News

18 Dec 2009: New features on Equal Dreams

New widgets on profiles
Twitter widget - Keep your friends and fans updated! Twitter widget is an easy and fast way to spread the latest news!
Location widget - Add your location to this widget and you will also appear in the world map on browse profiles.
Video widget - Add videos from Youtube or Vimeo now to your profile page.

Like all the different profile widgets, these three can be found and dragged & dropped into your profile from the edit bar in the bottom of the profile page (when logged in).

02 Dec 2009: Winner of the "Customize the best profile" contest - VARISSUO

The profile customizing contest has ended and Equal Dreams is excited to announce the winner of the contest - Varissuo! Varissuo will get two days in HIP Studios (Helsinki) with a studio technician. Congratulations to the band and good luck in the studio!

23 Nov 2009: Medication Keeps Me Going charity concert

Equal Dreams is organizing a charity concert together with Finnish Central Association for Mental Health, Holy Feather Productions and Gloria Kultural Arena.

Welcome to the Medication Keeps Me Going charity concert
Gloria Cultural Arena (Helsinki) on Tuesday 24th of November
7pm - 10pm
On stage the host of the evening Elastinen with Parannus, Ra, Wolver and Belle Who
Free entrance!

17 Nov 2009: New charity partner on board - Finnish Central Association for Mental Health

Equal Dreams is happy to announce the new charity partner Finnish Central Association for Mental Health (in finnish Mielenterveyden keskusliitto)! Artists and music lovers can support their work for mental health care for children and youth through Equal Aid -function.

What is Equal Aid?

21 Oct 2009: Equal Dreams at Musiikki & Media 2009, Helsinki Music Fair and Womex’09 Music Fair

Equal Dreams is exhibiting at the Helsinki Music Fair (22. - 25. of Oct., stand 4b8) and at the international Womex’09 fair in Copenhagen (28. Oct. - 1. Nov., stand B3-129). Furthermore, Equal Dreams CEO Kimmo Kärkkäinen appears as speaker at Musiikki & Media 2009, in Tampere on the 24th of October.

We invite you to join us at the fairs, learn more about our future development plans and bring your own ideas along.

09 Oct 2009: Amnesty International & Equal Dreams Present: Kuuluu Kaikille -klubi

The Club evening at Korjaamo, Helsinki is a part of Amnesty International's campaign "Demand Dignity" which in Finland runs under "Kuuluu Kaikille". Kuuluu Kaikille -klubi with Deep Insight, Paleface and Kauko Röyhkä starts in Vaunusali at 9 pm. Come and join us!

Tickets: 13 € (in advance) / 15 € . Buy your tickets here .
Concert revenue will be donated to Amnesty International.

More about Kuuluu Kaikille (fi)
More about Demand Dignity (en).

07 Oct 2009: New charity partner on board - SOS Children's Villages

Equal Dreams is happy to welcome the new charity partner SOS Children's Villages! Equal Aid –function gives artists and music lovers an easy way to support SOS Children's Villages in their work for children who can no longer grow up with their biological families.
More about SOS Children's Villages

07 Oct 2009: The new Equal Dreams is launched!

The new platform has a completely new look’n’feel. The most visible part is a new user interface: as of now you can set up a complete profile for selling and promoting music in just few minutes. Inspired by the easy and fun customizing, we challenge all users to a contest. The customized profile with the most most fans will win two days in studio (Helsinki).
More about the contest

We welcome you to explore our service. Equal Dreams Team is always keen on hearing your thoughts and ideas so feedback is most welcome!

15 Sep 2009: Music For A Good Cause

Equal Dreams is arranging the Mimi & Kuku charity concert in Espoo, Finland Sat. 19th of Sep. Revenues from the concert will be donated through World Vision Finland to children living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Mimi & Kuku is a well known Finnish children's TV program from the "Pikku Kakkonen" series.

When and Where: 19th of September at 3 pm, Kannusali, Espoo.
Tickets: 7 € /person. Reservation of tickets at info@equaldreams.com

02 Jun 2009: New Features on Equal Dreams

Send a song

Do you want to surprise your friend with music? Now you can buy and send music as a gift on Equal Dreams. Just fill in your friends e-mail address or username on Equal Dreams when purchasing the music and you are about to make someone's day. The receiver of the gift gets an e-mail with a download link.

Company blog

Equal Dreams is in midst of developing a new user interface that we call Equal Dreams 2.0. We want to share our thoughts and above all give you a chance to participate in the process. Therefore we have opened a company blog to keep you posted. Check it out!

07 May 2009: New charity partner onboard - The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation

Equal Dreams is happy to announce a new charity partner The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto). Using the Equal Aid –function artists and music lovers can join in the new campaign of Conservation of forests.

