One Austin-based company will have the opportunity to bring together Austin's two biggest industries - technology and music - and present them to hundreds of delegates as the World Congress on Information Technology begins today.
ESession.com is a company that provides an innovative Internet application that allows any musician the chance to collaborate with professional musicians, singers, mixers and engineers over the Internet without budgeting for studio space rental or travel costs.
"If you want to have this guy from New York on your song, you'd have to pay for his studio time, pay for his travel, pay him a per diem. You've already paid thousands of dollars before he's even started performing," said, Ryan Chahanovich, director of client and talent relations for eSession.com.
The company will have an opportunity to show the world its program at the WCIT Innovation Exchange Program.
While the WCIT focuses mostly on the discussion of the technology industry's role in social issues around the world, the Innovation Exchange Program provides an opportunity to generate economic development.
The Innovation Exchange gives Texas a chance to show the world what it has to offer and could result in a serious boost to the local economy, Morgan said.
Alistair Deakin, chief operating officer for eSession, moved to Austin to help manage the site and said he saw Austin as the perfect hub of technology with a good population of people dedicated to music.
"We'll bring you closer. You want to be a rock star, we'll help you," Deakin said. eSession will put you in contact with people you would otherwise have no chance of working with, Deakin said.
What separates one band from all the other bands on Sixth Street could be that one great professional lending his talents to your project. That's how you establish yourself as a brand and help break into the industry, Deakin said.
The WCIT is an opportunity to increase eSession's visibility to a much wider market and keep the interest that is revolving around the product alive until the launch date, founder Gina Fant-Saez said. After two years of planning and designing, the company plans to launch in July during the International Music Products Association's summer seminar, which is being held for the first time in Austin, Fant-Saez said.
Fant-Saez sold her analog studio equipment to start up eSession.com, because it was becoming harder to keep her studio successful in the digital age The future is in moving toward more high tech and digital technology, she said.
The site's operators are still working on the final design, and programmers are working on the code, but the project is moving ahead and will be ready for the scheduled launch date, lead software engineer Graham Brookins said.
The Web site currently contains a database of 330 "talent members." Members qualify by having at least 15 major-label projects. They are featured on the site with a profile, photo and samples of their work taken from their discography. Interested clients can peruse the members and find a sound that interests them, Fant-Saez said. Once they find someone, for a $25 fee they can put in a work order request and fill out a form describing their song, their intent, technical details and what they want the musician to contribute to their project. The work orders will appear in an in-box, like e-mail, for the member, who can then review the requests and accept, reject or simply say they are currently unavailable, she said.
ESession makes sure the two parties can communicate, that file transfer rates move smoothly and that formats are compatible with each other. A feature called eChart allows detailed information on lyrics, bars, chords and meter changes to be shared in a "roadmap" for the song. Clients pay 50 percent of the negotiated rate before the artists' addition to their project and pay the rest upon completion. A 15-percent commission is eSessions' rate, Fant-Saez said.
In a partnership with Guitar Center, the company is also making eBundles, packages that combine computer hardware and instruments to get musicians started professionally, she said.
"The demand is there for a comprehensive site that would help keep costs down and provide access to world class talent," said Kevin Killen, creative partner for the group. "The site provides for so much individual variation between partners and projects that it's hard to predict how people will react to the site," he said.
Killen won a Grammy for his engineering work on the latest Shakira album and said with his experience as a recording engineer, the user-friendliness of the site really excites him.
"So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I think people really believe this is the future of the industry," Fant-Saez said. "I hope so, too."
About 150 businesses will set up booths to network with potential business partners and economic leaders, said Wendy Morgan, a spokeswoman for WCIT. About 25 of these companies will also present to an auditorium of representatives from around the globe. Nine of those companies are from Texas, and six are from Austin. The companies include bio-science, gaming and security firms.
About 4,000 visitors are expected to arrive in Austin for the WCIT, which lasts five days.
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