A: Alivenotdead.com (AND) is a self-funded Hong Kong-based social network for artists across Asia. Many people probably never heard of it and they never proclaimed its Web loudly, but having 800 artists including Jet Li and Kelly Hu as its official artists, AnD is indeed very special! Today, we have the great pleasure to have an interview with Stephen Wang, CTO of AnD, who is going to share with us some very interesting stories behind AnD. Good evening, Stephen.
B: Good evening, Leslie.
A: Would you please tell us the brief history of AnD
B: Well, AnD is a social network supporting artists including filmmakers, musicians, visual and performing artists. Artists come on-board and establish their own profiles, like blogs, photo albums, events listings, forums and more, from which they can communicate and interact with other artists as well as safely communicate with fans. Regular users can become fans of the artists and establish their own profiles to help promote the artists that they like. The site is cunently based in Hong Kong and a majority of the artists on the site are based in mainland China, but our network of artists and fans is global, reaching across to other parts of Asia as well as overseas.
A: I heard the original alivenotdead.com website is to support and promote a movie.
B: Yes, that is The Heavenly Kings. This movie followed the rise and fall of a fictitious Hong Kong boyband named "Alive". It provided a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges facing artists in Hong Kong. It also provided Hong Kong musicians with a platform to speak their minds about the state of the Hong Kong music scene, many issues of which apply to artists everywhere. While making and promoting The Heavenly Kings, we realized that it was not enough to just make a statement regarding the industry. We had to address the issues raised. So the idea was developed to create an online community that would be able to help artists in Hong Kong. The team was formed in Hong Kong in January 2007 and the new website was launched in April 2007.
A: Then in your opinion, how can we exactly describe AnD
B: The closest I can describe it feature-wise is the U.S.-based music service Imeem.com with a stronger sense of community between artists and fans and covering a broader diversity of art forms, music, film, visual arts, and more. This means that we provide the typical features for artists and fans such as blogging, photo albums, events, audio/video media, and forums tied together via a social newsfeed.
A: So you mean users can register for free on the site and "become fans" of several of the artists on the site and invite their friends. They then receive updates for these artists, gain access to their latest songs or videos, and discover a plethora of other artists through recommendations or exploration. Is that how it works
B: Exactly.
A: Operating such an artists-centric community, what challenges do you guys have now
B: I believe that there are a few challenges unique to building a community centered around artists that make it more challenging but ultimately more rewarding than a traditional SNS. First, artists have greater demands on aesthetics like UI, page design, and customization, which is reflected in the unique designs for many of the artist profiles. Second, many of the artists have a much more stringent need for privacy and security; they want to be able to communicate with fans, but a clear line needs to be drawn so as to protect themselves from malicious or unsafe users. Most important, however, is the fact artists of all levels have a very strong sense of authenticity -they are constantly aware of when their celebrity is being taken advantage of for harmful or selfish effect and we need to be constantly on guard to make sure that we follow our commitment to support artists of all levels, and not just the most famous ones, in everything that we do.
A: Does AnD organize offline activities too
B: We’ve organized a couple of offline activities in the past, each of which has been done in partnership with a sponsor and in cooperation with some of the artists on our site. This includes our Anniversary Party and a series of art shows or concerts with Diesel here in Hong Kong. This year, we will be bringing more AnD events including CD release parties, concerts, etc ... where we bring together additional sponsors with AnD artists. In the meanwhile, we also act as a media sponsor for a large diversity of events such as concerts, art showings and artist meetups every third or fourth week, mostly here in Hong Kong.
A: That must be exciting. I believe all those events will contribute to the blooming of music and arts in Hong Kong. Is there any future plan you can share with us
B: We spent the first year of development concentrating on creating a basic platform and testing it with our close artist friends and their fans. Since our first anniversary in May, we’ve been working actively to take this platform and expand the user base and artist base rapidly so that we can reach a critical mass. Since the anniversary two months ago, our efforts have already paid off with a 250% growth in our registered user and traffic statistics and increasing interest from artists around Asia to participate in the community.
Speaking of the plan, well, we’ll spend the rest of the year managing this rapid growth as well as finding new ways such as virtual gifting, profile customizations, and shared media playlists for fans to more directly help promote the artists in the community. Additionally, while the first year was spent "inside the tornado", meaning that we focused primarily on getting the site built, refined, and ready for broad usage, this year we look forward to working with more partners online and off to help improve the community, so I really look forward to meeting other online partners at the OpenWebAsia conference in October.
A: That sounds a grand occasion.
B: Yes, it is.
A: Thank you, Stephen. It’s nice talking to you. And good luck!
B: Thanks !