Oke spoke to German news site Spiegel Online, describing the history and development of finetunes and the digital music market as a whole.
Link: http://snip.ftpromo.net/spiegel

Digital distributor and marketing service provider finetunes has expanded its team with the appointment of Ray Farrell as new U.S. representative.

As part of the 'Client And Label Care' team Ray, who is located in New York City, will handle label relations, customer acquisitions and business development in the North American market.

Ray previously worked as Senior Vice President for Royalty Share Inc., a start-up specialized in royalty processing for labels in the digital market. Prior to this Ray handled label acquisition at digital retailer eMusic, the first legal music download site, as Vice President, Content Acquisition & Label Relations from 1999 to 2007.

Oke Goettlich, Managing Director, finetunes: "For the ever-changing and competitive U.S. market it was clear that we wanted an up to date expert on today's label scenery. Ray has a strong track record in the digital sector and brings in a great network of business and artist contacts. Combining this with a true indie spirit, Ray is the perfect match for introducing finetunes individual tools for distribution, marketing and Digital Logistics in the U.S. Ray's appointment will definitely sharpen our profile overseas. Welcome Captain America!"

Ray Farrell: "I have worked with finetunes extensively in the past and I am thrilled to be joining the team. The finetunes distribution and promotion platform is among the most innovative and easy to use. I look forward to expanding the company’s network of digital partnerships worldwide."

Digital distributor and service provider finetunes GmbH will present a special Sonar Festival DJ Night on Friday, June 18th at the Jazzy Down Floor Party at Barcelona's El Foro Club.

The party will feature sets from finetunes' own DJs Da Vince (Paris) and Dairmount (Room With A View, Hamburg) as well as resident DJ Fred Guzzo at the turntables – between them playing a smooth mix of Soul, Funk and House tunes.

finetunes invites all label and business partners to join us at this club night. Doors open at midnight, admission is free.

Friday, June 18th (Sonar Weekend)
finetunes presents
Jazzy Down Floor feat. Da Vince (Paris), Dairmount (Room With A View) and Fred Guzzo (Barcelona)
Doors: 00:00 / Admission free.
El Foro Club, Barcelona

Adress:
El Foro Musicbar & Restaurant
C / Princesa, 53 [Esquina con C/ Commerc]
Born / Barcelona

German digital distributor and service provider finetunes GmbH has signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Swedish electronic music blog and label Discobelle. As a result, finetunes will digitally distribute and promote all upcoming releases on the newly founded Discobelle label division, Discobelle Records. On Friday, 9th of April 2010, Discobelle will release the new EP "Too Fast" by Swedish Dancehall/Reggae duo Jamtech Foundation via finetunes. DJ Niceness and Mastah L aka. Jamtech Foundation have previously worked with artists including Sean Paul, Beenie Man, Sizzla and Busy Signal. finetunes and Discobelle began their relationship in January 2010, with the release of Dicobelle’s label debut: "French Jeans" by Finnish techno act MVSEVM.

Niklas Mijdema, Head of Discobelle Records said: "We're glad to be teaming up with finetunes and look forward to building our catalogue with them, knowing it will be available on all the major and specialized retailers worldwide."

CeBit is the world's largest trade fair for information technology, and this year has been extended to cover a new sector: music. The fair aims to satisfy both music fans and industry types by providing a range of concerts
and DJ-sets for music lovers, along with some high quality panels for the members of the music industry. For the latter finetunes has been invited to speak on a panel about "digital distribution".

Panel info: The music market has changed drastically in recent years and digital distribution of audio is by now a standard for all business partners. The panel will be about the digital business in general and of course about the problems of digital distribution. Joachim Franz, Vice President of Musicload, Christoph Bornefeld-Ettmann, Head of Operations at Zebralution and Oke Göttlich, managing director of finetunes, will discuss the status quo and the trends of digital distribution sector.

