Rock City Club’s Social Music Net Off To Slow Start [Updated]
[Multiple Updates] Rock City Club recently relaunched in beta as a "social music network" after a previous launch in early 2010. It's basically a band-centered social network with some interesting features. However, though it's free for fans, it requires a paid membership for bands and overall membership and involvement to date appears quite low. Rock City Club looks nice enough but competing with the incredible range of free offerings now available will be difficult.
Rock City Club Producer's Circle
Rock City Club was founded by Jack Wishna of Rockrena who was working on a Las Vegas deal for Michael Jackson prior to his untimely passing.
When Rock City Club was initially announced in January 2010, a series of "Rock City entertainment facilities" were also in the works. Apparently that didn't work out which was unfortunate for Rock City Club because participation in the social network was planned to include competitions for gigs at Rock City venues "around the globe." Adding to the run of bad luck, "Creative Officer" Don Kirshner passed away early this year, depriving Rock City Club of a well known participant.
[Update: I've been informed by Rockrena's Emily Klimas that the venues are in the works for an undisclosed future date.]
The Rock City Club site looks nice enough though it seems to be moving at a rather slow pace and is unlikely to reach the "aggressive goal of signing 150,000 artists in the first year". From what I can tell there are only 128 artists with limited fan activity after approximately 6 weeks of operation in its current form.
[Update: There's been some conflict about the actual release date. Billboard received a press release with a launch date of September 15th. However, this was changed in a subsequent press release to October 18th and Billboard was not updated. Given the history of unexplained changes regarding Rock City Club announcements that go back to January 2010, I think Rock City is having internal problems that they're attempting to manage via a series of publicists who are most likely caught in the middle. So, at this point, I will only be writing about the company if they have noteworthy news that is publicly verifiable.]
One of the biggest obstacles to Rock City Club's potential success is the fact that, after a free 30 day trial registration that requires a credit card, they then charge artists $12.95 a month or $99 a year. Given the wide range of interesting looking artist promotion/social network platforms being launched, it's difficult to justify such an expense, even with the extras described in videos on Rock City Club's YouTube channel. Considering the limited views of videos on that channel, interest in finding out more is also rather slim.
I guess it would be insensitive of me to use the phrase "death pool", given the unfortunate events with which Jack Wishna and Rockrena have had to contend, but that's exactly where Rock City Club appears to be headed.
[Apologies are in order: In an update posted earlier today, I mistakenly called out Billboard's Glenn Peoples regarding some miscommunications. He then contacted me directly and graciously accepted my apology once we sorted out the details. I would also like to apologize to Hypebot readers for any confusion in this regard. I look forward to continuing to follow Glenn Peoples excellent coverage of the music industry.]
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
