What it's all about

Ever pine for the good old pre-digital days when a music purchase was a special event? We do. Back then a purchase included not just the vinyl disc, but the packaging, liner notes, lyrics, artwork; even the artist's shouts and thanks list. CDs made the product a lot... smaller. And digital music distribution has reduced the product even further, to it's lowest common denominator - a compressed audio file. We'll never return to the days of a gatefold double vinyl album (thankfully - have you tried storing those things?), but sometimes it would be nice to have more than just an extremely large collection of raw MP3s. Sleevenotez aims to redress the balance by using the power of the web to aggregate artist information - virtual packaging if you prefer. If you listen to a lot of digital music then no doubt you've found yourself hunting down information on some obscure artist whose music you like, but who you've never heard of. Sleevenotez fulfils this need - we'll hunt down the information for you in real-time and present all in one place.

And if by some chance you happen to work in the music industry, you'll understand how the transition from atoms to bits has affected music commodotisation. Sleevenotez can help return value to music by re-coupling it with the huge wealth of content now available across the Web.

We're launching Sleevenotez in its pre-alpha state, so it may seem a bit untidy in some places. But improvements are being made on a day-by-day basis - and we have some big plans for the future. You can keep up with progress in the Sleevenotez blog, which provides a blow-by-blow account of the service as it evolves.