Moshbag

Silence is the new LOUD!

A little over 2 weeks since we went a”live” & yet we remain in silence.

Why?

‘cause “Silence is the new loud!”

What did we get?

Loud Feedback, Loud Opinions, Loud Changes, & Loud Announcements!

What we did?

Domain Changed!

http://moshbag.in now redirects to http://moshbag.com. 

Signups from international artists meant we had to go international & open all doors. Which also means subscribers can now enjoy music, movies, & books from artists anywhere around the world!

UI Changed!

We’ve tweaked & rearranged & redesigned our website! Making it all the more easier for you to know exactly what we’re doing & how we plan to do it!

Artists acquired!

There’s nothing more inspiring that artists coming forward to support us & let us know that they believe in us!

We have onboard:

Will Sid Smith - A 17 year old singer/songwriter from UK! 

Fallen Manga Studios - Fantasy Comic book writers from Virginia, US!

Head over to our “Moshlist” a.k.a Artist feature page from more info & links on these amazing artists! You’re also welcome to comment & rate these artists!

Are you an artist? Wanted to be listed as well?

Then, needless to say, Signup! 

Subscribers acquired!

We continue to get more subscribers & more so their personal preferences on genres of music, movies, & books they like.

Yes, you can too! If you are a music addict/movie buff/book lover/all three you can download a whole lot of it! Signup already!

What more?

- We’re heavy duty busy building our full feature awesome looking mind bending new website!

- We’re stalking & talking to artists anywhere and everywhere left-right-and-center!

- Last but not the least, we’re having fun do it all! :)

Come on now! Follow Us around! We love Stalkers & All paparazzi!

One week since our launch.. and..

It’s been a week since we soft launched our startup,

Moshbag beta and…

“We’ve had hundreds of artists signup & thousands of subscribers!”

is what we’d have ideally liked to say, but…the truth the far from real & it’s honesty time!

We’ve had almost no new signups, little response to our email campaigning, & a tad over  5 new likes on our facebook page.

But it’s interesting that we’ve had a lot of views on our blog, quora board, & the website in general.

There are also two startling observations we’ve made & are yet to fully understand the reasons for it.

1. Our landing pages for artists & subscribers got far more new signups than our actual beta website!
2. The existing list of artists who signed up showed little enthusiasm to our email launch alert & I reckon were lazy to share their links with us.

The whole episode has humbled us & now it’s time for introspection. 

Can we ask you to give us your honest feedback & pick one of the below?

1. You hated the idea!

2. The website sucks!

3. I still don’t get it!

4. We’ll wait till you launch the full version with all the features!

Comment here or send in your replies to comet@moshbag.in & give us your head smacking opinions that we really need right now!

We will truly appreciate your response!

P.S. We’re looking to increase the number of artists who signup with us & truly appreciate any help from your end on this. So if you have a good network of artists following you or if you can just help us reach them, we’d be grateful. Again, you can reach out to me here comet@moshbag.in. 

Looking forward!

Cheers!

Comet

Founder, Moshbag

http://moshbag.in

What is Moshbag?

- Moshbag lets musicians, writers, & filmmakers upload ONLY their newest, latest, & unreleased singles/movies/books & Subscribers get to download it ALL for a small subscription fee every month.

Dear Artists…

If you are an artist (be it a musician, a filmmaker, or a writer) in this digital age, then you’ve most definitely used services from Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube to release your new work, reach out to fans, & earn your living. A lot of your success on these platforms depends on pure appeal. A slick cover image, an eyeball grabbing title, a good network of followers, & healthy reviews are basic. 

The competiton too is stiff. You’re up against many who’re trying hard equally to garner more fans & make enough money. Now let’s talk about the pricing. Too high & the buyers think twice. Too low & the buyers think it’s cheap or of low quality.

To top it all, you also have to agree to forego 30% of your earnings  to each service provider (Amazon, ITunes, etc) on every download/sale you can acheive. As for options for making side-money, you can forget about the ad profit sharing dream (youtube) unless your super popular to the power of 3. The streaming business is akin to taking all of your hard work & sharing it on the world-wide web for free. Read this interesting article on business insider if you don’t believe me.

Some additional fans & give or take a few dollars is what you’ll end up with. Nothing gratifying & an effort, you’ll agree, was just not worth it. You might have come to quietly accept this reality that artists today cannot making a decent living.

This is why we’ve decided to stepped in.

“To help Independent artists get together, get paid, & get noticed - fair & square”

Presenting MOSHBAG!…

Moshbag is a platform for Independent artists to upload only their new, original, & unreleased work, on the go, as & when it’s ready (oven fresh). No waiting for an whole album release/publishing gigs/film festivals/movie screenings.  The only catch is that you can upload just ONE new single, movie, or book per month. 

