Yeah, so we noticed there has been some confusion about the new feature we added that gives people achievements for being “predictors”.

This is basically a way for us to give the people who judge some props, since they’re important around here too (not just the artists).

So you have some funny badges that look sort of like this:

There’s a fancy FAQ description of these you can see if you click them, but I’m gonna make it short and sweet. THe gold, silver, and bronze badges are the site-wide “best predictor” prizes. If you win one of these babies it means you were one of the top three predictors on the site for the month you won it! Pretty awesome, huh? The orange ones are given out to the people who are the top predictor for each channel, but they’re not given out for every channel.

So, get out there and judge!

OH! WAIT! Before you go, I suppose I should give you tips on how to go about getting one of these sweet badges. Judging consistently and often are two good things to do. Also, the less you contradict yourself, the better off you will be (most likely, anyway, because if you’re really bad at predicting you’ll be helping your cause by contradicting yourself).

Word on the streets is that you want to host your own PartyLine. Well, it’s not so hard. We’re really glad you’re interested, though. It’s a great way to share music and photos with other OurStage members, and chat with them too!

So, to get started, you want to make sure that you have something you can play, and something you can show people. You should have a play list created for you PartyLine, or just choose one of the ones you already have, including the ones that are already there such as music recommendations and music favorites. After you have a play list in order, make sure you have some photos in your gallery, since these will show as a slideshow in your PartyLine.

Once you’ve prepared these things, you’re ready to make your PartyLine! To do this, go into your profile, and in the upper right of your bio block there should be a little button that says: “Create a PartyLine”. You will be taken to a page that asks you to enter info about your PartyLine.

After you’ve come up with a great name and description, go ahead and create the PartyLine. You should see a lot of stuff here in the PartyLine interface. Specifically, a media player, a slideshow, your picture, the members of the PartyLine, and the chat window itself. Some of these things are fairly self-explanatory, such are your picture, but the player and controls can be a little tricky.

The player in the PartyLine has changed from the format you see when judging or on someone’s Fan Club. Now you can choose the play list to be played, to favorite a song, and you can even choose what song you want to be played from any give play list.

The photo gallery is fairly easy to control. You have three buttons: next, pause, and previous, and these control your slideshow how you might expect. They forward to the next photo, pause/play the slideshow, and go to the previous photo, respectively.

Now that you know the basics, try it out a little! Get used to the interface, and put on a great PartyLine!

Marketplace – Posting a gig tutorial (Venue)

You can post a new gig right from the front page of your marketplace clicking the button “Post a new gig”

Once you have filled out and posted your gig, you can always go back and change it if you feel the need, or you can clone it and make another even that is the same exact thing. You can even just cancel the gig if something comes up.

How a Venue would go about booking an Artist: So, you’re a venue, and you have a gig planned, but have no one to play it? Well, that’s no good, but we can help you out. Here’s how you use our awesome new marketplace feature to find an artist/band that would be the perfect fit for you. First of all, go to the marketplace home page. It’s a pretty good place to start. Next, you’ll want to go to the “Artist Search” section, shown below.

Okay, here’s where the search gets fun. You now have a bunch of filters you can use to search through the acts here on OurStage. These filters are right on the left side of the page. The one at the top is for searching for artists by name, it’s pretty self explanatory, and will serve you the most purpose if you already know of an artist you are looking for, but can’t quite remember the name. The next filters are going to be your best friends, however. First up is the channel filter, where you can select what channels, or genres, of artists you are looking for. Below that is the distance filter. Depending on your gig location and how far away you want artists to come from, you can go ahead and fill in that info. Lastly, you have three checkboxes that mark things that you require that the OurStage acts have in their profile/EPK. Here’s what a filled out search filter list could look like (chances are yours will look a lot different because of your needs):

After you are satisfied with the filters you have set up, you can go ahead and hit “Search”. After this, you might have to wait a sec, but you should end up with some artists in your list (depending on how strict your filters re it could be a lot or a little). With any luck, you will come up with a decent amount of acts. With the search filters I had entered in the above picture, here’s what the top of my search results looked like:

