It has been crazy hectic over the last week since my last post. I’ve been extremely busy working on the planning for our presence at the upcoming MAGIC Marketplace in Las Vegas, August 28 to the 31st.

On Saturday, I’ll be on Jet Blue with my homie, Fresnel aka Madsol Desar, headed to what is considered one of the largest fashion retail trade shows in the country. In the spring, I walked the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center as a first-timer during the Fall show to get a feel for how business is transacted and to do a bit of networking with top brands.

What I took away from my first foray into the world of retail fashion is that it was important for Entertainment Media Works to have a StarStyle.com presence at the event in August. It seems as if there’s been this focus on music and fashion over the last few months, especially with the heavily promoted Fashion Rocks event taking place on Septemeber 7 at Radio City Music Hall.

Sponsored by Conde Nast, Cingular and others (maybe you’ve seen the Fashion Rocks ads in all Conde Nast publications), like GQ and Glamour, as well as the Fashion Rocks magazine that arrived in mailboxes with Conde Nast publications over the last few weeks. There’s also been a column in Rolling Stone, I think every third or fourth week, that takes a look at music and fashion.

Of course, music and fashion are intextricably linked, but oddly their world’s collide infrequently in the public realm. There are probably all sorts of reason’s fasion mags and record labels are starting to develop co-marketing partnerships, but I won’t get into that here. I’m just glad it’s beginning to happen with frequency, that’s all.

As more music videos contain products chosen by celebrity stylists or paid for placements by major urban brands, at StarStyle, we anticipated a demand and have proven it exists. With broadband adoption rates climbing, the dynamics of how people learn about new fashions is changing overnight. Both the fashion and music industry will be forced to change and adapt to new consumer purchasing demands.

That being said, my colleagues at EMW and I set forth to put the wheels in motion by organizing a presence at the event. We brought in a fashion retail marketing expert, Sandra Mihalenko, who helped us to shape our message and create a booth where we’ll showcase EMW’s product’s including StarStyle.com and TheLookBook.

I’m looking forward to the event. It’ll be my second time in Vegas and I’m hoping that we accomplish the goal we’ve set for ourselves, which is to show the fashion community how StarStyle is changing the dynamic by allowing people to buy what they see in tv, film and music video, while our LookBook product begins to shape the fashion product integration dynamic for years to come.

I’ll be back in the Big Apple over Labor Day, but then it’s right back out to Billboard R&B and Hip Hop in Atlanta, and then onto Nashville for more meetings. Lot’s of travel! Should be exciting.

I really, really wanted to check out the Billboard Dandce Music summit, but unfortunately it falls the week after Billboard R&B and Hip Hop and I just can’t stay away from the office for three weeks in a row.

I’m off, but will be checking in here periodically with photos and text to keep you all informed.

On August 27th at the New York Hilton Hotel (1135 Avenue of the Americas, btw 53rd and 54th), producer Jamie Siegel, who lists credits on productions including Smashing Pumpkins, Joss Stone, Taking Back Sunday, Lauren Hill and more, will demonstrate music production techniques geared toward’s those who want to learn how to produce tracks in a home studio.

The $179 registration cost gets you into the event beginning at 9 am with two sessions ending at 4 pm. Jamie will demonstrate how to create a standard, radio ready track using various digital audio production tools, including ProTools, Cubase, Reason, Live, Logic and Garageband. He’ll cover pre-production, recording, editing and mixing with the help of recording artist, Chloe, who will be on hand to provide live vocals and keyboard parts.

This might be a cool introductory look for those of you who are interested in a career in music production. In my opinion, it’s not too expensive. And if it’s something that interests you, then you can invest more by taking classes at schools like SAE, or IAR.

To find out more about this seminar and register, check out http://www.producerlab.com.

Don’t the people at Live Nation surf the web? You have to ask, have they done their homework? To leave the sale of tickets to Live Nation events to the over 20,000 + Burnlounge affiliates is a sure bet to dilute your brand, cause confusion in the marketplace and leave the sale of pricey concert tickets to the less than business savvy. Then again, I guess the folks at Live Nation must have read Wired editor, Chris Anderson’s recent book, “The Long Tail.” They figure, better to let 20,000 kids try and sell a pair of tickets to their friends, then have us actually do our jobs and do it ourselves.

