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"The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.\nName: WHOOZNXT\nQuick Pitch: WHOOZNXT is a fan management platform for bands; it rewards performance opportunities to the artists that amass the most fans during any given time period.\nGenius Idea: Harnessing the power of your fans to score gigs.\nIf you're in a band, you probably have fans (unless you're terrible, but even Rebecca Black and Nickelback have fans. ... I digress). Said fans are likely devoted to you after a fashion, so why not leverage them to grab your piece of the limelight?\nThat's the idea behind WHOOZNXT, a new platform from NXTM, a service responsible for the digital presence of acts such as Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake. NXTM was founded by former MTV executive Jeff Yapp.\nWHOOZNXT debuted at SXSW, offering bands the chance to play on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as well as slots at Rachael Ray's SXSW events.\nSo how exactly does the platform work? Bands can sign up for free (I signed up to test it out using my future band name, Velvet Baby Lane) and connect their WHOOZNXT profile to all their social network pages and profiles. The site then presents the band with analytics, courtesy of PeopleBrowsr, showing how many fans they have, how that number has changed over time and the band's sentiment score. Artists can also see their most influential fans so as to connect with them accordingly.\n\n\n\n\nBands are then assigned a bracket based on how many fans they have, which determines what kind of opportunities they might receive. The Platinum Tier includes artists with a total fan count more than 25,000 fans; the Gold Tier fan count is 5,000 to 25,000; and the Silver Tier is for artists who have fewer than 5,000 fans. Each month, artists will be entered into a pool of opportunities; those who amass the most fans during that period are eligible for said opps. Bands are not automatically booked if they get the most fans \u2014 the venue or gig in question is involved with the final selection.\nThe site also provides artists with tools to help grow and manage their fanbase, including a band website builder, an e-store builder, a \"publish everywhere\" tool for all your content and a widget builder to create media players.\nEnglish metalcore band Asking Alexandria used the platform during SXSW during which time they amassed 90,000 fans, helping them land a gig on Jimmy Kimmel Live!\n\"Our system identified them as the band to watch at SXSW before general media was talking about them,\" says Yapp. \"However, the people that were well aware of them were their fans. ... When we approached the Jimmy Kimmel Live! team about Asking Alexandria, it was not a band they were tracking. When we showed Scott Igoe, music executive, the rate of Asking Alexandria's fan growth, it was an easy decision for Scott to make.\"\n\"This week marks the most successful point of our career to date as we debuted at #9 on the Billboard Top 200 charts and performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which was such a surreal experience,\" says Ben Bruce, guitarist for Asking Alexandria. \nMore and more, services are turning to fans when it comes to advancing the careers of up-and-coming artists. There's My Major Company, a fan-funded record label, and Crowdbands, a crowdsourcing platform that lets fans vote on a variety of band decisions, to name just a couple.\n\"Programs and venues are looking for the exact same thing we all are: the artist that draws the largest fanbase to their shows and events,\" says Yapp. \"Technology now enables a new type of ability to accurately count fans.\"\nWhat do you think of this new, fan-based trend?\nImage courtesy of Flickr, susieq3c\nSeries Supported by Microsoft BizSpark\n\n\nThe Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/04/15/whooznxt/>