It would be a good idea to get familiar with looking at these entries. Notice how the second entry on my list has next to his picture. These indicate that he has music and pictures, respectively, in his EPK. Some other notable things to look at are his Mojo (read more about this at our FAQ), his number of fans, and his highest ranking in whatever channel he is in. From this page, you can click on an artist’s name, and it will take you straight to their EPK, and you can check out how well they have filled it out, and whether the contents impress you or not. If you feel the need, you can contact the artist (bottom left corner of the first tab in their EPK) expressing interest in the artist, and mention to them the gig you would like them to play. Once you have done that, you can either find more artist to fill more spots you have, or you could just play the waiting game until you get a reply. For the most part, one of two things will happen. The artist could message you, letting you know they are not interested in the offer, or they could apply to play the gig (the better of the two choices for you). Depending on how this goes will dictate the next move that you should take. You can either search for more acts, or finish signing this act to a gig.

To finish signing this act, make sure they have applied to your gig (we have a tutorial for that in this blog, if they’re confused as to how to apply to a gig, direct them there). Once they have applied to the gig, you have to accept their application. First of all, you will want to back to see your gigs. That’s here:

From here, you should find the gig that your act signed up for (you might also notice there are other gigs that have notifications near them. Near the right side of the screen, it will show you how many new applications you have for each gig, if it has none, there will be no notification. So, click on the name of the gig you want to check on (the one in which the act you’re trying to book applied for). Here’s what your gig list could look like when you get a few applications:

When you click on the name, it will take you to a page where you can accept (or book) any acts that have applied to that particular gig as well as filter through those list with the search terms on the left side of the screen. Once you have booked an act fro the gig, it will show at the top, in the “booked” block. Now, there are a few things to point out in the list of acts that have applied.

On the left side are some buttons that I have not described to you yet. The pink asterisk is to mark an act as “not new” meaning that they will no longer be considered in the count for new acts that have applied for the gig. This is best used when you have checked an act out, but you are not ready to accept of deny them the gig

The second button here is the “View note” button, which is the small pencil below the pink asterisk. Clicking this will show you the note they filled out while applying for the gig.

As for the rest of the info here, it as already covered while we discussed finding acts you are interested in. When you decide to book an act, you can go ahead and click “book” on the right side of the screen. You will get a small confirmation bubble, and by clicking okay you confirm that you wish to book the act. Once you have booked them, you must wait for them to accept. Your work is done, assuming the act accepts, you have successfully booked an act for a gig!

Now, I have a few more words on booking acts. The first way I described to you about finding acts is not the only way. You can also browse through the artist listings on your Marketplace main page.

There are three general sorting categories here, most fans, most booked, and artists closest to [you]. These are fairly self-explanatory, but to avoid confusion we will give them a quick run-down. Sorting by “most fans” will show the artists with the most fans t the top of list (descending order). Sorting by “Most booked” is similar, by sorts by the number of gigs that the acts have booked. The last category, “Artists close to [you]”, shows you acts that are close to where your venue is located. There are links to each act’s fan club and EPK listed here (if they have them) and a link t contact them. You can also get to their profile by clicking on their name.

That’s about it for booking an artist. Good luck finding the right act for your gigs!

Booking a show (Artists) So, you want to book a show? We can’t blame you. That’s the reason we really made this whole marketplace thing for anyway. So, the first thing you will want to do is to find the “Gig Search” link.

So, you’ve found that alright? Well, now is where things get a little tricky. You have a lot of stuff you can use to search here. There’s the name search, which allows for a quick search of a gig by name, in case you can’t remember it exactly or something.

Then there is the second search window, which is far more vague. The two ways you get to filter by using this search box is distance from you and genre. With the drop down channel menu, you get to select from the different channels on OurStage to see only gigs that allow the selected channels to apply.

The second is a filter that filters out any gig that is farther away than the place and distance selected.