I tell my girlfriend all the time, “let’s not speculate,” but I’m going to have go out on the proverbial limb here, because it only makes sense right? Sorry, babe, I’ve gone to the dark side. Time to speculate.

So, let’s think about this for a minute. The folks at Live Nation are probably saying, “Who’s closer to the bands than these kids with delusional and zealous devotion to this Burnlounge service? They’ve spent $200 or $400 plus a monthly fee to buy into something that they can’t advertise anywhere, and that they can’t really make a whole lotta money from, unless they are at the top of the freakin PYRAMID! Who cares if half these kids have no business experience? Who cares if half these Burloungers don’t really care about selling downloads or concert tickets, when their bread and butter is selling Burnlounge stores to other suckers?”

What Live Nation has done is to potentially tarnish its growing brand and reputation when the grand Burnlounge experiment goes under, leaving thousands of kids in the lurch, with no tix to an event. To incentivize Burnloungers to go out and sell tickets to their friends for these shows, Live Nation is going to give special VIP access to shows to Burnloungers and they’ll get a live data feed from Live Nation as to ticket availability and show schedules, among other insider items.

Sorry, can’t I get that on Ticketmaster.com? Why would I care to buy $325 Madonna tix from the DJ at the club? What happens if they don’t show up? Who do I call? The DJ or Burnlounge or Live Nation? I’d rather call a trusted source, like Ticketmaster or the venue than a Burnlounger I ran into by chance at a local bar, restaurant or bowling alley.

Folks, truth be told, I’m just still not a fan of Burnlounge. I’m just not convinced that the Burnlounge model is the best model. I’ve been flamed over and over again in forums and on blogs by Burnloungers who swear this service is the second coming of the record industry. They have taken to use prophetic language on some newsgroups, bulletin boards and email marketing messages to let the world know Burnloungers will rise above the negativity of the music business, with the help of course of special super powers and spirit-like sensibilities, to show the world the power of the Burnlounge mystique and take over with Howard Dean-esh fervor.

Here is an example from Gordon Finlayson’s post on Burnlounge at DigitalMusic.Weblogsinc.com:

We Will Succeed By Attracting To Ourself The Forces We Wish To Use, And The Cooperation Of Other People. We Will Eliminate Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Selfishness, And Cynicism, By Developing Love For All Humanity, Because We Know That A Negative Attitude Toward Others Can NEVER Bring Us Success. We Will Cause Others To Believe In Us, Because We Will Believe In Them, And In Ourself. We Will Start Today. - Kris

Give me a break!

My complaints about Burnlounge continue to be:

1. The only place on their entire web site do they let potential Burnlounge affiliates know that they can only sell Windows Media DRM files, which do not play on iPods is buried in one paragraph of section 5 in their terms of use that states, “Portable Devices must support the Windows Media Audio (”WMA”) format and meet “Class 1000″ standards. WMAs are not compatible with any Macintosh Operating Systems.” That’s it folks, an estimated over 70% of the digital music generation listening to downloadable music on an iPod that cannot download music files from Burnlounge. It doesn’t even say, “iPod,” which it should!

2. The use of MLM marketing techniques to create a pyramid-like structure where the people at the top make money from all the Burnloungers underneath them without having to lift a finger. The Mogul program, where I can become a mogul if I pay “X” to Burnlounge, then I get a commission on sign-up fees of affiliates I bring in plus a piece of their sales keeps anyone below the second or third (at best) tier from making any real money, as they have to split their profits upstream. I strongly believe that anyone who opens a Burnlounge store should play on an even playing field than the next guy. Everyone should share equally in the profits on sales of digital music, not one guy (or girl) reaping the benefits of tens of Burnloungers underneath him (or her) that are only paying up to the mogul by association, and not by distributor/retailer relationship.

3. As far as I know, in their MLM rah-rah get togethers, they continually fail to accurately describe what the profit split is on Burnlounge sales. It wasn’t until a few months after the meeting I went to and after my original posting about Burnlounge, that I finally came across some blog postings describing the revenue model for Burnlounge affiliates. What they don’t tell you is that after the labels, Loudeye (their distributor), themselves and the mogul who signed you up, you’re really only looking at pennies per track sold for major and indy label product that isn’t your own. When I asked about the revenue model, I was told to call the marketing director, which I did, and he never called me back. Correction: Independent artists who upload and sell their own tracks in their Burnlounge stores get, I’ve heard, about 60 cents per track. I’m not sure what the actual number is, but it’s fair to say that’s the ballpark number I’ve heard tossed around.

