Echoboost.com Launches—Inspired by American Idol and YouTube

This week marks the launch of Echoboost.com, a social music network that helps people discover music made by unsigned musicians in their own communities and across the country. Formerly RadioFire.net, Echoboost.com premieres with over 6,000 registered artists and 12,000 songs.

Offering a new alternative for fans of online radio, Echoboost's custom music player encourages listeners to Boost the songs they enjoy and Drop the songs they don't. Songs that receive the most Boosts will continue to be played at random on the Music Player according to genre and location, while Dropped songs will make way for new tracks. In addition to assisting musicians build their local fan bases, songs receiving the most Boosts will be featured on regional and national Echoboost play lists.

"When 'American Idol' meets YouTube, you get Echoboost, a social network for user-generated music," explains founder and president Matt Henage. "People get pretty passionate about the things they like and dislike, so this is our way of letting the listeners take the reigns and rally behind the songs and artists they enjoy the most."

With a focus on community, Echoboost encourages people to network with others who share similar tastes via profile pages, user comments, lists of favorite bands, genres, locations and song tags.

Henage started to work on the site in February 2005 as a solution for friends in local bands who had trouble gaining exposure for their music. "I knew a lot of musicians that were creating good, quality music, but they were all having the same difficult time finding people to share it with. It was a desire to help them be heard that led me to create Echoboost, a place where people can hear something new from bands in their own neighborhood and throughout the United States."

No longer a one-man-show, Henage is joined at Echoboost by a staff eager to spread the best of unsigned music. Among these team members is music industry veteran Lathum Nelson, who'll be using his experience of working with artists like Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty and Depeche Mode to promote the site.