• by Tanya Gazdik , March 17, 2008

Surrge.com, a new referral model and social distribution network, has the noble goal of reshaping the digital music scene.

The network was launched Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The site aims to foster a community that encourages fans to get involved in an artist's success, and offers monetary rewards for doing so.

Everyone invested in the success of a band-from the fan to the artist to the label-is compensated for their efforts through this network. Additionally, tying associations like ASCAP and BMI into the network's technology, Surrge is effectively supporting the artists' rights-a major road block exacerbated with the advent of new media. The site will pay performance fees for music streams and also compensating songwriters, said Jonathan Bingham, Surrge co-founder with his brother Justin. "We're taking the high road with this from the get-go," he said.

By creating a fan-driven, word-of-mouth distribution channel, Surrge enables artists to recognize the fans who contribute to their success. Those fans are then compensated through Surrge for their promotional efforts. Through its repeatable distribution and referral models, Surrge helps artists build their distribution network and fan base by rewarding existing fans for spreading the music. Surrge's online community fosters relationships between artists, fans and music labels.

"What we're trying to do with the site, isn't just create a destination site that sells indie songs and looks like iTunes," Bingham said. "At the end of the day for us, what we're trying to highlight is that relationship between the artist and the fans, and the fans and the community."

Employing social communities to foster viral discovery, connect like-minded individuals and widely distribute content to targeted audiences is not new, Bingham said. Where the music industry has struggled is with finding the right model that capitalizes on social media, while also keeping all parties' best interests in mind. Justin Bingham, a long time D.J. and new artist aficionado, came up with the idea for Surrge after he and brother Jonathan had been working with how to apply a trust and referral model they came up with.

More than 1.3 million songs from 15,000 different labels are currently being uploaded onto the site, Bingham said. The beta site launched in late October, The full site, which launched Saturday, has been a year in the making. "With what we're doing we had to, in essence, build an on-line infrastructure," Bingham said. "It can take payment in, and also turn payments and make payments out." For example, "Scouts," or those who bring new artists to the site, get 1% of that artist's downloads for life (money which comes from Surrge's profits, not the artist's.) Users who download a song and then tell friends about it, will get compensated for every friend who then downloads that song.

"On the industry side, I think it's been a mistake over the last six to 12 months where a lot of these different new media companies are touting the deconstruction of the music industry and that one of them is going to be the savior, carrying the torch for everyone going forward," Bingham said. "I don't think it's realistic. I think that new media plays an enormous part in reshaping the way the music industry will look for the future. There's no doubt that it's in some dire trouble, But I think it's a mistake to take the approach that you're just going to steamroll over somebody like Universal, because they do certain things really well. I think that they've made some really bad decisions and hurt certain people in the industry in ways that is inexcusable. But I think there is a lot of good in their model, if they are willing to reshape it."