Being a music lover, I was attracted to the story about how Wyndstorm built Moogis.com, a social networking web site that includes live streaming concerts of the Allman Brothers, and other upcoming jam bands. I spoke last week with Marian Sabety, the President and CEO at Wyndstorm about what they did for Moogis and other businesses.

Marian first gave me some company background. They started three years ago. The first two years were spent building their platform that enables the rapid implementation of SaaS-based social media sites. They established a number of pre-built features that provides for the flexibility to implement a client╒s individual social media business objectives. They wanted to allow clients to build a site in 6 to 10 weeks, or a proof of concept site in a few weeks. Within the last year they began serving clients. The Moogis site was able to go from concept to implementation in three weeks because of the robust platform they built in the first two years.

I like their quote from Butch Trucks, founding member and drummer of the Allman Brothers Band. “For years, I had a vision of how the Internet could bring the live concert experience into people’s homes, dramatically expanding the audience and the experience, and finally, with the help of Wyndstorm, technology has caught up with this dream. The fans of the bands we have lined up understand two things about jam concerts: it’s about the music, and it’s about the social experience.”

Over a hundred years ago my great aunt was the first telephone operator in Norman, when Oklahoma was still a territory, aka OT.  She also liked live music but this before radio and the only venue was the local saloon. This was not appropriate for a single young lady and besides she had to work. So she called the saloon and left the line open to listen to the bands as background while she worked.

There were also social aspects. She could call her fiance working at the bank and leave the phone line open so they talk about the bands and other stuff during breaks in the day. In addition, she could hear when the fights broke out at the saloon. Then she ran a flag up so the police across the street could see and go break up the flight. Subsequent ╥improvements╙ in telephone technology made this hard to do. Now we have come full circle to once again to enable my great aunt╒s vision.

The Moogis site also has a number of community features. The paid subscribers can create profiles, join discussion groups and converse with like-minded fans to share the communal experience that music inspires. I looked at the site and am tempted to join.

Wyndstorm has provided solutions to clients in a variety of industries. One client is currently testing the creation of a virtual shopping experience simulating the cosmetics counter in department stores. After reviewing the prototype in focus groups they plan to refine their vision pre-launch. In another example, a large television broadcasting company is designing interactive social media solutions to enhance web traffic to specific news areas. This solution will also track information about visitors through creative social interaction in the site. Collecting data in this way is easier-and more informative-than getting people to fill out long profiles.

Marian said that since social media is still new, many of their clients need help with social media marketing, as well as building social media web sites. So Wyndstorm now provides business strategy and marketing services to go along with their web site construction.  With the Moogis project, they first helped Moogis define their business objectives and target marke. The primary goal of the marketing campaign is to drive paid subscribers to the site and get them to sign up.

It was hard to tell how much of the Allman Brothers fan base are avid social media users.  So they reached out through social media to the people who know how to reach this audience such as Twitter followers of Rolling Stone magazine, bloggers and PR people in the music space, message boards in social networks that fit the demographics of an Allman Brothers fan, and the web communities of similar bands.

Wyndstorm also helped Moogis conduct a comprehensive Twitter conversation with the key influencers that I will cover in an upcoming post on FastForward. They also worked with the Allman Brothers band members in releasing some of their music videos for free on YouTube and similar venues, as part of their social video campaign.

So now you can find a stable collection of Allman Brothers videos on YouTube.  Just search for Moogis within YouTube and you will find these videos along with Moogis promotions.  There are many interviews and great live videos including Highway 61 Revisited” Allman Brothers Band w/ Johnny Winter 3/10/09 and Allman Brothers Band live @ Beacon – Red House w/guest Johnny Winter – 3/11/2009, NYC. They do covers nicely along with their original works. I wonder what my great aunt would say?