Fanit is another start-up that has discovered the gospel of game play and is using it to promote their music recommendation experience.
Fans support their favorite artists and bands by purchasing badges. 100% of the money for the badges go to the artists, according to the company’s PR representative. As the fan purchases badges and engages in recommendation actions, they earn “rank.” That rank gives the fan a chance at “superfan” status and, according to the company, creates opportunities for interactions with the listener’s favorite musicians.
“Music fans can now be forever recognized for when they discover great music. As they prove their status as a fan they earn rank, which is used to show artists who the biggest fans really are. Fanit turns the anonymous music listener into an active participant in their favorite music.”
The southern California-based company is led by Jason Schultz, of Ambistia business incubation lab.
Fanit launched in preview mode at last month’s Coachella music festival in 2010. After this preview, reflecting user input, the interface was updated the game mechanics were refined and it has now relaunched.
Fanit fans can elect to follow other fans and get their list of promoted music and bands.
With its emphasis on recommendation versus in-site play (although there are samples you can listen to) it resembles another site we recently wrote about, Bee.tv. The implied dialogue between musician and fan as well as between fan and fan adds an extra dimension that other music recommendation services, like Pandora and Last.fm, lack.
Whether the implied becomes actual might make the difference between a good idea and a popular service.
