Art is universal; it’s defined by the taste and mood of a personal feeling. Available in many forms, music, video, photography, paintings, metal, brick, wood and in the most creative forms around the planet. It’s defined in many ways for some to understand and others to ponder for hours without getting any clue. Look around the net, it’s one gigantic database of data. Comparable to the cosmos, you’ll probably have to search between 20 seconds to 20 minutes before you will retrieve the planet of your choice; even IF it is discovered in our galaxy! The same goes for the artists content; it needs to be known before you’ll be able to find it through the maze of search engines. The Internet is a window to the artist, which is in turn an important marketing tool to increase sales for potential (new) artists.

Any artist known to the world had already a large deal of exposure. Record labels and galleries are created for that exact purpose; to promote the artists abilities towards the world to see. What is an artist with his/hers art without ever been seen? Since we’re trying to make money in the world of the living, it’s better not to wait to wait too long to get famous

The world is oversaturated with different choices in art and sound, which is good, in a way! But, to shine out between 1000’s of other works waiting to be shown, all at the same time, is a lot more difficult! Look at Flickr, DA, Youtube and a lot of other sites; they are all populated with daily new bits! But, even better is their programming interfaces (API’s) which come handy to centralize such data towards one artists hotspot …

A hotspot which centralizes all the artists information and displays (customizable), mitigates and distributes their work in one go, without the fuzz . That’s why ArtistPlug.NET was born …. Home Sweet Home?…

Exposure, one of the most important things for an artist!

When your art is worldwide known, you’ll probably have more financial reserves to fund a plentoria of companies representing your art on the web; but what about those, new  around the block? Only dreamers or lucky birds would be able to pay their rent with their works at start, and those who are working hard to get their art exposed towards a wider audience are often doomed with high costs involving more financial liability which diminishes the possibility to invest more in materials needed to get those works done.

A second important detail, when your art is worldwide known, you’ve already been exposed! You’ve had your reviews and critics sent upon your works and they like it! But again, how would a new artist or basement band get the same exposure to start with? There are many gratis services available to add yourself to (art) directories, blogging networks, webrings and discussion groups, but at that moment the character is still not set on the web.

Get connected, with which?

Many artists are using the tools of the trade available on the Internet, through blogs, galleries and content sites; but many services lack the specific attention to that one particular creative group consisting of musicians, producers, designers, architects and more… A blog is often too limited to it’s function, which serves as diary or archived journal, to push content on regular base about focussed topics towards the public community.

A blog offers a neat way for immediate response and aggragation of the artist. The galleries, blogs and content sites are mostly limited to their own layout which is oriented for a wide public; not for a selective public which consists of getting their works exposed in a good acceptable way. Again, the limitation lies with the system with aftermath for the end user, the artist.

To get your own custom design on-line towards the needs and demands of digital revenue, you’ll need to get in touch with atleast four different people to get your content hosted well and safe, a programmer to make your life easier to manage your works; a designer to create your favorite house-branded style and a company to get your ratings worked up in the Search Engine indexes; because most people give up after a few pages. It’s best to have some knowledge to keep such systems up-to-date afterwards or evil-foes will rule or ruin over your kingdom of data.

A more in-depth review about the different fields of expertise needed :

1. A Design company/Programmer
   • To get those tools installed and changed towards the usage for artistic content;
   • To design your site/template towards your branding/house-style;
   • For further touch-ups, implement (new) features for your web project;
   • To link everything with eachother "so it just works"….
2. A hosting company to host such content;
   • Which would support the Design companies/programmers choice;
   • Which often goes referenced with the design company through out-sourcing;
   • To host e-commerce and/or payment gateway (unless this is outsourced too!) to sell your works;
3. Optionally a Search Engine Optimalisation (SEO) company
   • If your name is too generic you’ll need ages to be found in the search engine index
   • For good exposure you’ll need full coverage
   • Which returns mostly work back to the programmer to implement those changes
4. Enough knowledge to keep the system clean and running , or designate another person to do that work for you. This is twice as important if payment gateways get involved with the latest XSS bugs scattered through the net.

Or! You could just get it for free at Blogger , Live Journal , Wordpress , Skyblog which would require a little bit of knowledge and which would offer zero features towards the artistic sector. Some services like Typepad and Tripod focussed towards additional features but are still too mainstream to be targetting specific digitized works, burning to wait to get that  extra attention to get exposed towards the Internet. Flickr , Youtube , DeviantArt and others public services offer extras beef but is often just a little bit of exposure, to be found between the million other bits of content on the same network.

The gap between discovery and fame …

"If I wouldn’t believe in the common artist, I wouldn’t be starting/investing in such network."