Click here to read more about The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation
Click here to read more about Equal Aid

16 Jan 2009: Equal Dreams in media

Equal Dreams with its new features has been picked up in media, check out some of the articles here:

• Sue.fi, January 09th 2009 (fin)
• ArcticStartup, January 6th 2009 (en)

16 Jan 2009: New Features on Equal Dreams

This is what's new on Equal Dreams:

Join your favourite artists fan club on Equal Dreams! By joining the fan club you will get news about the artist's actions, such as a new album release or profile update. To join a fan club, just click the link "Join the fan club" on the artist pages. You will find the news feed and a list of the fan clubs you've joined in "Fan clubs" channel on your personal homepage.

We have also added the possibility for artists and labels to sell their music as download coupons in various occasions for example at their concerts. The download coupon system is an excellent way to promote music. Coupons include a code with which the fans can download music in the Equal Dreams service by using the link "Redeem a coupon" on the left navigation bar. If you would like to sell music download coupons please contact us for more information.

30 Dec 2008: New features on Equal Dreams

The start page has got a total makeover. The familiar channels such as New release, People recommend, Random pick and Equal Aid pick can still be found on the start page, now as a column on the right side. Beside these, we’ve added a whole new channel where anyone can contribute a thought or idea, promote his/her favourite band/album/song and share opinions on start page. The users get to choose what’s shown on this page by voting the posts.

Are you about to make some new music and want to publish it? Or is your favourite artist about to make a new album? The new version of Equal Share is really something worth checking out! Now the artist and fans have all the more chance to cooperate. Artists/record labels have a possibility to ask their supporters questions, ideas, wishes and so on. The artists also get to attach a special offer (merchandise) to their Equal Share order.

01 Dec 2008: Music recommendation -sweepstake done!

The sweepstake that was taken place in November is now over. Everyone who recommended music on their profile participated in the sweepstake. The prices are 3 iPod Nano players and 10 tickets to Egotrippis concert held in Tavastia, Helsinki.

iPod players go to following usernames: nikojatapsa, crt.remic ja tapioylinen
The concert tickets go to following usernames: johnit, qla, wolf_bomber, mr.vonderbaum ja sakari

Thank you for participating and congratulations to all winners !!!

18 Nov 2008: Equal Dreams in media

YleX Tänään - radio show made an interesting program about crowdfunding possibilities in music business. Kimmo Kärkkäinen, CEO of Equal Dreams was invited to be a part of the show and talk about Equal Share. Listen to the show by clicking the link below:

• YleX Tänään (fin)

13 Nov 2008: Equal Dreams in media

We are happy to have noticed that Equal Dreams and the first Equal Share has intrigued the media.
Check out some of the articles in finnish media:

• Yle Pop 13.11.2008
• Iltalehti.fi 10.11.2008

13 Nov 2008: The first Equal Share is released

Great news! The first Equal Share is released. The Fogo Postos debut album "Sacrificio De La Primavera" is out now!
Congratulations The Fogo Posto and of course the supporters who made it happen!

03 Nov 2008: Equal Dreams at "Musiikki & Media ‘08"

The yearly Musiikki & Media music fair was taken place from 23rd till 25th of October in Tampere, Finland. The fair is a long established #1 event in the industry in Finland. Kimmo Kärkkäinen, CEO of Equal Dreams, was invited to give a speech under the topic;

EQUAL DREAMS – NEW SOLUTIONS IN MUSIC SALES*
A presentation of company services, its background and how it serves music professionals (artists and labels) as well as music consumers.

*A translation from the Finnish original

03 Nov 2008: New features on Equal Dreams!

We want to meet the Equal Dreams users needs and expectations as often as we possible can, and that is why we constantly
develop the Equal Dreams service. We proudly present our newest features:

Equal Dreams now also in German and Swedish
We are happy to inform our German and Swedish users that now they can use the Equal Dreams service with their native tongues.

For our German and Swedish users: If you wish to change your default language to German or Swedish, you can do that by going
to “Edit Profile”, where you find your personal settings at “Personal”. On this page you can change the language by choosing it on the
list of languages. Save the change by clicking the “Save” –button. The language will be automatically changed the next time you log in.

Equal Dreams Forum
The time has come to share your thoughts, discuss with other users and join Equal Dreams forum. Have you been in an awesome concert
and want to share your experience with other fans? Talk about Equal Share projects maybe? Go to forum and tell us all about it!
You find the forum on the left navigation bar, on top of the genres.

Equal Dreams Team is always keen on hearing your thoughts and ideas so feedback is most welcome!

28 Oct 2008: Equal Dreams in media

Equal Dreams has been picked up in Finnish media, check out some of the articles here:

• Markkinointi & Mainonta 13.10.2008
• Noise.fi 10.10.2008
• Stimulus Lokakuu 7 – 2008
• City-lehti, nro 18/2008

07 Oct 2008: New features on Equal Dreams!

Equal Dreams has some new exciting features for the users.

