A group of college students creating a website that is in the top 100 music blogs of the world (as per Technorati) is not something that happens every day. Sarang Ananda Rao and his friends have done that and how! >Musicperk.com provides everything that a music buff wants to know about thelatest albums.
What is musicperk about?
Musicperk is a website for exclusive music content. We provide a range of content ranging from music news, ratings, reviews for albums in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Game OSTs, soundtracks, music accessories and services. Our focus is also on lesser known bands and we aim at being a platform for them as well. We also have a feature — “songperk”, where we feature one song every week.
Whose idea was this? How did it happen?
I had this idea for a long time. Although a music aficionado, I sometimes did not have the time or patience to read long reviews; I wanted something that would help me tell the best song in an album at first glance/scan. I discussed the idea of a website exclusively for music with my friends (Pramodh and Sri Krishna who are part of the Musicperk Team) and their support helped me implement the idea. Building a website was my dream in Std X. I was able to realise it in my third year of engineering. (I wanted to have my own investment for the initial cost; I won a cash award in late 2010 that helped me realise my idea in early 2011).
Many websites offer music reviews. How do you differ?
Musicperk.com is different in that our reviews are done so that a person can judge whether a song is good or not at first glance; an interested reader can read on for an in-depth review. I started Musicperk.com because I felt the quality of music reviews in India has been declining. We do have plenty of websites offering reviews but they give more importance to movies or photo albums rather than music exclusively.
Songperk..
Six months after we started, I realised some of my classmates were extremely talented musicians (they were part of college music bands or composing music for short films); they never had an opportunity or a platform to reach the masses. In songperk, we feature one song every week. It is a platform for emerging artists to showcase their talent. The reason for having only one song a week is that, at some point, we want every independent musician to target songperk to feature his song. This will then turn into a competition for independent artists (as only the best song will get featured). Songperk also gives us something to give back to society rather than mechanically reviewing only movie albums.
You're still in college. How do you juggle studies and work?
I believe you can always find time for things which you like/are passionate about. I always have time for Musicperk.com. My college EDC (SSN's Lakshya) has always inspired me.
You cater to an audience in four languages. How do you go about it?
Our team has people who are good at all the languages that we cover. The best part of being in India as well as being a part of Musicperk.com is the diversity.
Where do you see yourself in the near future?
I would like Musicperk.com to be THE best website for exclusive music content in India in the near future. I am planning to partner with other popular websites/firms in India as well as abroad for affiliates/publicity. Social media also plays an essential role in our publicity.
What about support to run the website?
We have affiliates for advertisements and we also use popular publisher networks for advertisements that cover the expenditure and also bring in profit.
Do you have any plans of expanding to other areas? Was game OSTs part of the original idea?
Definitely. We are planning to expand to Marathi and Kannada albums soon. Game OSTs was not a part of the original idea. It was suggested by a friend and we added it.
Abhijeeth is a III Year B.Tech student at SRM University
