Name: The Sixty One
URL: http://www.thesixtyone.com

A social site, the aim of The Sixty One is simple: to let you discover new music through your friends, and upon recommending new music yourself you can gain experience points and move up towards becoming a more prestigious (and hence influential) member of the site.

And if you are an artist yourself, you can submit your own work and have it rated by the rest of the community. The system is certainly useful in the sense that if you have the right contacts you can become noticed in virtually no time at all.

That is the one difference I find with the “traditional” way in which music is promoted. In the physical world contacts are also of the essence, and even if you have a couple of big shots on your list becoming discovered is not that instant, nor is connecting with people who will turn into fans and supporters.

This is another of the startups being highlighted at the MidemNet Lab conference. In this case, the company is an American one and on the site you can learn more about the creative commons approach that is employed not only by this website but also by related resources in which people upload their own works for everybody to take a look at and consume.