Hard facts:
when: 2nd of March 2010
15:40-16:20h
Where: hall 22, CeBIT Sounds!
What: Christoph Bornefeld-Ettmann, Head of Operations // Zebralution
Oke Göttlich, managing director // finetunes

finetunes congratulates Jaqee on winning the Manifest 2010 award for her album 'Kookoo Girl' (Rootdown Records).
The Manifest is the most important award for Swedish independent music. The jury elected 'Kokoo Girl' for the best album in the category 'Rytm'. Having already received 2 Swedish Grammy nominations for her last releases, Jaqee now counts herself in the exclusive club of Manifest winners.

Explaining their decision to award the Manifest to Jaqee, the judging jury said:

"With an extremely personal, peculiar and emotionally filled voice, this artist radiates out her message through her very own wonderful style. On the last album the artist worked & succeeded with the art of modernizing the roots reggae sound. A true artist who for several years has surprised us again and again on the Live stages, as well as in the Studio. With the latest album, this artist has grown to higher heights and gone far beyond Sweden's borders. It is world class, it is Jaqee!" (Jury / Manifest Award 2010)

finetunes will launch its new PromoTool for retail and media partners at Midem on January 25th.

The independent digital distributor has spent more than two years developing the new browser-based b2b promotion platform, which will provide a multi-faceted interface between finetunes' labels and retail partners, plus a wide range of media partners from press and radio to online magazines, blogs and more.

The PromoTool provides partners with easy access to key release elements such as high resolution artwork, full-length audio streaming and release descriptions. Furthermore the tool enables partners to review up-to-date sales arguments such as DJ feedback and reviews, as well as artist biographies, videos and other information uploaded by labels. Additionally, users will be able to browse key highlights from the finetunes release schedule within special pages sorted by genre, territory, etc.

finetunes will attend Midem and will be available for meetings with both existing and potential new partners. If you have any questions about any of our our services: from distribution and label management, through to technical encoding and delivery (DSP) services, or digital retail solutions, please contact Hanns-Christian Gerth to arrange a meeting. This year there will be Oke Göttlich (general manager) and Tom Günther (head of legal & business affairs) available for meeting. If you have specific questions regarding label issues, our label and marketing services then make your appointments with one of the 3 staff members from the Client & Label Care Department: Phil Darimont, David Balfour (UK representative) and Vincent Quittard (FR representative).

meet us at the booth:
R29.11B (VUT company stand)

or get in contact for meetings with Hanns-Christian Gerth (h.gerh @ finetunes.net)
Phone: +49 (0)40-328 91 981-00

For this Christmas we at finetunes have prepared a very special give-away for the finetunes download shop customers: The finetunes advent calendar on Twitter! What is this? Well, first off, this advent calendar is a digital one, only available on the internet and you cannot put it on the wall. But: It's way better than your ordinary advent calendar, since it does not contain cheap chocolate but some of the greatest music just released, 24 songs in total. And yes, there will be some Christmas songs. But only the good ones. Trust us.

So, every day from December 1st to 24th at 12:00 CET, we open one little wicket for you and give away one song. For free! No costs! At no charge! Gratis! Para nada! You only have to be fast, because every free song is limited to 50 downloads. The deep link plus a voucher code is sent via www.twitter.com/finetunes_shop.

Just collect these wonderful songs and on Christmas Eve, you'll have a very special Christmas collection (also works as a last minute gift, by the way). Have fun! Merry Christmas!
your finetunes team

The finetunes advent calendar - how to get the tracks:

finetunes press release | 20.10.2009

Hamburg-based digital distributor and service provider finetunes has signed a comprehensive cooperation deal with US-based mobile media service, Didiom. With immediate effect, users of the Didiom service are able to purchase songs by top-class artists such as Moderat, Cassius, Lee Everton and from world-respected labels such as Pacha Recordings, Honest Jon's and Asphalt Tango.

Didiom is a groundbreaking service which offers a unique combination of allowing users to stream their own music to mobile phone, combined with an on-device download store. The Didiom application scans the user's computer for music and playlists, streaming the content to the user's mobile phone via a secure connection. In addition, the Didiom download store offers more than 1.5 million songs as MP3 downloads to mobile and to the computer. With its innovative price structure, the Didiom store is the only service in the world that allows people to name their own price for music downloads. The application is available for free from BlackBerry's app store.