Once you have your search entries filled out, whether by name, channel, or distance (or all), go ahead and hit search. Depending on your search terms, you may end up with a hole bunch of gigs, or you may not. If you ended up with little to no results, try broadening your search terms. With the terms defined in the pictures above, here’s what my results box looked like:

Once you find a gig you would like to get, click on the gig name. There you will get to see all of the gig’s info. It should look something like this:

No that you’re there, you can hit that little pink button up in the corner that says “Submit my EPK”. That will take you to a screen that once again shows you the gig’s info, and allows you to put in a note that you will submit with your EPK, and this should be a nice, personal, professional note expressing your desire to play the gig. Remember, proper grammar can go a long way!

Once you have made your note and submitted it, you should recieve a message and an e-mail that each say the same thing, here’s what the message will look like (the gig/venue names changed, obviously):

Then you just wait. The venue will then hopefully (for your sake) handle their business and select someone. With some luck, and if you’re awesome enough, you will get the gig, and will receive a message and e-mail referring you to a place to accept that gig. Again, here is what that message might look like, with only small changes (it will tell you to do about the same thing):

Once you go to the link and accept the gig (click “accept” on the right side of the screen) and you will once again receive a message and an e-mail that will confirm that you accepted the gig, and it looks a lot like this:

Now, you pretty much just get to sit around and wait for the gig (aside from ironing out the smaller details of the gig with the venue, like load in times and such, but that’s no big deal, right?). We do understand, though, that things happen, and we have you covered. If for any reason you need to cancel the gig, you can do so (although we REALLY don’t recommend it, and you should give a long time in advance of cancellation). Remember where you went to search for the gig? Well, right next to the “Gig Search” option at the Marketplace menu is an option for “My Gigs”. Well, when you go in there, you can see all of your gigs, applied for, booked, etc. All you have to do is find the gig you are looking for, and click “cancel” (found to the far right of the gig name). If you really want to cancel the gig, go ahead and move past the check, and click “ok”. Once again, to make sure you don’t mess anything up, there is another warning page that lets you know that there are pretty serious repercussions for canceling a gig. This page, as you might notice, looks a lot like the page you were at when you applied for the gig in the first place (you even get a change to explain yourself!):

Once you cancel it (if you so choose), you will be taken back to your “My Gigs” page, and will be shown a notification on the page that you cancelled your gig (looks like this):

Sometimes, though, the venues have to cancel the gigs that have been booked. In that case, you will (as always) be sent a message and an e-mail regarding the cancellation of the gig. Guess what the image below is? No, it’s definitely NOT an example of a gig cancellation notice (okay, I lied, it is):

That’s not it, either. Gigs can also be rescheduled, as you may well know. Here’s what the notification for that looks like:

That’s about all you need to know about booking your gigs. Good luck getting some great shows!

To all our valued OurStage members:

A key to building a successful community is to define its purpose and place in the great, vast, virtual world of ours. Therefore, I present to you, our valued community members, our first draft of the OurStage.com Community Values

Our Objectives:
OurStage.com is an online community serving passionate music & video fans and artists who have come together for the purpose of collaboratively selecting the best in emerging music & video.

Through active involvement at our site, we will come to know each other as friend and fan, a connection of like-minded individuals interested in sharing thoughts and ideas about music & video. As a whole we are creating a priceless environment for the industry to use as a resource for selecting the best talent for their needs, while also providing a discovery resource for fans to embrace new artists and artists to earn the support of new fans.

Artist Community Values:
• We seek to facilitate strong relationships that enable artists to earn the support of new fans and introduce them to new art.

• Our competitions welcome all genres of music & film. If we don’t have it, tell us. We’ll add it.

• Your art remains yours, forever – we demand no rights.

• There’s no sharing, sending, giving or stealing of your property. If you want to sell your work, that’s your business.

• For the sake of the fans’ listening experience, content in a channel must adhere to our posted channel descriptions.

• The site is for you to discover new fans, not just solicit votes. Please check out other artists you like, and introduce yourself to their friends and fans.

• We like to think we’re in this together, meaning we provide the platform to showcase your talent, but we need artists’ help too. Keep your profile updated, keep uploading into our channels, make friends, recruit fans—help us help you.

• We are here to see you advance your career. If you have ideas to make this site better, tell us. We’ll respond in kind.

• Because this site is about music and video, we want users to engage in conversation via email or other means with members who share your interests and welcome your viewpoints. Please don’t spam friends or other fans with off-topic messages.

