Broadjam is a US-based

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

community website A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...

, founded in September 1999. The service is aimed primarily at independent musicians. Users can interact with other artists, enter

contest Contest may refer to: * Competition * Will contest * Contesting, amateur radio contesting (radiosport) Film and television * ''Contest'' (2013 film), an American film * Contest (1932 film), a German sports film * "The Contest", a 1992 season 4 e ...

s, and collaborate with peers through email,

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

s and other

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

tools. Broadjam also works with related industries to provide various

licensing A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

opportunities, including placement in

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

TV shows A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...

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and

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radio play Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...

and professional reviews. Broadjam claims to be one of the world's largest web communities catering to independent musicians. The site has an online database of over 500,000 searchable songs and is home to approximately 110,000 artists from all over the world. The company was founded by Roy Elkins with assistance from Stephanie Essex Elkins, a former corporate sales and marketing executive, classical singer, and classical music radio

deejay A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

, with the intention to provide promotional services for unsigned musicians. The company is based in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

. Roy was formerly the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at

Sonic Foundry Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ:SOFO) produces software for distance learning and corporate communications. Sonic Foundry, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, and is known for originally developing Vegas Pro and Sound Forge. ...

. Prior to that, Roy was training director at

Ensoniq Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. Company history In spring 1983, former MO ...

Corporation. Broadjam offers a variety of services for artists to gain exposure and feedback. Musicians make up the bulk of the site's

membership Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

. Broadjam also offers template-based

hosting services An Internet hosting service is a service that runs servers connected to the Internet, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content or host services connected to the Internet. A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting provi ...

to help members create their own

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

History

Broadjam was founded in 1999 and the site initially launched in 2000. Broadjam was originally headquartered in

New Glarus, Wisconsin New Glarus is a village in Green County, Wisconsin, United States at the intersection of Wisconsin Highways 69 and 39. It has a population of 2,266 according to the 2020 census. The village, and the town that surrounds it, were named after the ...

and relocated in 2003 to

. The site was originally developed to provide services to independent musicians hoping to get their foot in the door of the music industry. Over time the service has evolved, and now provides a wide range of services for artists, and music industry professionals.

Features

Broadjam holds a variety of sponsored contests that aim to expose and reward exceptional musicianship and songwriting. Broadjam hosts a "Song of the Month" contests every month. Artist reviews and a scoring system based on "Good", "Better", or "Best" are used to determine a winner. Members can submit their songs for radio play, professional reviews, or placement in films, TV shows, commercials, and video games. Music supervisors for film and television can utilize Broadjam to provide music for feature films, TV shows and commercials. Members can give each another feedback through a reviewing mechanism. They can review songs in a specific genre or random songs from the entire site. The highest rated songs appear in the Broadjam "Top 10s". Broadjam has over 200 different Top 10 charts, sortable by genre, region, production style, and reviewer demographics. Broadjam calculates top 10s daily, based on factors that include song plays, downloads, reviews, and star ratings. Broadjam offers site hosting services to premium members. Artists can host their existing sites, or create one using templates. Artists can mark songs for download in the

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

file format. Members can browse the Broadjam library by

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

, region, production, or based on '' fan picks''.

Pro Services

As part of its Professional Services group, Broadjam provides an online mechanism that tallies votes in popular music award ceremonies. Current customers for this service include the

Academy of Country Music The Academy of Country Music (ACM) was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Among the founders were Eddie Miller, Tommy Wiggins, and Mickey and Chris Christensen. They wanted to promote country music ...

and the Madison Area Music Awards. Broadjam also provides a music encoding service. Major

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s use this service to

encode The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) is a public research project which aims to identify functional elements in the human genome. ENCODE also supports further biomedical research by "generating community resources of genomics data, software ...

, catalog, and control

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

References

External links

Roy Elkins Interview
NAMM Oral History Library (2020) {{Sister project links, Broadjam
Broadjam.com
Technology companies established in 1999 Web service providers Companies based in Madison, Wisconsin 1999 establishments in Wisconsin