let me take a minute to explain what we do, who we are, where we are going. Here at the American Music Channel we enable emerging artists and music industry professionals to do three major things:
- Build– Artists and professionals can build a meaningful presence and reputation within the music industry.
- Connect– Artists and industry insiders can connect professionally and socially in a variety of interesting ways.
- Amplify– Artists and professionals can be more effective in the development of their career and in their interactions with industry.
Our founder and CEO, Hal Willis, has deep music industry roots with a highlight reel focused on management, distribution and technology for the music industry. While the CEO of Country Music Television, he championed a major expansion of digital video services, bringing American country music to new homes all over the globe. Along the way he pioneered new telecommunication technologies that would later become foundational to broadband Internet and video distribution services worldwide.
Hal has met thousands of unsigned and emerging artists, each one working diligently (and often blindly), waiting for that “big break” to happen. As a key player in the music business, Hal saw a bigger picture of the industry’s dysfunction as artists struggled to get established, make connections, and launch their career. A new model to use technology-driven platforms to help make those connections happen was needed, and the American Music Channel was born.
I met Hal in early 2015 as part of a research and development effort to prototype some new ideas for the American Music Channel’s new discovery platform. I was working as the Director of Undergraduate Programs for the College of Computing and Technology at Lipscomb University here in Nashville when Hal and a business associate came in looking for fresh ideas in the technology space. Over the next year or so, a team of faculty and students worked to brainstorm, prototype and implement new ideas for the platform. We made tremendous progress over that year and I ended up joining the American Music Channel full time.
We are currently testing this new platform with a focused team of beta users, each working to exercise the new features of the platform and provide feedback. We are only as good as our users make us, so each person who contributes to this place adds value to the community. To all of you who have labored with us these past months: thank you.
I look forward to seeing where the journey takes us!
–Steve