This is to ensure quality (gives you time to release your best work each month) and quantity (subscribers cannot consume too many singles, movies, & books every month)

Visitors to our website (music addicts, movie buffs, & books lovers) will have the opportunity to preview all newly releasing music, movies, & books from various artists in a given month. Existing subscribers will have weekly sneak peeks. And if they wish they can download everything (all uploads, yes everything) at the end of that month for a $10 minimum subscription fee.

Moshbag distributes 90% of the entire subscription money collected to all artists who’ve released their work in the given month equally and keeps just 10% of it. Why equally? ‘Cause we beleive that this way the artist community can help itself. Popular artists with more followers can help other less known artists get a wider reach.  How? By the power of collaborative campaigning!

Moshbag is the entire package where subscribers pay to download new releases from all artists collectively. In effect, the whole artists community is now one BIG TEAM blasting out new releases & reaching out to fans of one another. And truly, the whole is greater than the sum of parts & we’re not kidding. An artist(s) who generally could gain about 1000 followers on his own can now join hands with other artists on Moshbag and garner more followers (subscribers) than he can ever imagine. This video will help you better understand this.

More the number of subscribers, more the revenue & more money distributed per artist. To put it plainly, an artist can earn a lot more money on each new song/movie/book that he uploads on Moshbag than on any other platform that currently exists. Here’s an hypothetical case study to prove this.

That’s everything there is to Moshbag, our new venture, and your new ally.

We hope that, in the coming years, artists from all genres will view Moshbag as their first go-to place to launch their new & upcoming releases.

We also hope music addicts, movie buffs, & book lovers from around the world discover great music, movies, & books from an eclectic blend of independent artists.

Welcome all to http://moshbag.in

Cheers!

Comet

Founder, Moshbag

P.S. This post is up on Hacker News. If you liked it, please comment & upvote this.

Do you Download stuff, Stream it, or have it On Cloud?

I recently read an article that predicted that the global revenues of streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, etc is set to grow 5 times faster than the revenues from downloads. 

I’m somehow not too convinced. But it has indeed seeded an element of doubt in my mind. Personally, I would love the option of not having to store physical files (music, movies, or books) on my hard disk, I won’t have to worry about losing my data, I get unlimited access to all the new content & it’s relatively cheap considering the unlimited access.

It’s a no brainer that artists get paid the least in this scenario. They’d need a whole lot of plays/views to make any kind of money out of this. But what really matters is not how the system works but what the end user really wants.

So, if the article were to be true, is it fair to assume that having content on the go, in the cloud, is more viable & less painful, than having to download a lot of content?

Is cloud based entertainment the future?

Now I’ve been toying with various distribution options for Moshbag starting from allowing direct downloads or using Dropbox to offload content to synching the content with platforms people commonly use like iTunes for music, Kindle for books, etc. To those who don’t know yet, Moshbag is a subscription based distribution platform for new music, movies, & books. In short, we distribute only the latest & newest songs, movies, & books from independent artists directly to subscribers.

Given the enormity of the content we might be dealing with it makes good sense to consider what our subscribers want & how exactly would they want it served.

So, please help us out by taking this small survey:

How do you access your music/movie files & ebooks?

We’ll try to implement our distribution system a lot based on the results.

Your opinion on this matters!

Cheers!

Comet

Founder, Moshbag

We are giving birth. Literally.

“Beta” literally translates to “son” in Hindi language. So yes, we’re in labor trying to give birth to our one ‘n only and our much awaited “son” - Moshbag beta. The only question is when?

Now I have to admit, we had initially planned to launch Moshbag in July to coincide with our birthdays (Yes, both founders are July borns!). But we both knew that it was far fetched. There are 2 reasons for this: first, we started work on Moshbag only in June this year & second, we have day jobs (this is of course to fund this project. We don’t intend to meet any Angels at this juncture & would instead prefer to meet Bootstrap Bill!)

We have a ridiculously short gestation period, going by the principles of Lean. So, we’ve compromised on a fancy UI & you won’t find a zillion features to begin with. Just the basics - artists will be able to upload their new stuff on Moshbag & subscribers will be able to signup & stay updated. That’s it!

I’m also not embarrassed at all to reveal that the entire UI was built using Weebly! It  has allowed us to mock-up a quick website with limited coding skills. But don’t worry, we’ll be working on our Moshbag Baap version once we celebrate our baby shower & set things rolling. Oh, and btw, “Baap” literally translates to “father” in Hindi!

I still haven’t given out our launch date, have I? The doctors say we’re due sometime in the first week of next month, i.e. September, 2012. So here’s hoping that all goes well & we have a healthy happy Beta arriving!

You can have a look at him once we’ve confirmed the delivery. Till then, I thank you for your patience, support, & encouragement!

Cheers!

Comet

Founder, Moshbag

How do you rate an artist?

Art they say is relative. So it must be the artist who sells. Fame is a good indication of how good or bad he is. But surely, there must be more to it.

