Frequently asked questions, with answers

If you don't see the answer to your question here, then please use the feedback form. If one of the answers does not satisfy you, please ask us to clarify it.

What is sonomu

It might look like a website, but sonomu is a tool. It's a tool for music lovers and a tool for music producers and a tool for music suppliers. It's a tool to help music communities flourish and bring interesting new music directly to them. Sonomu is there to be used by you not decide for you. How you use it is up to you. more about sonomu here

I want to review/comment/add an event - how?

Once you're logged in, you can click on 'add events and texts' in the side panel and follow the instructions. Alternatively, you can add reviews and comments along the way as you're browsing sonomu's releases, artists and labels.

I want to set up my own mailing list - how?

Once you're logged in, you can click on 'options and tools' in the side panel and follow the instructions. After you've set up your mailing list you can invite additional subscribers to your list and send them mails whenever you want to. You can opt to 'advertise' your list so you have a 'subscribe' button on your public page or keep the list private.

It's the latest content on sonomu by the people you're interested in. It's at http://sonomu.net/feed/, but you have to be logged in to see it. You can add people to your feed from their public page, which you can find by clicking on their name at the bottom of one of their reviews or comments. You may have a favourite reviewer you don't want to miss out on - this way you'll never have to. You can view a list of those in your feed by visiting your options page.

There's also a raw feed, which contains all the comments and reviews on sonomu.

RSS 'feeds' can be read by those of you who are interested in using or already have 'news aggregation' software. They provide an alternative way to keep up to date with what is new on sonomu - saving you having to actually come to sonomu on the web. The latest sonomu content is instead fed to you - along with new stuff from other websites you have added to your RSS feeds. The RSS 'feeds' variously contain the latest headlines, reviews, comments, events and so on. You can read them in 'news aggregation' software such as feeddemon for the pc and netnewswire for the Mac, among others.

What's this I keep hearing about organisation memberships?

Organisation members get their own section on sonomu and labels add new releases as they happen, publish news and events, plus manage their mailing lists - all through sonomu's tools. They can also sell their music via sonomu's consignment deal. You don't need to know any HTML and you won't even have to deal with people subscribing and unsubscribing - it's all dead easy and done through simple forms on a web page only you can access.

The sonomu ethos is to make it easier for the independent music industry to survive in what has always been a tough economic climate. We aim to make it easy and cheap for small independent labels to crosspromote new interesting music on an online platform totally built around the needs of the music makers, their labels and their followers.

If you're interested in organisation services and/or selling your music through sonomu then fill out the organisation sign up form.

Remember - sonomu membership is free!

See above, and our consignment deal

Sonomu is created and managed by state51. we've been in the online music business for more than 10 years. You can find out more about other state51 projects - including the state51 conspiracy - on the state51 website.