Pedlr Creates First Social Marketplace Enabling Bands to Sell Directly to Fans

ROCHESTER, N.Y., March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Pedlr, creators of LyricWiki.org, announced today that they have launched the world's first Social Marketplace. E-commerce functionality will allow customers to use a credit card or PayPal to purchase music and goods instantly from their favorite bands. Fans will be able to access song lyrics for more than 200,000 songs, connect directly with the bands, and communicate with like-minded fans. This creates a thriving marketplace where artists now have the power to sell their own music directly from their profiles and keep 70 percent of the revenue.

Professional-Grade Tools, Free to Artists

In addition to professional ecommerce tools that put local bands on par with those funded by massive media companies, bands will also receive other free tools to help them on their path to fame.

"We're allowing musicians to take the power back. We're offering a website-creation engine, email-marketing tools, ecommerce capability, and new ways to interact with fans - all for free," said Sean Colombo, founder, president, and CEO of Pedlr. "Now your favorite local band has all of the same tools available to them as U2 and Aerosmith, without the large budget for a marketing department and IT staff."

A New Home for LyricWiki.org

Last year, the creators of Pedlr launched LyricWiki.org - a free lyrics site similar to Wikipedia that allows anyone to add or correct song lyrics. After winning Dream Host Site of the Month in April, the site quickly gained a large community of followers, and built up a database of more than 200,000 song lyrics, which is constantly being added to and revised by hundreds of thousands of users. The site instantly rocketed to 150,000 views per day, and its open API has been used to make plug-ins for every major music player. LyricWiki.org will be rolled into Pedlr as its "lyrics" portal to allow easier use of the two services. This will create a fertile environment for bands that will have an instant fan-base for their music.

Limitless Possibilities

While Pedlr will initially focus on musicians and their fans, the site plans to expand to other forms of art as well.

About Pedlr

Pedlr is the world's first social marketplace - a new model that puts the power back in the hands of the artists. Coupling powerful ecommerce and marketing tools for bands, with social features for fans is revolutionizing how music is sold and discovered. Pedlr was launched in 2007 by Sean Colombo and Geoff Brown, creators of the popular song-lyrics site LyricWiki.org. Pedlr is currently privately-held and is chaired by David Koretz, President and CEO of BlueTie Inc.