4. The fact that many Burnloungers who have never run a business in their lives continue to call Burnlounge a “franchise” opportunity, which is completely false. Burnlounge is not franchising anything, you are basically buying a book of DVD’s on the how to of running a Burnlounge store. You’re given access to the technology and the same tracks everyone else has in their stores, and then left to your own devices with little in the way of integrated marketing support to help you spread your message. At times, Burnlounge affiliate memebers can be cult-like, to the point where I just hit “delete.” Burnlounge is not a franchise. If it were, you’d be assigned a territory all your own and another Burnlounger could not infringe on that territory. You would receive marketing support in the form of advertising across all media, and you split the profits with the parent who supplies you equally with everyone else in your market. Therefore, you are insured that you can compete on a level playing field with the guy down a mile down the road. With Burnlounge, you may run into ten people in one nightclub and everyone is vying for one customer. 9 out of the 10 lose out if the customer chooses 1 Burnlounger. You don’t have a terriotory folks…it’s every man or woman for him/herself. And, what would you rather do, try to sell the customer a Burnlounge franchise where you can make more money on the set up fee, or get them to purchase music, which is pennies? If you averaged it out, Burnloungers probably spend more time trying to sign up other Burnloungers than they do selling actual music. The dilution of the marketing message and the confusion this causes to the customer is going to be very problematic for Burnlounge.

Some accuse me of posting about Burnlounge to get traffic to my web site. That’s funny! I don’t have to post to about Burnlounge to get traffic here. I’ve been a respected member of the dance music industry for over 20-years and have developed a strong and knowledgeable reputation in the music industry. I don’t need Burnlounge to help me do anything that I can’t do myself. Netmix was here long before Burnlounge, and I strongly believe, will be here long after. Mainly, because it’s just lil’ol me and no one else. I invest in it myself and I have no one to report but myself…lol.

Just on my first post alone, I’ve seen hundreds of entries in my referrer logs looking for real, qualified information on Burnlounge. From people (vultures?) who want to get in on some stock play to disappointed Burnloungers who got out of the game or just those looking for general, thruthful information about Burnlounge; there are many people seeking real, solid information on Burnlounge. One would think you can go to their web site for that information. You know…to get the truth. Yeah, the truth. That’s right. T-R-U-T-H…that spells truth. Is the truth just saying “Macintosh Operating System” or can you go one step further and say, iPod?

On one blog, a Burnlounger has even started to spread a rumor that Apple will create some sort of plug-in for Burnlounge files. HA! Now why would Apple do that and drive people away from the iTunes store and iPod? That makes absolutely no sense and is just plain ridiculousness. See, this is what you get from Burnloungers, half-baked truths and rumors. A bunch of kids running around with little supervision and spreading wildfire about a service that can’t control the message.

Why I posted originally is because I wanted people to see what I saw and not have a colored version from just hearing the pitch, with no one to put it into context. I wanted to put out information to give a potential Burnlounger the downside, not just the upside that they tell you in the meetings.

I had never planned on posting about Burnlounge until I went to their rah-rah meeting at Coffee Shop in New York City last Spring, and saw for myself first hand how misleading and disingenuous the company was with their super-slick marketing message sans any real substance or facts. I posted my first article because I was hoping to save many of my friends who were there the time and money they might waste becoming a Burnlounge retailer and participating in the download revolution.

In fact, the final thing that bothers me most about Burnlounge is there is no 1-800 number for customer service. Everything is done by email. How do they expect to solve the problems of 20,000 affiliate retailers by email alone? To me, that’s a joke. But maybe the number isn’t on the web site, I don’t know? Hire a call center in Bangalore! Do something to give better customer service!

Call me crazy (okay…so I’m crazy!), but, to me, Burnlounge is jut not the place I want to be, and its my right to state my professional and editorial opinion, which is, don’t waste your money unless you’re planning on investing time and energy for pennies in return.

Yo…this is kinda hot! I was surfing around YouTube and came across Paul Oakenfold’s Starry Eyed Surprise video recording from someone’s Tivo, I’m sure. Check it out!

Hey! Check this out. The new Sony Mylo. Pretty cool if you ask me. It's a wireless device based on the PlayStation portable look and feel, that allows you to navigate the web with a version of the popular Opera web browser. It's got Google IM anlong with AIM and you can listen to music, play video and even talk over Skype using headphones and a built-in mic. It's definitely going to be hot on college campuses, where wireless connectivity is ubiquitous. I'd love to have one of these.

