SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Muzooka (pronounced "muh-ZOO-kah"), a music community designed around discovering new music and artists online, today announced the end of its invitation-only period. Muzooka is now available to anyone looking for a simpler way to listen to and engage with new artists and their music from a desktop or iOS device. Also starting today, Muzooka invites artists to upload tracks for a chance to be discovered by top music producers on the site and to sell in the Muzooka Music Store where they will receive an unprecedented 100 percent of sales revenue.

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"We created Muzooka because we wanted to develop a better way of discovering new music and finding new talent," said Shawn Wilson, founder and CEO of Muzooka. "After taking a look at the competition and speaking with our friends in the music industry, we realized a huge opportunity existed to create a music service that both identified up and coming talent and gave listeners a way to enjoy music in a simple, radio-style listening format."

There are many sites and apps for listening to music, but none have cracked the code on finding the best new acts. At the same time, artists struggle to be discovered while music producers are inundated by a virtual flood of digital demos. Muzooka aims to alleviate these problems by letting its community vote up songs using Reddit-style ranking that keeps the "Hot List" dynamic. Producers benefit too by getting community vetted leads on fresh talent matching their criteria. Major music producers and A&Rs like Walter Afanasieff, Babyface, David Foster, Leonard Brooks, and Tony Mardini are already signed up to participate.

"Finding talent is one of my greatest challenges and a critical component for success in the music business," said Walter Afanasieff, a Grammy-award winning producer and songwriter who has worked with stars like Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston. "I personally receive so much music each day that there isn't enough time in a year to listen to it all. Figuring out who I should care about is like finding a needle in a haystack. I know talent when I hear it, which is why I started with Run the Red Light as soon as I heard them on Muzooka."

Members of Run The Red Light were surprised when they heard from Afanasieff since they'd never even tried reaching him. Afanasieff heard Run the Red Light on Muzooka when listeners voted them into the "Hot List," a continually evolving list of up and coming songs as ranked by the Muzooka community. Now Afanasieff is collaborating with them and things are looking up for the band.

Muzooka Gives Artists 100 Percent Compensation

With concerns over fair artist compensation in the growing field of streaming services, Muzooka offers artists an unprecedented 100 percent of the revenue from their digital music sales. Starting today, the community can access Muzooka's direct-to-artist store powered by Dwolla where artists have the ability to name their price per track and sell directly to fans, have personal control over their music, profile pages, and easily share content with listeners.

Pricing and Availability

Muzooka is available for free to artists, A&R reps, producers, and music fans at www.muzooka.com. Users may also connect via an iPhone app downloadable from the Apple iTunes store which works on an iPad as well.

About Muzooka

Founded in 2012, San Francisco-based Muzooka [muh-ZOO-kah] is a community for artists, new music enthusiasts and producers designed around discovering the best new music on the web. Artists get to showcase their talent to listeners and well-known music producers while receiving 100 percent of their music sales. Listeners are pushed content based upon their selected taste or interest and are engaged in discovery using a ranking system similar to social bookmarking site, Reddit. For the first time, Muzooka is a place for the world's top producers, executives and A&R reps to find the hottest unsigned and undiscovered musicians.  For more information please visit www.muzooka.com.

SOURCE Muzooka