• Share your thoughts and ideas about OurStage with us. We are here for you and value your opinions.

• We do not condone, support or tolerate those who write disparaging, negative or slanderous comments about Artists or Fans and then broadcast those views to other OurStage members via blogs, OurStage email, chat or any OurStage communication mechanism. Concerns about other members should be communicated to the OurStage team directly and exclusively. We will address any issue raised privately and discreetly.

• The opportunities we offer artists for career advancement and promotional placements are for all genres and never does one take precedent over another.

Fan Community Values:
• OurStage is here to help fans discover great music & film. We encourage all fans to vote often, vote for the best talents and vote fairly. Every participant is a contributing member of this collective taste-making venture.

• Share your comments, thoughts and accolades with your favorite artists—let them know you love them. We encourage it and value it, as do the artists.

• Fans are invited to flag off-topic, copyrighted or offensive content, but please, not artists’ uploads simply because you don’t like them.

• Help your favorite artists by spreading the word about OurStage to other music & film lovers. We’re here to support artists, but most importantly, to empower you the fans to take music & film back from the Man and give it to its rightful owners – its creators and patrons.

• Be a presence on OurStage. Show your face, make favorites, playlists. The more active you are, the happier the fans and artists will be – us too.

• Because OurStage is about music & video, we want users to engage in conversation via email or other means with members who share your interests and welcome your viewpoints. Please don’t spam friends or other fans with off-topic messages.

• We do not condone, support or tolerate those who write disparaging, negative or slanderous comments about Artists or Fans and then broadcast those views to other OurStage members via blogs, OurStage email, chat or any OurStage communication mechanism. Concerns about other members should be communicated to the OurStage team directly and exclusively. We will address any issue raised privately and discreetly.

• Share your thoughts and ideas about OurStage with us. We’re here for you and count on your opinions to stay relevant.

What do you think of our Community Values? One value we have is that we want your feedback. So please share!

Myth #1 The OurStage judging system is no different from other competition sites.

Busted. OurStage.com is not a popularity contest. We are a collective community of music, video and film fans. And we’re not a select panel of so-called “experts”. OurStage “raters” judge music and video from all of the artists competing in monthly competitions. Behind the scenes number crunching and crazy accurate algorithms do the heavy lifting to compile the near real-time rankings. Couple that with a game-proof system that ensures that the fans decide, and you have yourself something that’s not only different, it’s revolutionary.

Myth #2 Dishonest judging will help my artist win.

Busted. Really, when has lying ever gotten you anything? Well, perhaps it has, but that isn’t the point here. All raters’ rankings are combined into a big data pool. Unless you have access to the pool—which you don’t, it’s impossible to know what specific affect your vote has on the rankings. And what’s the point of dishonest rating anyway? Honest voting for other artists will help your rankings—that’s a promise!

Myth #3 OurStage.com gives everyone an equal shot to be heard, seen and ranked.

Confirmed. Our smarts are smart. The democracy of OurStage mandates equal opportunity for all artists to be heard, seen and ranked. But it’s up to the fans to decide how those rankings turn out.

Myth #4 My fans can vote for me.

Confirmed. Of course your fans can vote for you, so long as they’re judging in the same channel you’re competing in. Chances are they’re going to have to vote for other artists before they come across your track. And it could be a few battles, or loads of battles. Hence we’re not a popularity contest. But remember, honest voting for other artists helps your rankings! So having your fans just vote is helping you and art in general. Hence the continued call that everyone should be honest in their opinions at all times. That can only help you.

Myth #5 Channel competitions are only helpful for my career as an artist if I win.

Busted. Big BUSTED actually. Take a read of some of our artist success stories we’re compiling (and more coming in everyday). Many of these artists were HIGH RANKING but not necessarily the winners of their channel or monthly grand prize. Participating in our monthly competitions is the BEST way to introduce yourself to potential new fans.

Read our Artist Success Stories if you don’t believe us.

Myth #6 Voting down the better artists will help my favorite artist win.