The only thing it isn't, is a mobile phone. But, you can use Skype to fill in the gap. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how it actually rings if you have it in your pocket.

It's not an iPod killer, because it doesn't have the memory capacity to challenge the 30 or 60 GB iPod, but it's a step in the right direction for people who don't listen to as much music or video, or are comfortable swapping out media more than usual. The coolest thing is the fact that you can Skype on it, which gives you a unique way to communicate with others for free (as long as the other person has Skype). As we move into a wireless world, ala Sprint's decision to build a nationwide Wi-Max network, devices such as the Mylo are a logical next step in the right direction.

I almost forget, you can share music across the wireless network with other Mylo users, but you can't download from one Mylo to another. Basically, that means you an access a playlist on another Mylo from your own Mylo and it will stream over the wireless connection to your device. We do that all the time in the office here at StarStyle, but using the iTunes feature that allows you to share music across the network as sort of an impromptu radio, but its programmed by your colleague. 

Check out the Gizmodo video review from YouTube below:

My brother, Bill, was surfing the web the other day and passed along a URL for Sun Jam, a Honduran party that has grown from a few friends 10-years ago to maximum capacity of 1,500 over today. The event takes place each year on a 3-acre island called Water Cay, about 6 miles from the town of Utila on Utila Island in Honduras Bay.

A visit to the promoter's web site gives you a rundown of this year's party, which took place on August 5th. Yeah, I'm a little late to the game on this one, but I wanted to let my peeps know about it and follow it for next year. Better late than never! Geez, my bro, the one with 4 kids (one on his way to college) beat me to the game here. You'd think I'd be up on this stuff, but hey, I'm running the music section of a major pop culture web site! Who has the time to party in Honduras? I guess Bill does!

The site features photos from past events (where are this years photos guys?), a Flash audio player streaming top tracks from the event, information on DJs from Central Amercia along with more on the town itself and some of the things you can do while you're partying your ass off. The town of Utila is well known for its dive shops and water sports.

You can only get to Water Cray by ferry from Utila Island, so make sure you plan your trip accordingly. Contact the promoters for more details on next year's event. 

So, check it out next year! Maybe we'll see you there.

Go to http://sunjamutila.com.

It's been so hectic for past few weeks, I'm just now catching up with a bunch of stuff that I've wanted to post. I got a chance to kick back today and relax, which got the creative writing juices flowing.

First, I want to apologize to DJ Phenix, because a few weeks ago the Queens native reached out to let me know about his new EP, Rebirth of the Phenix on East Gate Records. I've wanted to post, but I needed to sit down and really take a listen to his new music to give it its proper due. Today, I had the chance to do just that.

Rebirth is a marked shift for Phenix, transitioning from an edgier sound to a more soulful, groovy and smooth musical experince. He told me that he'd taken a break from music for a bit and one can listen to past tracks alongside Rebirth on Beatport to see why this is an aptly named new direction for the prolific producer.

The perfectly titled, "NYC Track" brings all the best elements of what's great about New York's house music movement over the past 20-years. A jazzy horn over a swing beat with moody organ is perfectly executed and brings back memories of the good'ol days when labels like Strictly Rhythm, Eightball, Nervous, King Street, Maxi and Nu Groove dominated house music.

On "Dub Thang," Phenix revisits the popular filtered disco genre that's been filling dance floors since U.K.'s Defected Records and Erick Morillo's Subliminal label grew the genre into a mainstream dance music force. A straight-ahead floor filler, this track holds no surprises but offers DJs a groovy, mid-tempo thumper with female vocal sample ("It's a love thang…") that's a perfectly slotted prelude to peak hour jams.

I don't have MP3 samples for you to check out, but you can find and listen to both of these tracks by searching for DJ Phenix at Beatport.com, iTunes and Xpressbeats.com. 

Leading dance music download web site, Beatport.com, launched version 3.0 "Fully Loaded" of its online music store serving DJs and dance music enthusiasts who download legal music files in MP3 and WAV formats. Since its inception, the company has become the leading resource for DJs, having secured tracks from over 2700 record label partners around the world.

