Now Muxtape is back with a new plan, and that is to be a place where artists can set up profiles and get some exposure (and of course, listeners can still create mixes). It has not yet launched outside of a limited testing group, but the full launch will be here soon enough.

I shot Muxtape CEO Justin Ouellette an email with some questions that he was kind enough to answer, and the following is the result of that exchange.

Chris Crum: The Old Muxtape was pretty popular. How are old fans responding to the new incarnation?

Justin Ouellette: The reaction has been mostly positive, but there’s been plenty of grumbling, too.  The new Muxtape was never intended to fill the void of the old because nothing really can. Rebuilding the site as a crippled, lame version of its former self would’ve been worse than just shutting down. Instead, we’re trying something related but also much different, with a different audience than previously intended. The new site is for bands. Bands were a very small subset of the original Muxtape usership, but I think those users are very important and the ones most excited about the new incarnation.

CC: Do you think there is a great enough thirst for discovering new music to drive as much traffic to Muxtape as what it was getting in the past?

JO: The thirst for the new never changes, especially with music. It’s never been about traffic, but I believe the new Muxtape will far outgrow the old. We’re digging in for a much longer run.

CC: If you don’t mind sharing, what kind of pageviews was Muxtape getting before shutting down?

JO: About a million per month.

CC: What makes Muxtape a more attractive promotional tool for artists over other sites like MySpace for example?

JO: Muxtape has substance and class in a way that MySpace is completely lacking.  We’ll never blight our artist profiles with advertisements or ugly, inconsistent user interface elements.  If MySpace is like wading through a cesspool, Muxtape is like gliding through the crystal waters of a natural mountain spring. Besides just being aesthetically better, we’ll have far more options for digital distribution and merchandizing, and better control over how music is used across the site and with our partners.  We’re also building an API as we develop the rest of the system, which will make the potential for expansion almost limitless.

CC: Is there a monetization model for Muxtape?

JO: Our business model is centered on providing elevated levels of service. The core version will always be free, but there will be premium features available to paying members on an à la carte basis.

CC: When do you intend to let artists start freely signing up for Muxtape?

JO: The plan is to grow the site initially through an invitational system in the Spring, with free signups happening sometime after that.

CC: How easy will it be for a no-name band to set themselves up on Muxtape? What are the steps?

JO: Extremely easy.  The steps are to create an account and then upload music.  No customization is required, but there’s a lot of possibilities.

CC: Do you anticipate many well-known artists getting on board or is it going to be pretty much just under-the-radar performers?

JO: There’s already well-known artists on the site.  Like MySpace, Muxtape will have a complete spectrum of notoriety, from kids in a basement to major label acts.

CC: What kind of plans do you have (if any) for expanding upon Muxtape’s concept as it stands currently. More features?

JO: The concept won’t change, but we have yet to reveal a complete list of features. The system is modular and we can add to it very easily. That said, we’re very serious about preventing bloat. We’ll only add things as it makes sense.

And there you have it. I would like to thank Justin for taking the time to answer these questions, and sharing some of Muxtape’s future plans with us. Look for the site to fully launch later this year.

They are now offering a preview of the new version of the site. "We’ve enlisted the help of 12 of our favorite bands to test the system (including Francis and the Lights, of Montreal, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, Amanda Palmer, Reggie Watts, and more) and will be opening the site for signups in the near future," explains a post on the Official Muxtape Blog.

Each artist has its own page like the one pictured above, where users can sample their tunes, and see what they look like. It is unclear whether or not artists will be offered the option to add more content than what is pictured.

It’s not exactly what it once was, but I can still see this being a good place for an undiscovered band to get some exposure. The site already has some level of brand attraction that will no doubt keep visitors rolling in. I would not expect it to have the widespread impact of  fan attraction that MySpace holds, but it’s another useful promotional tool nonetheless.

At a time when Internet radio needed it the most in light of the royalties issue and the massive launch of MySpace Music, a group of Congressmen wrote up a bill that would extend the amount of time Pandora and others would have to reach an agreement with the recording industry agencies. This is exactly what these Internet Radio providers needed, as progress has been made toward reaching deals. Pandora CEO Tim Westergren sent out emails to Pandora users like this one I received over the weekend, which was apparently geographically targeted:

Hi, it’s Tim from Pandora;

Tim

According to Dallas News, the National Association of Broadcasters (traditional radio stations) are lobbying against the Webcaster Settlement Act and threaten to impede it, so Pandora and its kind are relying on their users more than ever, which explains the aggressive campaign to call attention to the matter.

No matter how it turns out for these guys, nobody will be able to say that Pandora went down without a fight. Meanwhile MuxTape is in the process of reinventing itself.

The cool thing about it is that you will be able to embed a band’s player wherever you want, providing the user with entertainment, and the band with further promotion. You won’t be able to put together your own "mixtapes" out of songs from different artists like before though.

You can do something similar to that on MySpace Music, however, but Ouellette thinks MySpace Music sucks and is doomed to fail. "It will crumble because they aren’t offering anything new," Ouellette told Rolling Stone. "It’s not well organized, it’s outdated and irrelevant. MySpace has a scummy feel. Bands tend to do it because other bands do it." Bitter much? Time will tell if he’s right, but I think one thing MySpace Music has going for it is the fact that it has record labels behind it, and they stand to make money off it.

I think there are probably thousands of bands that would argue that MySpace is not irrelevant, as they have seen their exposure skyrocket as a result of the social network, while in strong competition with Facebook in terms of use, still has a huge user-base. MySpace Music’s launch will only enhance that exposure, not to mention the ad service they just launched to compliment it, where bands can make their own banner ads and target them at the demographics of their choosing.

Perhaps Ouellette should also realize that his MuxTape players will likely be embedded on MySpace pages (perhaps even by the bands that create them), and embrace the further exposure it could bring his service. That said, I still think the new Muxtape will be an intersting tool for bands to use and I wish Ouellette the best with it.

Let’s put it this way: the RIAA and SoundExchange are not the most popular organizations right now. Someone has decided to try and stick it to them however. Their strategy? Release an open source version of what is essentially the concept behind Muxtape.

This open source program is called Opentape, and while it doesn’t have the ability to browse "mix tapes" of others (a popular feature of Muxtape), it does allow you to post your own.

Common theory indicates that whoever is behind Opentape (nobody seems to know) is not so much expecting to beat the system per se, but simply make it harder for the RIAA and SoundExchange to patrol. By making the program open source, they’re throwing the door wide open for more similar programs to appear.

If this is in fact how it plays out, it will likely turn into another P2P-style battle for the recording industry. Although this might be an easier battle for it to win, given that users are unlikely to be as persistent when it comes to this kind of program. Like Josh Catone at Sitepoint asks, "How many people will be willing to risk the RIAA’s wrath to publish a mixtape on their server?"

Muxtape’s founders as well as the rest of the Internet radio industry are probably getting a kick out of the whole thing either way.