Per Gessle himself announced today that he is officially using Snowfish from now on. You find his page by clicking here.
This is what the site looks like: 
Snowfish is a new community that allows everyone to share music, videos, pictures, make friends, and make money! On the Snowfish website it is said that:
It is our firm belief that great content will always find an audience and that media creators, publishers and owners should always be compensated for their work. That’s why Snowfish introduces a unique alternative to posting content on other popular video and media sharing sites by allowing its members to earn advertising revenue for the content that they contribute to the Snowfish!
At Snowfish, every single view, listen or read of your content earns you payment (50% of advertising income received from your traffic!). These payments may be small at first (pennies) but ultimately pennies add up!
Finally! A wise decision, Sir. On the other hand, some fans can get lost because of all these sites – Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (does anyone remember about that?) and now Snowfish. Well, don’t know if I want to be registered there, but time will tell if I get interested in this more than now.
Fully agree. I don’t feel the urge to register yet and I hope it doesn’t change. I actually think I won’t. You can’t even save the pictures the “easy” way.. it’s like MySpace: not user-friendly enough and mainly good for the “owners” of the page.
I’m kind of annoyed by the growing number of sites to check, which don’t really add more news/content after all. But I see the intentions behind Snowfish: Some money and control for the creators.
As it’s quite new (beta) and Sweden-centric it looks like the user base is rather tiny until now (check the charts, 164 views for #1!). So it would be quite risky to skip the popular platforms like YouTube just yet.
Check: Gessle on…
MySpace = dead
Facebook = useless, no exclusive content 😛
Twitter = reduced
Imho they should add an official channel for Roxette at YouTube. But wait… there is already! Deadly run by EMI. http://www.youtube.com/roxette 😉
For me it’s:
MySpace = never been there, never missed it, so dead, yes
Twitter = Useless, because every tweet is on Facebook as well
Facebook = Best so far, chance to leave a comment and communicate directly on ONE of Per’s tweets/status updates with other fans.
Roxette.se = Until now necessary to see if there are any new pics up.
YouTube = Same here, change pics to vids.
Snowfish = Don’t see any sense in that at the moment besides that Per earns some money with it. If he decides to move all the content from the other sites to Snowfish it will be the first time I won’t follow him.
Successfully ignored Myspace all the years. 😛 After trying it out for a while I’m still sceptical about Facebook:
Yes, I can stay in connection remote “friends” and have the option to comment directly on news/updates, but I don’t like when news from sites like RXB or TDR is commented there instead of the original sites. I prefer following/commenting Rox stuff on dedicated fan sites/forums. FB forces you to sign up (with full name) to get a view at all. Rox/PG content is always additional to other sources – useless. You can join endless “groups”, “friends” and “sites” – but what’s the use? Just to add numbers and kill time? You may provide personal content and updates – and easily forget any privacy… 🙁
I just sign up just to see what the fuzz all about. It looked like MySpace to me, but probably less messy.
I don’t see why Gessle feel like he needs to make another “social network” account though. There are too many to check now.
Although the good side is to prevent the imposter. Just like J.K Rowling sign in on Twitter, got verified but NEVER really use that.
@Kirsten
I bet you were on MySpace at least one time – to get “One wish” demo in 2006 🙂
I do really hope a new version of Roxette.se will come up shortly (or at least before the new album release) and will be the place for communication between P&M and us fans. Was there some talks on that issue on SOAP forum? There was going to be sthg new but nothinasg happened. I would even say it would have been better with daily updates and comments on the official website instead of all those twitters, facebooks, myspaces.
Having some many accounts allows to control the promotion thing by Per Gessle himself. Maybe it sounds quite unbelivable, but I think he wants to do it his own way as much as possible, without EMI or Sony help.
And maybe there’s something behind this snowfish.com idea? It’s nothing spectacular to be honest, but maybe Per is a shareholder/owner of this site, maybe Snowfish.com will promote his releases in some way and that’s why Per does the promo thing for snowfish.com. There are so many possibilities, but still I think Per does right to create all those accounts and promotions paths.
