subscribe to feedVeronica invests in music aggregator Cloudspeakers
Alternative music lovers will be served the newest links to audio, video and music reviews on a silver platter.
Hilversum, 14 August 2008 – Veronica Holding is investing in the young Dutch company Cloudspeakers. Cloudspeakers brings music fans and the music industry closer together by creating order in the current offering of music reviews, audios and videos. On the site cloudspeakers.com, music lovers can find all existing music reviews and legal audio and video links to the better kind of pop music.
“Cloudspeakers is an initiative by online developers with an intense passion for music,” Guido van Nispen, general director for Veronica Holding, commented. “Developers that know how to make money with a music website. A beautiful combination that fits perfectly within the ambitions of Veronica Holding to be an authoritative player in the field of online music and entertainment, and through this, to stimulate young talent. Thus, the music offering from Cloudspeakers fits perfectly with Kink FM, the radio station for the better kind of pop music.”
The idea
The twin brothers Chris and Adriaan Bol started in 2007 with the website www.cloudspeakers.com. Chris came up with the idea because, as a fan of alternative music, he lost a lot of time searching for information and music from specific bands on the Internet. “The offering is widespread and very large,” he said. He convinced his brother Adriaan, and they worked together to create an online overview. The brothers aren't lacking in technical knowledge. They work for the sports statistics company Infostrada Sports and as a result, have had a lot of experience building up databases. To help them with the implementation, they involved a third man in the project, Stan van de Burgt. Cloudspeakers.com has been live since November 2007, and continues to grow in the number of visitors. “People want to discover new music and that is our first focus,” Chris stated. “What's hot? What new bands are out there?” The site also points out new bands to visitors, bands that might be less well known, but that fit well with visitors' taste. Adriaan explained further: “Visitors include their favourite bands in their profile. If there's a new band that falls within that same genre, they're thus informed.”
The growth
In order to grow Cloudspeakers further, Chris and Adriaan were searching for an investor in the Netherlands. An investor who is also active on the Internet and in music. “Veronica Holding was our number one choice,” said Chris, “so we're thrilled that they want to invest in us.” Cloudspeakers will use the investment to develop a number of new services, such as, for example, a recommendation tool that users can use to make suggestions on bands, and a concert agenda. Additionally, cloudspeakers.com will contribute to other sites that don't provide music content.
About Veronica Holding
At Veronica, the development of young talent and new business models, on radio, TV, Internet and new media, is the core of the business. This finds form in a variety of activities: V-Academy, the breeding ground for young, promising media talents, who want the opportunity to be trained by cross-media professionals during a practical internship; V-Radio, the web radio station of V-Academy; Kink FM, the radio station that plays the better kind of pop music, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, via cable, Internet and iTunes; Veronica Story, where Veronica's history is being registered; and Veronica Medialab that closely follows developments in the media market, will be developing its own activities in new media, and will be investing in Dutch new media start-ups. The different divisions each have their own role, but together they also create a strong basis for the development of young talent and business initiatives in new media. All this in addition to the progressive and provocative pioneering spirit for which Veronica has always stood, and for which it will always stand. Further information can be found at www.verenigingveronica.nl.
About Cloudspeakers
Cloudspeakers, founded in 2007, is a music aggregator of available links to legal audio/video files and reviews on the web. The goal of cloudspeakers.com is to bring music fans and the music industry closer together by creating order in the current offering of music reviews, audios and videos. More information can be found at www.cloudspeakers.com.