Planetwize: Music and Media Company With a Mission, An Interview with Founder Dan Porras

Guest post by Scott James

Artful Change creates art & music events to raise funds for other environmental and social nonprofits. Our mission is to provide opportunities to raise awareness & make an impact. This interview is part of a series of interviews with bands who live out their commitment to the environment through music.

Planetwize is a music and media company with a mission. They host Actiontrax, a music download service that helps music lovers be activists by donating part of their profits from music downloads, books, cases and gadgets to good causes.

Last week I had the chance to talk with Dan Porras, founder and Editor-In-Chief of Planetwize. I asked him about what Planetwize does, why and how they do it, and his thoughts on the online music industry. I'll let him tell the story of Planetwize- a great company with a great website!

What is your mission with Planetwize?

Our mission at Planetwize is to turn music lovers into activists. We want to make it easy for both bands and fans to leverage music to create positive change. To buy an album on Planetwize.com, you have to learn about the cause which that particular album supports. Education is also a big part of our mission: we want to spread awareness of the people and organizations that are working to bring about sustainable development.

Why did you decide to merge music and change?

Everyone loves music. As a musician, I have always looked for ways to use my own music to give back. Aside from producing a benefit concert or CD, there was no simple, turn-key way for musicians to use their music to support good causes. That's why we created the Actiontrax platform on Planetwize, to offer an intuitive interface to combine music with social and environmental projects from around the world.

How does downloading music from Planetwize help people change the world?

Every album on Planetwize.com/music supports a social or environmental organization working for change. We are simply empowering consumers to support a cause by doing something that they would do anyway: buying music. We realize that people have limited time and funds these days, and we hope that by combining music and charity, we can help people to support causes that they otherwise might not be exposed to, while getting some good, new music. We also hope that, through the articles we publish, people can learn about issues of sustainability and global culture and be inspired to make a difference.

What have been your biggest challenges and rewards with Planetwize?

As a non-technical person, the biggest challenge with Planetwize has definitely been the development of the website and the music platform. The learning curve was steep - it certainly was not as easy as putting up a website and selling music. The biggest reward is the positive response we are getting from users and bands that are eager to work with us and to help us grow our catalog. I love it when a band contacts us and says, " we love what you are doing and we want to support this cause with our music". It makes it all worth the hard work at the end of the day.

Where do you see growth in the online music industry?

I think that the world of digital music needs new business models. The iTunes 99-cents-per-track model was great for legitimizing digital music downloads, but people are looking for more ways to enjoy and discover music online. One of the cool things we offer users is the ability to sort through our music catalog by 'cause' as well as 'genre'. So if you select 'Unlock Africa', you will see all of the albums that are supporting projects in Africa. It's about giving music lovers new ways of interacting with music.

Being a music person, what are you listening to right now?

I alternate between putting my iTunes music player on shuffle and listening to full albums. Right now, actually, I am listening to 'Redemption' by Johnny Cash.

What are some innovative ways you have seen musicians promote change?

One of my favorite bands, The Duhks, travels around in a bus that runs on veggie fuel. But they go a step further and actually hold seminars and do everything they can on the road to educate their fans on sustainability. They even started their own 'think tank' to promote sustainability. Check it out at - http://www.greenduhks.com/

What kind of projects does Planetwize have coming up?

I am most excited about our upcoming compilation project, Power Up The Planet. We brought together artists like Thievery Corporation, Zap Mama, Ozomatli, Brazilian Girls, and Balkan Beat Box to make a comp. album to bring solar power to impoverished people. The album provides supports our partner, Solar Aid which does awesome work in Africa. That album will drop October 24th, which is the international day of climate action. You can see the 'teaser' vid. Other than that, we are focused on growing our music catalog and will have lots of great albums up there soon.

How do you see Planetwize growing in 2010?

We are starting to put out more original articles in addition to growing our music catalog. We are also establishing more relationships with innovative non-profits, and will be rolling out a series of live events to increase awareness.

How do you find bands on your site? If others are interested, what should they do?

We are always looking for artists that are engaged and serious about making a difference with their music. With our business model, the artist still gets a nice percentage of the royalties, so the artist is not just giving their music away. Sometimes bands come to us, and they are already working with a non-profit group, and we can work with that band to get their music on our platform. Other times we reach out to artists that we like and help them to select a cause to combine with their music. Either way, we would love to hear from bands that are interested to sell their music and to partner with a non-profit group doing good work in the world. Best way to get in touch is to reach out through our website, www.planetwize.com

How do people find Planetwize and you online?

Please check out www.planetwize.com and click around. If you have any feedback or questions, or just want to say hi, please feel free to email me - dan@planetwize.com