5 Questions with Mozes CEO Dorrian Porter

Authored by Jay Baage on October 5, 2006 - 12:54pm.

From Digital Music Forum West 2006. Mozes is an innovative company that focuses on marketing using text messages so that independent musicians and up-and-coming bands can communicate with their fans about new releases, upcoming concerts and general information about what they are up to - without having to spend a lot of money on marketing.

DMW: Can you give me an example of a musician you are working with?

Porter: There is an independent artist here in LA called Ernie Halter that we helped to build a mobile subscriber list so that he can send text messages to his fans. It is free. He just put up a link on his MySpace page to Mozes and we handle the rest.

What is your business model?

Initially it is to build up and facilitate these connections and build up a list of mobile subscribers for the musicians. Down the line our vision is of course to have some kind of commerce element involved. For example, you will be able to answer the text message and buy tickets to the show through us and we will earn commission on those sales.

Do you see more opportunities for monetizing this list you are compiling of cell phone users with a proven interest in music? I bet companies like Sony Ericsson and others would be very interested to reach the people on that list to sell music cell phones and other products and services to them.

Our vision is to do much more than just text messages. But right now, text messages are the best way to reach people, since 90% of US cell phones have the capability to read text messages.

Would you be open to provide this service to other industries than the music industry.

Yes, but initially we are focusing on the music industry.

Clearly, you believe that cell phones are the next frontier in marketing?

Yes, cell phones have become an instrumental part of everyday life. They can be a very important tool for getting information out there. With our service any small artist can get access to a way of marketing that used to only be available to established signed artists with lots of money to spend and a major record label behind them.