Because of its strict adherence to offering downloadable files in the popular and widely supported MP3 format, which allow digital music to be played back across most digital music players and computers, major labels have not participated in th'e service. This is due to the major's adoption of proprietary DRM technologies, such as Microsoft's Windows Media, Apples AAC or Sony's A-Trac formats. In order to find major label remixes, DJs generally have to rip the remixed versions of popular dance tracks that appear on the Billboard Club Play chart from CD's or record the vinyl onto a computer using special software to eliminate analog noise. In some cases, DJs must turn to p2p networks to find the remixes their audience are asking for. If the remixes are available on iTunes, most DJs can't play them with the various DJ software products that exist today due to a percieved lack of support for the Apple format in the DJ software community.

One would think that by offering MP3 files for download, labels that participate in the Beatport service would be heavily impacted by files sharing. An argument can be made that because dance music releases appear daily from thousands of record labels around the world, it's harder to find hot dance tracks on p2p networks until well after their release on Beatport. In a way, dance music's minority status in the music marketplace helps by making it more difficult to find obscure tracks. Most dance music fans don't know the names of songs and p2p networks do not provide sound samples, but Beatport does, and in the wildly popular Adobe Flash format allowing for easier playback.

The other advantage Beatport enjoys is most people who post tracks to p2p services rip them from mix compilations, so the files are generally not the full song. Usually, if you try to download a popular track from a p2p network, it has a segment of the last record played in the mix over the first few seconds of the song you want. There are many dance music productions that have beautiful intro's leading into the main part of the song that are lost when the song is blended into another on a mix compilation. Losing those intro's makes a service like Beatport infinitely more valuable because you can find the entire song and you can play it across most devices.

According to a Beatport press release, "The upgrades in Beatport 3.0 are varied and substantial. Major improvements have been made to the navigation and the search engine allowing faster and more detailed access to the content library. Key new features include a section called My Beatport which allows a user to subscribe to their favorite artist, label, or genre. Once subscribed, the system notifies the user when one of their subscriptions has new music. Other shopping improvements include new community driven features such as Users Also Bought and Email to a Friend. Several new payment options have been added to better serve the international market."

The company says, " a premium design change for version 3.0 is the much-improved landing pages designed to better showcase the genres, artists and labels and their related content. Continued improvements have been made to the navigation adding several powerful filtering tools to improve shopping speed delivering measurable improvements to both our customers and label partners."

Version 3 "Fully Loaded" is also integrated with Native Instrument's Traktor DJ software , allowing DJs to purchase music directly from Beaport through the Traktor DJ interface bypassing the use of a web browser to login and download music files to the desktop.

Traktor DJ mimics the traditional DJ experience, giving DJs the ability to mix MP3 files using their desktop or laptop computer as one would using traditional turntables. With Traktor DJ, a DJ can add a variety of audio effects to a DJ session, mix DJ sets to MP3 for podcast or live web casts and even emulate scratching by plugging into the Final Scratch DJ software and hardware system in conjunction with traditional turntables.

Got an email from Josh Levine at URB today. They're looking to hire an experienced account manager for their marketing arm, The Rebel Organization. Specifically someone with broad knowledge of the Hispanic community, exerienced guerilla marketing expert and knows the music landscape.

Send cover letter and resume to Josh Levine, the Rebel Organization, URB Magazine, 6300 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1750, Los Angeles, CA 90048 or email jl@urb.com .

Hey folks, got the URL wrong for the iPod contest.

It's http://music.starstyle.com/landing.aspx , please redirect your browser there!

Sorry!

Hey kids! Thought I'd drop another note about our StarStyle contest! We've got 23 days left to do and want to give you a free, Video enabled iPod!

Click HERE to enter to win!

More about the contest: 

On Tuesday, July 25, in partnership with Siri Music and Groovevolt.com, StarStyle launched a contest where visitors to StarStyle can sign-up to win a video iPod loaded with Siri Music artist, Jeremiah's debut video "Get Away" and a gift bag containing fashion's worn in the video from Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Azzure Denim, Armani Exchange, Southpole USA and Diesel.

Users can purchase the items through direct links to our partner e-tailer's or save them to a personalized MyStyList page, which can then be shared with friends.

The single, "Get Away" from Jeremiah's forthcoming album, Chasing Forever, which drops in stores and online on August 29th. A link to the single is available from iTunes, and album and video links will be included once the album is released at the end of the month.

The contest closes and winners will be chosen on August 25th.