I’m often confounded by this question, “How do you rate an artist?”. Is it the number of facebook likes or the number of twitter followers? Is it the number of visitors to his blog/website or the number of comments he gets? Is it number of gigs/premieres/publishings to his name or his sales figures?

Quantifying artists is not the same as the quality of artists. How would you measure the uniqueness of his art? The unlikely chord changes, the lyrical genius, the abstract passages, & the unexplained mind provoking scenes.

While envisioning Moshbag (http://moshbag.in), our new platform for independent artists, I had to take these questions into consideration. ‘Cause for one, subscribers who wish to discover new music/movies/books often expect the unexpected. It is foremost, that they truly appreciate what we’re offering & that they find the best artists out there in the industry.

We on the other hand have the liability to showcase the most underground, the often unnoticed, & equally deserving performers to our subscribers along with other known celebrities on our platform.

So it is imperative for us to be brutally selective of the artists we accept on Moshbag. We’ve decided to take a holistic approach to rate artists. We expect every artist to have at least a Facebook page/ twitter account, & a simple website to start with. We are eager to learn and discover every gig/story/movie they have their names associated with. We’ll take pains to follow & track their every artistic activity. We’ll also give a personal listen/read/look at every work they’ve published.

As as sidekick, we are also hoping established artists will recommend other awesome artists to join our platform & help us find them. 

We recommend every artist to often blog about their work & journey. We wish to see them pursue their art feverishly & tell us all about it. We’ll soon study & feature  their amazing stories.

So here’s me calling all introverted artists to write to me at comet@moshbag.in with their story & extroverted artists to step in.

Signup with us at http://artists.moshbag.in & learn more about what we’re doing. Here’s a short video (http://www.youtube.com/embed/7HzHgqi5-k8) that’ll help you understand our true intentions. 

You can also follow our Quora board http://quora.com/moshies or our blog (http://moshbag.tumblr.com) for new posts & updates from our end.

Or Like our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/moshbag) or follow us @moshbag on twitter, If you prefer social networking.

Cheers!

Comet

Moshbag - The Santa Claus story!

Think of Moshbag as Santa Claus 

who distributes gifts (new music, movies, & books)

made exclusively by elves (Independent musicians, 

writers, & filmmakers)

for children who’ve been good! (subscribers who pay a small fee)

This way each subscriber gets to discover new artists & open his box of chocolates!

Moshbag takes all the subscription money collected & distributes 90% of it to all artists.

This way all the independent artists are now a team with a bunch of regular subscribers & Moshbag as their proud distributor! 

Hope you enjoyed the story!

Cheers!

Comet

Discover & Download New Music, New Movies, & New Books!

We’ve found crazy ass musicians, filmmakers, & writers who often go unnoticed in this marketing driven industry! You only see movies, hear music, or read books that are pushed down your throat on television, radio, or press. Now here’s you chance to go down the rabbit hole & discover a whole a new world of independent artists.

Artists upload their work on Moshbag & you get to open the box of chocolates. As the saying goes, you’ll never know what you might get or what to expect! But we assure you that you’ll love what you hear, see, or read on Moshbag. We handpick artists who’ve struggled to get where they are, who’ve touched many lives, & who’ve given it all to get some love in return. 

We’re launching Moshbag soon. Get ready to hit that DOWNLOAD button to discover music you’ve never heard, books you’ve never read, & movies you’ve seen!

If you are an independent musician, writer, or a filmmaker waiting to be discovered, head over here: http://artists.moshbag.in & join our ever growing community!

Zen master,

Comet

Yes, we understand. You will receive your paychecks soon!

Who says artists don’t work for money?

Today, the journey of my artistic startup begins. I’m setting out to meet as many musician friends, writer buddies, & film making buffs out there in the coming weeks.  So if you are a musician, writer, or a film maker, I’d be honored to have you answer my earnest queries.

Here’s my list:

1. Is piracy really killing the art industry?
2. What avenues are there for independent artists?
3. Have iTunes, myspace, self-publishing platforms, film festivals & other such platforms truly helped artists?
4. Can you truly live off of your art today? How do you do it?
5. Where are the gigs/writing contracts/screenings? How often are they happening? How well or badly are you being paid for it?
6. What more can you do or are you doing to make it “big”?
7. Few Gigs.. some money.. an album/book/movie .. what next?
8. What cool awesome things are artists today doing in order to get noticed?
9. What do you prefer? Mainstream popularity & Underground following?
10. What is good art (music/book/movie)? How do you rate or qualify it?

We’re working hard to build something of value to all you independent artists out there. OUR MISSION is to make sure that “the time, love, and effort that you put into making your art will NEVER AGAIN go unnoticed, wasted, or unpaid for”. So, please do take the time to answer some of these questions if you can, we’d love it. 

You can even choose to answer just one of the questions elaborately, please feel free! And we do promise to feature your replies in our coming blogs for all to see.

P.S. - I’m a musician & a writer myself. More about me: http://flavors.me/ccomet

Cheers!

Comet