Company Information
DATE POSTED: October 21, 1996
LOS ANGELES, CA - Record companies and indie artists alike can now utilize a new technology adapted by Kaleidospace Independent Internet artists, one of the Web's hottest and most active sites for unsigned artists. Kaleidospace will convert artists' audio CDs to include Internet connectivity, allowing every fan who buys their audio CDs to use them to connect to the artists' web sites. By playing the CD on their CD-ROM drive, an artist's fan can utilize the software necessary to connect to the Internet in a simple, self-installing package. This is much more than an "enhanced CD" - it's a gateway to the whole Internet. Both new and existing CDs can be remastered to become Kspace-Internet-Ready.
Kaleidospace founder Jeannie Novak and her partner Pete Markiewicz will demonstrate this new technique for turning CDs and CD-ROMs into "Kspace-Internet-Ready" products during this weekend's NAS Songwriters Expo 19, to be held Friday October 25 through Sunday October 27 at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel (150 S. Los Robles at Cordova in Pasadena). The NAS Expo will be open from 9am-7:30pm (6:30pm on Sunday), and Jeannie will moderate Saturday's panel, "The Net-You're Either On It or You're Out of It," 4-6pm.
The first album ever released using this new technology will be Jeannie Novak's own CD, "Reign of Fire," an album of original piano compositions recorded before she started Kspace nearly three years ago. "I wanted to start a new way to market independent music, including my own," says Internet pioneer Novak, "and when I started Kspace, it took off so fast that I had to put my musical plans on hold until now. Fortunately, during this time, we have created and developed the revolutionary idea of integrating music with the growing Internet culture."
Not only can artists turn their CDs into "Kspace-Internet-Ready" products, but fans who purchase the CDs will have an initial period of free Internet access. Kspace will provide a commission for each account kept after the free period. In this way, "Kspace-Internet-Ready" CDs could provide additional revenue-even if an artist gives away their CDs! Once fans are online, the artist's personal web site will be their first stop on the Internet. Using "Kspace-Internet-Ready" CDs, artists and companies can begin to form their own online fan communities, and provide:
- access to private areas of their sites
- access to "hidden" album tracks
- tour info and ticket sales
- new music related to their CDs
- online ordering of new albums
- music collaborations
- live online "chat"
- international access to their music
Kspace-Internet-Ready mastering is the newest service from Kaleidospace - launched in January 1994 as one of the first ten commercial web sites. Kspace was the first site to sell independent art and music over the Internet, and today has over 500 musicians, visual artists, performers and filmmakers using its Internet service. Kspace, winner of numerous awards-including finalist status in the National Information Infrastructure Awards, the original Cool Site of the Day and Point Top 5% of the web-is one of the Internet's major success stories and currently receives over 1,000,000 "hits" per week.
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