After all – if it makes the Man happy, we should be happy as well 🙂
Well – he earns money on Snowfish, that’s the difference to the rest. I do appreciate him doing all the stuff himself very much, but it’s getting just too much for me since you never know where to watch for news, pictures, vids. If you want to get it all you have to check every site (or you visit roxetteblog.com and can be sure that someone else will have done it for you already :P). But I prefer him doing it over some company feeding the sites, definitely. I like him being on Facebook, commenting, reading, it’s really “personal”, I think. Still – it’s getting more and more and I think there needs to be drawn a line on some point (not now maybe, but considering future projects).
But there should be some kind of programme which would allow to upload all the pictures and videos to all these sites without wasting time on visiting them.
And what’s the advantage of spreading the same content on dozens of sites? Fans will decide for 1 to check and comment – and get split up to smaller groups here and there…
I think it’s time for a big relaunch of roxette.se/gessle.com – which provides streaming of audio/video, photo galleries, concert history, a shop etc. And an easy way to update news and tweets for Per. There are good band homepage examples around.
It just blows my mind how bad roxette always handles their promotion and communication. I have the feeling that Per will always most likely work with amateur friends rather than with a great promo/communications company, like for example a graphic design firm from the US.
The official site roxette.se is just rubbish. It only takes a quick look at other artist’s websites to realize that. What a bad bad bad bad bad website! No functionality at all and the graphic design is just horrible. There are local bands in my area thay play pubs only and they have better websites than roxette which is an international act.
Also, the way all these updates like videos and pictures are presented to the fans is just… odd. This really looks like the recording of a Per-solo album, not a Roxette album. Yes, I know Marie will join them in Stockhölm later this year. But to the general public or the casual fan who might have just googled roxette this is confusing. It seems like a Britney Spears album where she does nothing and then her vocals are added to the finished work.
Mind you, this might well be the case due to Marie’s illness, but for so many years roxette themselves and EMI presented the band as a collaboration of 2 musicians, even so that every single release from roxette had the line “Roxette is Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson” printed on it. But then in the videos from the NOTP tour it was always Clarence, Per and his boyfriend Christoffer. What I’m seeing just doesn’t fit in the image I had constructed of roxette.
He seriously needs to hire someone from outside Sweden to handle their PR & Communications matters. Specially if he wants to have some moderate success with the new album.
Did you ever see that TransmitReceive is responsible for roxette.se and the other stuff? Have a look at other sites they do, e.g. http://www.peterjoback.com/index_english.php. What a difference this is!! Either he pays more or.. he pays more. Roxette.se definitely is one of the worst websites you can imagine for an artist. It definitely needs a new design and some new ideas. Since Per is quite handy concerning internet and computers why don’t they do something like Twitter, Facebook or Snowfish (talking about the community thing) on roxette.se as well. He could share any information directly where it’s meant to be..
(BTW I still strongly disagree with the idea putting his solo websites and roxette.se “together”.. so you are on roxette.se and may click on “gessle.com”. For everyone just looking for information this is damn confusing. People think “where is Marie?”. Is this Roxette or Gessle? In this case I really don’t care if it’s HIS website, HE is paying for and HE is doing it all HIMSELF. Roxette is Roxette.. either they should get rid of the roxette.se page on gessle.com or they should a link to Marie’s official website, which is, btw, even worse than roxette.se)
I agree that it must be confusing for a lot of people when Per does all the promotion himself and you barely read, see or hear Marie around. I think I kind of got used to it during the Party Crasher tour but I agree about this looking strange. Concerning the new Roxette album it should at least look like she is still involved in Roxette. 😉
Until last year there wasn’t much of choice where to look for news. It was either The Daily Roxette or roxette.se (which is the same actually, since the same person keeps it updated so there wasn’t much difference… news popped up at the same time). Then Per joined Twitter which felt just woohooo and was great during his solo tour and it was even better that he stayed with us during NOTP but I also would have preferred him posting NOTP stuff using the TheRealRoxette account. (that’s what I mean with “at least it should look like she’s still involved, same goes for the videos, of course)
So, I really don’t know where this Snowfish thing will lead us…still: I really appreciate that he does the things he does, this is a treat for a every fan! I I love it.
