The End, and a Beginning

Today, with mixed emotions, we are announcing that we will be shutting down http://bln.kr on 10/1/11.

What this means for you, our customer:

1. Starting today, we will no longer be accepting new music uploads to our site.

2. We will continue streaming music hosted on http://bln.kr until 10/1/11.

3. After 10/1/11, we will no longer stream music uploaded to bln.kr.

4. All Pro customers will receive a refund for any days of Pro service remaining on 10/1/11.

bln.kr

This decision has been difficult for us. We launched bln.kr on 4/28/09, and over the past 2.5 years, we have built relationships with so many talented artists and passionate business partners, many of whom have become lasting friends. But as we have grown, the ongoing cost of providing a free music hosting service has outpaced the revenue we generate from our paid Pro subscriptions. As a bootstrapped, 3 man team, we are no longer able to support the continued investment needed to keep bln.kr running. We are passionate about bln.kr and will always believe in our mission of encouraging creativity by accelerating feedback. Yet the economic reality of running this business has prevented us from building the service our customers deserve.

But while bln.kr is coming to an end, we are excited to announce an entirely new business we are building. 

Shoebox

We believe the best moments in life are shared. But the problem is that these shared memories don’t have a home. We don’t have a private place to collect all the candid photos and videos, the classic quotes and the inside jokes from our times with our best friends and family, and no way to return to these moments as a group and remember together.

We are building Shoebox, available via SMS, iPhone, Android, and the web, to finally create a home for shared moments. 

We want to give our bln.kr customers early access to Shoebox, as a small way of saying thank you for your support. To sign up for our private beta, go here: http://goshoebox.com.

Thank you so much for your business, your support, your encouragement, and your friendship. It’s been a hell of a ride!

PS- Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at feedback@bln.kr. We want to hear from you.

Justin
CEO/Co-Founder

Creating is about sharing

I attended a talent show tonight. Highlights include a tuba made to sound like a didgeridoo, several rap song parodies, and some great guitar and piano playing.

Folks played and sang their hearts out. And the audience loved it.

We believe that creating is about sharing. And sharing means connecting with your fans.

We all have something to say, something to express. Our artists choose the medium of music.

Every day, we work to make it easier for artists to share their work and connect with their fans. And we imagine, design, and build better ways for fans to connect with artists and leave great feedback.

Our goal is to accelerate creativity. We strive to give every artist a chance to be heard and to give fans a chance to express their opinion.

We have so much to learn, but we are encouraged by the relationships we build with our artists and their fans.

We want to hear from you. As an artist, what tools do you need to encourage your creativity? As a fan, how can we make it easier to share the music that you discover and love?

Bln.kr exists because we believe that every artist has a voice that deserves to be heard, and every fan has the right to share the music they love.

We are here to make music better. Help us build the tools to encourage creativity. Drop us a line at feedback@bln.kr and let’s build this together.

What We Are Excited About in 2011

1. Creating great feedback for artists
2. Unifying fanbases across social networks and the web
3. Building new tools for sharing creative work and engaging fans
4. Developing even more trusted relationships with talented artists

2011 is going to be an awesome year for our artists, fans, and partners.

Let’s go!

making bln.kr signup better

We have two goals at bln.kr:

1. Make it easy to get your music online

2. Make it easy to share your music everywhere

We have always loved how easy it is to sign up for bln.kr.  Just connect your Facebook or Twitter account and start uploading your tracks.

This has worked really well for quite awhile now, but as we continue to add new places to share your music beyond Facebook and Twitter, most recently YouTube (and next week, Blogger) we are finding that the signup process is becoming cumbersome at best and quite confusing at worst.

So tomorrow we are launching a new and improved sign up process.

New Users

For new users, just provide your email address and a password and we will automatically generate a bln.kr username (which you can change of course).  Moving forward, you will log in to bln.kr with your username or email (your choice) and password.

Because we are using your email address as your primary username, we can really easily connect all of your social network accounts to your bln.kr account.

So right after you sign up, you will be able to connect Facebook and Twitter, and for PROs, Blogger and YouTube with just a click for each.

Then you are off to sharing the music you make!

Current Users

For our current artists, the next time you sign in the old way, via your Facebook or Twitter accounts, we will remind you of the bln.kr username you already have, and will ask you for your email address and password.

Then, we will give you an opportunity to connect the rest of your social accounts to bln.kr, to help you share your music to even more places online.

Don’t worry, all of your tracks, play counts, comments, and artist info will all  be there waiting for you when you log in.

And, if you proceed to login with the new system, we will give you one month of free PRO service, http://bln.kr/pro, as a little gift as a token of our appreciation for your patience as we continue to build bln.kr.

We want to get this right and we want to hear your feedback.  Any questions, just email me at justin@bln.kr.

Thanks!

Justin DeLay, CEO