As you probably noticed, on our start page we have a new channel for our users to share their music recommendations. Users appearing on the "People recommend" list on the Equal Dreams start page are randomly picked. Anyone can promote his or her favourite artist!

Now you can also use PayPal when purchasing music on Equal Dreams. With PayPal you can easily transfer funds from your bank account to your PayPal account and shop online.
Learn more about PayPal here.

We have launched our service now also in Finnish. For our Finnish users: If you wish to change your default language to Finnish, you can do that by going to “Edit Profile”, where you find your personal settings at “Personal”. On this page you can change the language by choosing “Finnish” on the list of languages. Save the change by clicking the “Save” –button. The language will automatically be Finnish the next time you log in.

Hope you enjoy our new features!

03 Oct 2008: The first Equal Share project is fully financed!

The Fogo Posto is going to release their album Sacrificio De La Primavera with 12 songs before 20th of December since the project is now fully financed. Congratulations to the band and pre-orderers for making it happen!

25 Aug 2008: The first Equal Share Offers are out now!

Equal Dreams is proud to present the first two Equal Share offers:

The Fogo Posto is going to release their first album "Sacrificio De La Primavera" in autumn 2008 - and what makes this extra special, the album will be out exclusively on Equal Dreams!

This is how the band describes their upcoming album: "It's a theme album about a mystical journey in an ancient land of Gypsies and Wizards. There's Witch burning and other unpleasant stuff happening, and The Fogo Posto (Gang of Hobos) are spell bound to punish the guilty ones. How the story ends, you will have to find out yourself..." If that does not sound captivating, we don't know what does!

Behind The Fogo Posto's mysterious tales the singer/songwriter Kimmo Härmä and guitarist/composer Juhana Jansson. Working with the band also are Bjarki Kaikumo and Jaakko Vuorenmaa, both versatile and successful musicians. Härmä has previously been a background vocalist for bands such as The 69 Eyes (Paris Kills, Devils, Angels), Sentenced (Funeral Album).

Lucy was Driving plays music that combines powerful melodies and raw energy of rock into a mixture that one sarcastic individual once described as "science-rock for teenagers". The band is no stranger to sarcasm but knows something about science as well: Otso, the lead singer of Lucy was Driving, is filling his free time by working on a PhD-thesis in physics. This creates a strong background for the bands overall attitude: "Think for yourself, open your eyes and see the world we live in." The other three members are Henri (guitar and backing vocals), Janne (bass), and Juho (drums).

Lucy was Driving will release their debut album in the spring 2009. Their Equal Share project is for the first single from the upcoming album.

We wish the best of success to both of the Equal Share pioneers!

01 Aug 2008: We are open for business

After six weeks of invitation only period, we are proud to officially turn the "Open" sign up and roll our sleeves - Equal Dreams is now formally open and running.

August 1 also marks the date for the launch of our crowdfunding feature Equal Share, which will allow fans to participate in artistic projects together with musicians. More news on Equal Share will follow shortly!

Several Finnish media has picked up the story of our launch, check out the stories - and follow-up discussions :) — here:

• Markkinointi ja mainonta
• Tutka Ajan tasalla mediasta
• Afterdawn.com
• Yle.fi

So, warm welcome to all musicians and music lovers - come and join us in Equal Dreams!

26 Jul 2008: Equal Dreams in media

Just a week before our official launch, Equal Dreams has attracted positive and intrigued attention in Finnish media.

The following short story was published in two online news sites Digitoday and IT-viikko on July 27th: http://www.digitoday.fi/viihde/2008/07/21/uudessa-musiikkipalvelussa-artisti-on-kauppias/200818925/66 (in Finnish)

We have also made friends in Portugal; independent musician Marcos Marado of Merankorii interviewed our CEO Kimmo Kärkkäinen for his blog Mind Booster Noori. Read the whole interview here: http://mindboosternoori.blogspot.com/2008/07/welcome-to-equal-dreams-fair-music.html

16 Jun 2008: Equal Dreams has launched!

The fair music market Equal Dreams has launched its first version on Monday June 16, 2008. In this first phase the service is open by invitation only, with the official launch date set at August 1, 2008.

Equal Dreams offers both artists and their audiences distinctive service features, which differentiate it from any other music site:

• -In Equal Dreams the artists are free to price their own music, and they earn up to 88% of the sales. The ownership of the creative work remains with the artists
• -Automatic Profit Division enables profit and royalty management and distribution to all concerned parties, including copyright organizations
• -Equal Dreams is working together with several established charity organizations. The Equal Aid feature is a tool for charity work through music, with artists choosing causes important to them, and audiences participating with their purchases

With the official launch Equal Dreams will introduce another unique feature, Equal Share, which allows artists and their fans to join forces to make new music happen.