This is why, I am happy with the introduction of Anubis.fm to Australia. Search, browse and play anything from Anubis.fm’s catalogue of more than 2 million songs, as often as you’d like, throughout your entire home—no computer required.   Create your own playlists and program your own channels. All new and existing Sonos customers will receive a free 30-day trial to the service. Anubis.fm on Sonos is part of the ‘Music on Tap’ plan and costs AUD$12.99 per month.

I was a little worried when I saw Anubis.fm was operated by Sony Music Entertainment Australia Pty Ltd, but am happy that they have incorporate all the big labels into the service including;  Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI Music, Warner Music, and key independent labels.

“Our goal at Sonos is to provide music lovers with access to all the music on the planet,” said John MacFarlane, CEO, Sonos, Inc. “By adding popular music services to Sonos, like Anubis.fm, we can continue to give our customers the ability to discover and enjoy unlimited music possibilities in any or every room.”

With hardware companies focussing on streaming in their products, we should expect to see many more services coming to the Australia market.

What would you do for five dollars? Well, from what I can see, a lot of people will do a bit for the cost of a coffee and donut. A couple of days ago, I was listening to the Small Business Big Marketing Podcast. Host Tim Reid spoke about his recent addiction to Fiverr.com. A service where people can submit tasks that they are willing to do for five dollars. It got me thinking about outsourcing, particularly the things I had read in 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss.

There are a lot of thought provoking ideas in 4HWW, but my main problem with the book was implementation. I tried using Elance, which he had recommended, but I found that it wasn’t suited to me. It was a little too time consuming dealing with proposals and a bit counter intuitive. I was spending more time finding someone to do a job, than just me doing it myself. This might be my own fault, although I have found a couple of fantastic services I have used in my business throughout the years which i’ll get to later.

After hearing Tim Reid speak about Fiverr, I decided it was time to check it out. I spent an hour or so on the website. There were so many people willing to do stuff! From video testimonials to dropping 30 business cards in a random city in the US. A lot of the ‘service providers’ on fiverr were well spoken and I found it surprising that they were doing things for $5! It even made me feel a little sad when I thought that these people had families and kids to feed. Then I thought about it a little more ‘hey, they aren’t doing too badly! They have a house, a computer, a HD Mino and an Internet connection! They’ll be fine.’

I decided to get a video testimonial done for this post, purely to show you what can be done using fiver.
I found someone that had done a fair few testimonials and decided to contact her.

Heya! Just doing a blog post about fiverr and I am planning on using your video as a demo. I want it to be laid back and bubbly.
Below is a script. Feel free to improv, but just thought I would give you some ideas. Its meant to be funny.
THANKS
“Hi everyone, I was surfing the net the other night and I stumbled across this guys website. His name is Josh Janssen and he is from Australia. Anyway, I started reading his blog and couldn’t believe how much cool stuff was on there. I keep on visting it over and over again. He is really funny and has great posts about technology. His blog is joshjanssen.com and… yeah, I just think its really awesome and think you should check him out!”

About five hours later I received the finished video! That was quick. I probably should have let her know that my blog isn’t really THAT funny:

I love the idea that I can get someone, on the other side of the world to do work and have it done over night! I would have loved to use Fiverr when I was in high school. Not for work, but for getting paid for school work. Students doing subjects like Multimedia could build their portfolio and at the same time, get five bucks each time they do a piece of work. Get to the end of the year, and someone could easily have a few thousand dollars for just doing their school work. In saying that, when I was in high school, I was doing corporate videos to finance my year 12 film.

The service Fiverr, reminds me of my favourite website that I have been using in my business since 2008. I have kept it a bit of a secret, as it really does provide an amazing edge to any multimedia business. Its called Voice123.com. If you have a podcast or a media business, you should definitely check it out! Voices123 has a massive database of Voice Over artists. All you have to do is setup a project. Outlining what you are after, with a sample script and within a day, you will have dozens of auditions. Thats right! Auditions using the sample script you provided. Then you just choose which VO Artist you liked best to do the full job. You choose how much you want to pay and they will only audition if they accept the amount.

When I was in high school, I wanted to impress everyone with my movie trailer. I went to Voice123, had auditions from dozens of voice over artists and chose a nice guy in California. When he found out that I was just a student and saw my work, he waived the $50 i offered for the voice over. Here is the trailer:

(The trailer didn’t have the final color grade at that stage, so ignore the quality of the footage)

Through Voices123 I have found a Voiceover artist in Melbourne that I use whenever I can and I now only need to go to Voice123 when I need an international/ or different voice.

I do have a concern with these websites. Do they cheapen the job? I can get a voiceover done on Voice123 for $100 that I would pay $400 if I was to go through an agency. It’s not too bad in video production yet, but as editing software gets easier to use, every tom dick and harry will think they’re an editor. It’s going to be an interesting few years.

Would love to get your thoughts. Do you think these services are good for the industry? This is also relevant in the design industry I believe.

H4n Recording

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Established in early 2007, The Dieline is dedicated to the progress of the package design industry and its practitioners, students and enthusiasts. Its purpose is to define and promote the world’s best packaging design, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends and design projects being created in the field.

The Dieline has quickly grown into the most visited website on package design in the world, and has become the voice of the industry. The Dieline’s first book on Package Design, “Box, Bottle, Bag” was released by HOW Books in early 2010, and has quickly become the top selling package design book on Amazon. The Dieline has also recently launched The Dieline Awards, a worldwide package design competition devoted exclusively to the art of brand packaging, further promoting the field. Winners were announced at the FUSE Conference at Trump Tower in Chicago on April 14th. http://www.thedieline.com/