Totoally agree! Sadly nobody at roxette.se did when the problem was brought up, especially the missing dedicated Roxette forum! 🙁
“I still strongly disagree with the idea putting his solo websites and roxette.se “together”.. so you are on roxette.se and may click on “gessle.com”. For everyone just looking for information this is damn confusing. People think “where is Marie?”.”
“would have preferred him posting NOTP stuff using the TheRealRoxette account”
And the album material should be posted at http://www.snowfish.com/roxette and not /gessle simply because that is the “brand” people are looking for! On the other hand I’m just glad we get that behind-the-scenes material at all… 😉
I strongly tip: they don’t want to invest on the sites, or the whole thing seems “too expensive” when one thinks FB is for free. But hello? There is nothing more important than a REAL GOOD website.
It can’t even be the management, because Peter Jöback is with Marie Dimberg too, and that site does surely cost more than rox.se. Eva’s site (also with D&D) kinda.. erh.. doesn’t meet the standards so to say.
So this means youtube is out and snowfish is in??
Looks and feels like doing everything by halves instead of doing one thing right. By now, to me Roxette looks like a one man show with Marie as nice decoration.
I wonder, does Per know about RXB? Does he read the comments here? I hope he does…
“By now, to me Roxette looks like a one man show with Marie as nice decoration.”
It may look like that by the lately introduced Gessle infos/videos we get though Youtube/Twitter/Snowfish, but I don’t think Marie is less involved than in the recording process of previous albums.
It’s just that Per grew into the additional role of a producer over time, while Marie stays a singer/performer = traditional pop artist.
6 BRAND NEW ROX VIDS FROM THE STUDIO OUT NOW ON http://www.snowfish.com/pergessle ENJOY!
But no new videos on YouTube studio channel. You’re right. Now we need to check 17 pages to stay informed. No way to make it more complicated.
I can’t believe people really think Per is sharing all this stuff to make US a favour. To me it’s all about promotion, keeping the name Roxette and Per Gessle alive and in people’s minds 😉 You know that they say, even bad news is good news. Makes people read about you.
On FB people suggest the page, share videos, news, make people visit Per’s profile because there IS something to read/see there. Your friends see you’ve commented on or liked his status updates. Might think of becoming a fan too. And on Twitter people read what you retweet.
Sure he can choose whatever medium for this, but when it’s about promotion, shouldn’t it at least reach as much people as possible?
I still think he needs a website( not 4), everything should be published on it, that he wants to filter what’s GT, PG, Rox? Well, one link on the top to filter the categories (thinking WP wise) would do. FB and Twitter are OK, but shouldn’t be the ONLY place to use. An own website is the way to go. One which features videos, let’s him add news/status updates easily and which is, if needed, connected to Twitter and FB. And one which uses as much of the monitor width as possible! 😉
Word!
While I agree on most…
“shouldn’t it at least reach as much people as possible?” – Yeah, Snowfish is the right place for that! Top video with 200-300 views… 😉
“I still think he needs a website( not 4)” – I still want a “Roxette” website, not just a filter on gessle.com! 🙁
I’d also prefer active Twitter and Facebook accounts for Roxette, though can accept him posting there rather un-official as one of the involved persons named PG.
It’s to messy for me at snowfish. I won’t be there too often. Now it’s only 14 videos and there is no order for it at all. What will it be with 40 videos or more? So sorry, but I don’t see the point in struggling around with a page that makes me wanna throw my laptop out of the window…
Promotion is good but it should work easy and properly for anybody, I think. Mmmh, to speak of promotion… isn’t Per involved in snowfish businesswise as well? Not sure about that but I think I’ve read it somewhere a while ago. If that’s the case he maybe just wants to promote snowfish a bit as well…
@ Floppy:
Would be interesting to know, if he’s involved more than just maintaining a page there. I’ve been speculating about a business relation as well. At least that would explain a lot.
I’m also a bit ‘suspicious’ about Per’s intentions behind him being interested in our opinions on the fish. Maybe he’s not considering to change back to youtube/his promotion tactics, but solely collecting ideas for future improvements on the site?
Might be way off though. Let’s wait in suspense… *g*
I’m trying to find the article. It wasn’t a big one and in some newspaper like Dagens Industri if I remember right… Can’t find it though. Maybe I’m all wrong but yes, that would explain a lot. But still I hope he will switch back to Youtube again.