MUSIC FOR YOUR SMARTPHONE!

In our desire to remain relevant for both Russian and Western visitors to the site, we started looking for a platform that would allow us to use 3G technology in the broadest fashion possible – and legally, too.

Given that a great deal of music on this site comes from independent artists, and that much of what we offer is freely-available promo material, it seemed possible that we could find an app grounded in social networking technology.

This, in turn, would help us to bypass the phone companies in the US, UK, and Russia, each with their faux-ITunes or proprietary set-ups, making file transfers difficult between customers of two or more phone plans.

Thankfully we came across CloudTrade.  Whenever legally possible from now on, we will be uploading images and audio from our site to their clouds. This can then be downloaded by you – and shared on your smartphones!

As we write, there are already hundreds of tagged songs and images for you to enjoy.  If you like a song from this site, and we’re allowed to pass it on legally, then we’ve done so!

How It Works:

A. Individual Users and Musicians with Promo-Tracks for Free Distribution.

All individual users and musicians with promo material are invited to register on the Cloudtrade portal, secure their own respective clouds and upload digital content (music, videos, or photos) to their clouds. After that you can enjoy accessing content and listening to music anywhere, anytime on your mobile phones!

We invite other registered users to become friends or join the networks of other registered users.  Cloudtrade users can start sharing non-copyrighted content (video, photos, etc.) with their friends.

Please send me all the material that you’d like to see distributed more widely.  I already have hundreds of songs and many more photos in the “far_from_moscow” cloud, which I have created in cooperation with Cloudtrade.

My “far_from_moscow” cloud is set as a default friend to all Cloudtrade users and its content can be searched, downloaded onto smart phones!  It can be shared among friends through the use of Cloudtrade’s sharing functionality.  We are up and running!

In the very near future, Cloudtrade will permit the free sharing of copyrighted digital music and other copyrighted content, allowing users to search and share copyrighted music, videos and other content freely and legally.  I have created and am maintaining the only on-line Russian music resource (“far_from_moscow”) at Cloudtrade, before their free sharing of copyrighted digital music and other copyrighted content is open to use.  This way we always respect copyright!

2. Copyrighted Material and Labels

Cloudtrade invites and welcomes all music label companies and independent musicians to promote their music to the Cloudtrade community.  In order to promote their music to that community musicians and labels need to execute an agreement with Cloudtrade.  To do so, please contact Chris Li at Cloudtrade: Chris.li@cloudtrade.com.  Of course, all business users are also encouraged to register on Cloudtrade as individual users as well.  That way you can enjoy all the features and functionalities currently available to the individual users as indicated above.

Further Context:

Here’s an article from Mobile Crunch, published in April, 2008.  It explains and assesses the application.  Join us at cloudtrade.com!  We’re there, as mentioned, under the name of far_from_moscow

Cloudtrade is looking to register 10,000 people to help test its new mobile sharing platform. Testers will look for kinks and share their thoughts with the developers on how best to improve the service. The beta test supports all Windows-based mobile phones and a select group of Blackberry and non-Windows smart phones.

The free, ad-supported social media networking application features 1GB of free digital storage. Features like Cloud Hop, Search the Skies, Ski Writing and Friend’s Feeds enable users to find new content. Users can find music, photos and videos to share with friends via their cell phone.

Cloudtrade is currently working with major music labels so content can legally be downloaded and shared with friends. Until those deals are made, users can sample music from smaller labels and independent artists.

“People are demanding media-rich content for their phones,” said Raj Kanapur, CEO of Cloudtrade. “Cloudtrade’s ad-supported model gives users free access to this type of content and encourages them to form a community around preferences in music, photos and videos. Our platform also empowers users by giving them the ability to market their content – I tell people, if you’re interested in pictures of animals, here are 30 other users who share that interest. Now reach out to those people on Cloudtrade, begin sharing, and start earning rewards.”