(CelebrityAccess News Service) – Garageband.com, the world's largest online community of independent musicians, has reached several important milestones. With Vivendi-Universal's recent shutdown of MP3.com and the domain's sale to CNET, http://Garageband.com target = blank>Garageband.com is now the internet's largest source of legal free music.
The milestones include:
The Garageband.com community now boasts 200,000 independent musicians in virtually every genre;
-The company has closed a $200,000 round of financing from private investors;
-The company reported its first month of positive cash flow from operations; and
-The recent shut-down of MP3.com leaves Garageband.com as both the largest musician community and the largest source of legal free music on the internet.
Multi-platinum producer Jerry Harrison (of Talking Heads fame), who co-founded Garageband.com in 1999, reaffirmed his commitment by investing money in the company for the first time and assuming the role of chairman of the Board of Directors. Sir George Martin, the industry legend who discovered and produced The Beatles, also reaffirmed his position as chairman of Garageband's Advisory Board.
"The secret to Garageband.com's success," said CEO Ali Partovi, "is our unique method for ranking songs. Every song on our chart is rated by randomly-assigned listeners, and a collaborative filtering system identifies the best music. Unlike other music sites and 'voting' mechanisms, our system can't be easily skewed or cheated. This is what makes Garageband attractive to musicians, radio programmers, industry reps, and consumers." -Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner
