Maria Zouroudis

From Maria’s official site:

Greek-American songstress, Maria Zouroudis is known for her powerful, yet heart-felt voice, delivering a fusion of pop, R&B and acoustic soul. Utilizing the internet to market her talent, Maria has captured over 7.7 million views and 35,000 subscribers on YouTube alone.

In February, 2010, Maria was featured in the Youtube edition of “We Are the World,” which received 1.7 million views in its first month, as well as national TV coverage on networks such as CNN and ABC (featured on Diane Sawyer’s ABC World News).  She is currently songwriting for other artists, working on her own album and performing nationally as well as internationally.

Lineup:
8:00 HiFi Phantom
9:40 Audacity
10:30 Barreracudas
11:20 Davilla 666

For more information about the showcase, visit http://www.streamjam.com/ or http://bk.knittingfactory.com/. The showcase is being filmed by Livestream and is in partnership with Livestream.

For more information about the band:

HiFi Phantom: http://hifiphantom.bandcamp.com/
Audacity: http://www.audacityband.com/
Barreracudas: http://www.myspace.com/barreracudas
Davilla 666: http://www.myspace.com/davila666

**Remember, if you have questions on any of this, please let us know at support@streamjam.com – we’re here to help you succeed in using StreamJam!

1. Get Set Up To Hold Events

 A. Create a live streaming account. You can create one for free through Ustream, Livestream, and Justin.tv. This account is what you use to create the live stream that gets embedded in your StreamJam venue. We currently recommend Justin.tv for our first choice, but you can use any of them if you have a preference.

B. Create a StreamJam account. When you register, there’s a space to enter the name of your live streaming account

C. Make sure you set up the minimum technical requirements.
* Internet access in the location you’ll be streaming from – we strongly recommend using a wired connection instead of wifi. This can be from home, from a venue, or wherever you’re online.
* Great sound input – if you’re broadcasting a gig in a venue, we recommend getting audio straight from the soundboard, otherwise a good mic should work well.
* A video camera or webcam – even a single low end camera connected via Firewire can create a worthwhile event, since great sound is usually more important than great video.
* Computer with free streaming software.

2. Hold Events

The type of events you do are up to you, and you can hold as many events as you want. StreamJam can be used in many many ways, and you know your fans best – what would they want to see? Here are some possibilities we suggest.

A. A virtual concert provides a social experience to fans worldwide who can’t attend live shows due to their location and a way for artists to connect with their fans. You can stream a show you’re playing a real-life venue, or put on a show just for the online audience.

What makes a great virtual concert:

* Interaction with the audience – Audiences have the most fun in online events that use the strengths of the Internet to interact with them. Whether the act is in a living room or on a real stage in front of a live audience, it’s tremendously valuable for the act to spend at least some time taking questions from the audience in StreamJam and/or telling them something unique. This can be before or after a live on-stage show or can be interspersed within an internet-only performance from a studio or any other location. (StreamJam’s Ask the Artist feature helps artists make this happen.)

B. A series of events. We’ve found that consistency and regularity are the most important factors for artists to connect with fans online, regardless of the types of events that the artist holds. So, we suggest holding regular, frequent events even if they’re small, rather than holding just one event now and then.

To create a series of events, an artist who’s on tour could stream all their upcoming live shows into StreamJam. Or, an artist who is releasing an album could create a series of events around that – previewing new songs, holding a listening party, etc. Or, an artist could just hold chats with the online audience every week at a certain time. The possibilities are endless.

C. More ideas. StreamJam can be used in many other ways – artists can share their creative processes for recording or rehearsing, give interviews, hold release parties for new videos or songs, etc.

3. Promote Your Events

Promotion can make or break your chances to win. Your chances will depend on your fans, so make sure they all know how to support you.

Artists should promote their virtual concerts to their fans via social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), their own websites, and their fan mailing lists. Artists should make several announcements to fans in the days leading up to their virtual concert, and then make a final announcement just before the concert begins to real-time tools like Facebook & Twitter, so fans who are online can jump right in.

Artists currently on tour should make announcements about their upcoming virtual concert to their real-life audiences. We recommend linking fans to the virtual concert via the artist’s own website; StreamJam can be very quickly and easily embedded there.

Let us know how we can help you get started! Contact us at support@streamjam.com with questions or comments. Visit cmj.streamjam.com to join the Road to StreamJam 2011 contest. You can also find this guide at http://cmj.streamjam.com/instructions.html

With the launch of our new ticketing feature, StreamJam’s full complement of features is now in place. StreamJam’s ticketing feature allows artists to set a price for fans to pay to view their live events. As always, artists can keep their events free if they choose, or combine a free event with a ticketed premium portion. This feature is intended to bring the microtransactions revenue of online games to artists and the music industry, opening up revolutionary new revenue streams.

We’re marking this occasion with a very exciting event: the Road to CMJ 2011 contest, which is an opportunity for bands to earn a spot at CMJ this year. In partnership with CMJ, StreamJam is offering a top prize of $500 and a live gig at the music marathon.

Contestants will hold live online events of their choice like virtual concerts, listening parties, and interviews. Contestants are free to hold as many events as they want, and schedule them for any time. The artist or group with the largest combined audience at all StreamJam events held during the contest timeframe (8/19/11-9/19/11) will take the grand prize and play at CMJ. Artists are free to enter the contest regardless of whether they have already applied to CMJ, or whether they are signed or unsigned.

We wish the best of luck to all contestants, and look forward to making StreamJam even better in the months to come.

To enter the Road to CMJ 2011 contest, visit cmj.streamjam.com. For more information, or to leave feedback, visit www.streamjam.com or contact support@streamjam.com.

Event: Mario & Friends Marathon
Date/Time: July 22, 1PM GMT-July 24, 11PM GMT (Find your timezone here.)
Watch: GametoAid, StreamJam

Via Game2Aid.org:

Streamed live online, a team from Australia will play through various memorable Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong games while thousands of viewers tune in to watch and donate. The money raised will go towards the construction of a medical clinic in Odede, Kenya.

Game2Aid be using StreamJam to make the marathon interactive for viewers – you’ll be able to communicate with the team via chat, and they’ll be giving away prizes like games and t-shirts, and mystery items.

100% of donations, including everything spent in the StreamJam app, will go to  World Youth International. For more information, visit www.gametoaid.org or World Youth International, and check out the marathon on StreamJam!

Ideas include:

• A virtual concert
• A ticketed event
• A series of events
• A fan clubhouse

A virtual concert

A virtual concert provides a social experience to fans worldwide who can’t attend live shows due to their location and a way for artists to connect with their fans. What makes a great virtual concert:

•  Interaction with the audience – Audiences have the most fun in online events that use the strengths of the Internet to interact with them. Whether the act is in a living room or on a real stage in front of a live audience, it’s tremendously valuable for the act to spend at least some time taking questions from the audience in StreamJam and/or telling them something unique. This can be before or after a live on-stage show or can be interspersed within an internet-only performance from a studio or any other location. (StreamJam’s Ask the Artist feature helps artists make this happen.)

•  Promotion – Artists should promote their virtual concerts to their fans via social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), their own
websites, and their fan mailing lists. We recommend that artists make several promotional announcements to fans in the days
leading up to their virtual concert, and then make a final announcement just before the concert begins to real-time tools
like Facebook & Twitter, so fans who are online can jump right in. Also, artists currently on tour should make announcements about their upcoming virtual concert to their real-life audiences. We recommend linking fans to the virtual concert via the artist’s own website; StreamJam can be very quickly and easily embedded there.

A ticketed event

In July, StreamJam is adding the capability of ticketed shows, which operate just like free
shows but with a charge to fans for entry to the virtual venue.

• Fans buy virtual currency in order to pay for entry to virtual shows where an artist has set an entry fee (say, $1 – 4).
• StreamJam provides a more secure streaming method for these shows to prevent viewing other than by purchasing a ticket.
• StreamJam handles tracking virtual ticket purchases and splits revenue with the artist.
•  StreamJam tickets can also be provided bundled with other purchases – for example, StreamJam is now integrating with Topspin so that codes for tickets to a given StreamJam show can be issued along with album pre-orders.
• StreamJam is willing to enable non-monetary tickets as well, such as gated entry only to those fans who are a part of a paid fan club or free e-mail list.
• In the future, StreamJam will also support hybrid events; e.g. a free concert with a paid “backstage pass” to the interactive session with the artist.

A series of events

We’ve found that artists can build their fanbases most effectively by connecting with them consistently, through regular live online communication or events.

For example, artists could plan a series of events around an album release. Events that combine some music with an interview are great ways to increase the interaction with hardcore fans at release milestones. StreamJam can also be used in many other ways – artists can share their creative processes for recording or rehearsing, have contests, holdrelease parties for new videos, recordings, merch, or songs, etc.

A fan clubhouse

ESC could build a custom-skinned, 3D venue to create a
unique 24/7 virtual clubhouse for fans of a particular artist on
that artist’s website. The clubhouse, a social experience for
fans, could include:

• All of the artist’s streamed live events
• On-demand video content or a streaming channel
• Sponsor branding or interactive content
• Links to purchase music, merch, etc.News, twitter, or other text feeds

Panel: Outsourcing for Knowledge and Profits – Lower Your Cost, Focus Your Efforts
Date/Time: Monday, May 9 2011, 4-5pm PST
Topic (via NARM): “Learn how to lower your costs so you can focus on A&R and marketing plans. Should you, as an artist or label, hire your own internal staff or avail yourselves of external resources? Can you hire resources to create a project by project team? Is it a good choice to hire firms for new revenue streams like concert streaming, virtual goods, etc? How, on a cost effective basis, can you create and run your label?”

Also on May 9th, StreamJam’s Ashley Harwyk will attend the SF MusicTech Summit. Ashley and Sibley are happy to talk to any attendees at either of the conferences who are interested in partnering with or simply learning about StreamJam. It’s a great chance to meet and toss around new ideas. See you there!