Busted. Another big Busted. Trying to be cleaver, sneaky and downright dishonest only wastes your time. And don’t get all conspiratorial on this topic either. There are simply too many relationships analyzed behind the scenes and too much battling going on for that to happen. If some content does slip in the rankings, it’s because of what the fans decided as a collective. Be fair and honest and everyone wins. Including you. Why? Because honest voting for other artists helps your rankings.

Myth #7 There is great music and video even lower in the ranks.

Confirmed. Bottom line is there is a lot of great music and video throughout OurStage. However, your tastes may not reflect the tastes of the masses. That’s ok too. We encourage you to browse the channels and use OurStage for what it is—the ultimate discovery destination for emerging music and video artists.

Myth #8 If I judge enough battles I’ll get to judge my song or video.

Confirmed. But that doesn’t guarantee how many battles it will take. It could be 1 battle or 1,000 battles or even more. There are too many variables at work for you to predict. Our job is to ensure that all content gets a fair chance to be heard and ranked. If you’re rating content, then its your obligation to the artist who made it to rate it fairly against the other item. If you’re judging only to get to your own stuff, then sadly you’re missing the point.

Myth #9 Entering late in the month improves your chances of winning, or ranking high.

Busted. It only decreases the number of days raters have to discover your talent. Why do that to them or yourself?

Myth #10 Once you rate something you’ll never be asked to rate it again.

Busted. You are part of a collective pool of tastemakers. To ensure a fair and accurate rating process you may rate something one time, or a bunch of times. But you’ll never rate the same pairs twice.

So, for those of you who might be new here, you might wonder what you can do, and how to make use of all the really cool stuff we have here at OurStage. Well, we’re a couple steps ahead of the game here, and have ten things for both artists and fans to do when they get here. Check them out!

10 Things for Every Fan to Do

10 Things for Every Artist to Do

First things first, if you want good recommendations from your snazzy little recommendation block in your profile, you will have to help us help you. Here’s how to do it.

First and foremost, you need to know how to get the music recommendation block into your profile. You know that neat little “Add stuff to your profile” button we always tell you to use? Yeah, go ahead and do it again right now. In case you never actually got around do using it before, it’s on the right side of your profile, and right below your bio. Now that you’ve gotten there, you can find the Music Recommendation box, and add it to here you want it on your profile.

You should now have a neat box that looks like this loafing about your profile page:

So what do you do with it? Well, once you get it all set up, it should take care of itself. First off, you can click at the bottom where it says “Music Recommendation Settings” to change the settings (not obvious at all, right?). Once you go there, you should get something that looks like this:

Using the menu, you can select the genres you want to appear when the system recommends music to you. You should select the genres you would like to occur when recommending you music, and once selected, you can change the frequency at which songs form that genre would be played. It could look something like this when you’re finished:

If you were feeling really open minded, you could not even bother selecting genres to be filtered, and it would just play you things from all genres (like the blank setting window read, if you took a chance to check it).

You may have noticed, though, that the filters you can put into the settings of the recommendation block are incredibly vague. That’s fine, because it’s not the only thing that factors into music being recommended to you. When you are listening to music here on OurStage, you may have noticed that when you mouse over the upper corners of the player, some thumbs appear. When you rate or rank songs using these, it will determine music to be recommended to you. The more you rate music, the better the recommendation block will work, providing you with better recommendations. Neat, huh? We have a pretty smart system.

Here’s what it looks like when you go to “Thumb” music:

Thumbing three thumbs up or three thumbs down does have repercussions. When you give something three thumbs up, it becomes automatically entered into your favorite songs. When you give it three thumbs down, that type song becomes avoided when recommending music for you. After thumbing a song, it will not show up as a recommendation for you; after all, it is to serve you up new music that you haven’t heard!

If you don’t feel like staying on your profile just to listen to your recommendations, that’s fine. We have you covered, my friend. In the upper right hand corner of the Music Recommendation block, there’s a link that says “Popup Player”. That’s right, you guessed it. Clicking there will open up the Recommendation player in a new window, and you are no loner tied down to your profile page, but you are once again free to roam OurStage (or other sites, if you really feel the need). Here’s what it looks like:

So, put in a little bit of work, and we will hook you up with some sweet new tunes.