That’s where the gap needs to be filled, the centralisation of all that data; with tools combined to serve the artistic community. I’m artist, musician, programmer and designer myself and I know it’s difficult to get seen between the millions of internauts, who are looking 24/7 non-stop towards all kind of media on the web. In my opinion, to get exposed you’d atleast need to get known; have the expertise and get your central hotspot where you can direct your (future) fans towards the plentoria of services around the net.

That’s why I’ve started ArtistPlug.NET, the independent neutral network ready to promote and aid any artist around the block. Young or old, red or green, classic or contemporary, music or colors; anything is accepted as long as it can be digitized and as long it is not pornographically challenged.I’ve faced dozens of problems of Murphy’s law while starting the network, getting my own music promoted through all those tubes.

I’ve anticipated to focus using my own expertise to spare the artist the technical details so they can focus on their arts instead of the IT sector. Not to forget the last but not least, a lot of people, including artists also often don’t put their attention of computer maintenance like backups and such; which is also an important reason for them to protect their works for as far as it is digitized.

What’s exactly needed to run such network?

Minimally two things!

1. patience; a mind of steel; because getting everything to work together is hard as it is!
2. You! The common artist!

But, it doesn’t keep up with those two things. Design, host, find good alternatives for those who cannot make that choice, and more goes around behind those curtains!

I’ve selected Open-Source because it’s open in nature, it’s easy to adapt towards any sector available with the required knowledge. I’ve already been programming in Perl for many years which has given it’s birth to an interface in use by ArtistPlug.NET ready and craving to promote audio/visual art towards the Internet in the most customizable ways. Open-Source is not just "one unit" but it’s a group of people fanatically working to get the world a diversity in tools; for free! While Open-Source is my ally; I’ll be the glue between everything needed to run this network.

Some of the fine Open Source tools getting full credit to get this network running are: Inkscape , Gimp and Scribus for design; Perl , GCC and PHP for programming; Linux (Debian ) as operating system; Wordpress MU , Buddypress and a lot of plug-ins for the blogging social network; loads of Perl modules and tools to get VisualDreams running, Firefox with loads of plug-ins, Chrome, Opera and Safari for the web; Unix tools like ffmpeg, pico, pine, proftpd , Apache , Python , MySQL , etherial , Snort , Nagios and many others…

And some resources required to get knowledge of the gods: Perlmonks , CPAN , SVN , slashdot , google , schlockmercenary (for dialy relaxation)  and many more needed tools available at them fingertips.

Services supported through the network

Some of the problems and features I’ve been searching for are good, reliable and open partners. I’m still out of luck with some, but as all things will run, I’ll probably get good advice from others to get this project up and running for the common artist. Good partners are also those who you put your trust in, digitized art is possible through the Internet because they are both fluid and dynamically, ever changing.  That’s why I’m trying to create the bridge inbetween the common artist and the Internet sector ready to boost up your artistic projects towards the (potential) client.

Some of these partners are not Open-Source but for sure very "Open-Minded". These partners are considered great in my list on the path of latest Internet Technology. They don’t only save me a huge break in development but also save me a bill on the bandwidth! A small list:

• • SoundCloud : They have made the bridge between digitized audio and portability. The player-widget is easiest to use and their service is superfast. A dropbox offers instant access to upload to your account without fuzz. I’ve chosen SoundCloud because of their fanatic support towards their users to get audio delivered, no questions asked! They’ll offer a few generous free services to start with. A detailed case study is available at my development blog . I’ve just created a plug-in to bridge the gap between Wordpress and their great widget!
  • Youtube and Google Video to bridge the gap between portability and visual creations. Their API’s are very combinable with centralizing artist content at blazing speeds.
  • DeviantArt has existed so long, with such firm community of users; by artists for artists. Maybe they are a little bit the role model how things should be for all content around the web!

So why the name ArtistPlug.NET? What about the different components?

Plugger : A plugger is someone working for a record label or hired by an artist or band to promote music, mostly with radio stations or others in the music or entertainment industry. — wikipedia

The name ArtistPlug comes from the term "Plugging". Plugging in the audio world is to "plug" the artist on the radio. The domain Plug.TO will soon be serving for the same purpose, to plug songs towards radiostations, clips towards videostations through syndicated form.

The founder is using ArtistPlug.NET to plug his audioworks towards the wide world to get reviews to improve his works even before they hit the vinyl press!

It’s network is primary focussed towards audio/visual productions which includes, but not limited to music, videos, clips and also digitized paintings, comics, anything which can be digitized.

ArtistPlug.NET structure: