Last week, as many DJs of all sizes will have been informed, VIP Ultima – the once prominent DJ promo platform back in the days of Adobe Flash circa the early 2000s, shut down their service. The shut down blocked out all of their users leaving many record labels, promoters, artists and indeed, Reaktion, with an emergency situation. Users were given no prior warning to the closure. As such, their promotions and contacts vanished in front of their eyes as they were greeted with a message, ‘Service Closed’.
In fact, this caused a series of days in which Reaktion franticly tried to contact the website’s owner, David Jacopin. However, the website got blocked consistently on many social media accounts which left us in a position of total powerlessness as he and the website held Reaktion’s entire database and fragmentation of it by genre preference, VIP status and many other fields of segmentation.
5Mag’s post about the bailout
The ‘notice of death’ mailout from the VIP Ultima website is available in 5Mag.net’s coverage of the developments by clicking on this link.
The reaction from Reaktion
Reaktion did eventually manage to make contact with VIP Ultima. Albeit, through means of seriousness that they rather had not have had to pursue. Thankfully, Reaktion was able to retrieve databases, although it appears many others have not. It is recommended that more attempts to retrieve your IP are taken if you are in a similar position.
The grass is greener on the other side – a message from Reaktion
“Given Reaktion’s large subscriber base and usage, there was an urgency to find a new platform that would be able to cater to the requirements of an operation of this size. In stepped Promoly. From the first e-mail exchanges to the setup of a near 24/7 customer service chat to help us build and import our IP into their industry-leading platform, their communication, openness, and commitment to development to assist our requirements has been exemplary and we thank them wholeheartedly for taking on our account and pulling us out of some very dark and dangerous waters.”
About Promoly (from their website)
“Promoly was born in 2014 after getting frustrated with promoting music to email lists. At the time, I was running a few labels with my business partner, Kaine. We didn’t know who was opening our emails or if anyone actually listened to the music we sent them.
We had the mad idea of building our own application but didn’t know where to start and we got in contact with a music industry friend, Mike, who we knew was a software developer and a music enthusiast. The idea was pitched, and Promoly was born.
When building Promoly, we realised other record labels had the same problem as us. We turned Promoly into a business and started allowing other record labels to use Promoly.
Promoly is a simple concept, solving a big problem in the music industry. It’s the only platform you will need for promoting music to email lists.”
Relaunching Reaktion With Promoly
The Reaktion team is working around the clock to migrate all promos and all new incoming projects into Promoly. Right now, Promoly is already up and running. It’s a pleasure to also say with conviction that the setup on their ecosphere is already boasting:
- Higher deliverability rates than VIP Ultima
- Higher calibre DJ responses
- More options for DJs such as ZIP downloads and easy to use WAV integration
- Reliable servers and uptime
- Better insights for Promoly users to better segment and formulate promotions that are bespoke to the individual releases being promoted.
- Smoother and better-looking promo e-mails in the DJ’s inboxes
- Upcoming feature developments that will expand beyond DJ Promo into a more 360 promotional suite
- VIP Ultima has for many years had a poor reputation with A-list DJs which has hampered promotions and we look forward to this being a thing of the past.
Moving Forward
In the days and weeks ahead, Reaktion’s priority is to honour the promotions that are currently in process with clients that lost promotions when VIP Ultima died. This process is ongoing and will be completed in a matter of days, no longer than a week. Every promotion will be promoted to a higher tier than what was ordered to compensate for the issue. Any user wishing to cancel may do so with a full refund and should contact [email protected].
Reaktion is excited about its future as the largest DJ Promo Pool in the Electronic Music sphere. It will approach its project with a renewed energy now that VIP Ultima have finally been cut away. Reaktion is under no illusions that the issues present on the VIP Ultima platform have caused complaints from unsubscribe buttons not working to a multitude of unfixed bugs and errors. Fortunately, this is a chapter closed with a brighter future ahead for all involved. The team will need some days to fully integrate into Promoly and ensure that promotions are running with optimum settings. Furthermore, the business is already getting close to that point.
A Final Statement From Reaktion
“To ease any concern of current or upcoming new Reaktion users. If you’re already using our services, your promotion will be completed with an upgrade. If you’re thinking about using Reaktion, we are open, ready and firing hard on new promos that are outperforming our old setup with VIP Ultima.
Current Users: You will receive an e-mail stating your promotion is now live on Promoly with details on how that will develop.
If you’re interested in learning more about Reaktion promotions, please visit www.reaktion.net or e-mail [email protected] and we’ll be happy to discuss your needs and help you decide whether a project with Reaktion suits your needs.
If you’re a label that is currently looking for a replacement for VIP Ultima and does not require a service like Reaktion and just need a home for your promos using your own contacts, we can highly recommend Promoly.”
Follow Reaktion online
To learn more about Reaktion, follow it on Facebook, Instagram and its official website.
Follow Promoly online
Furthermore, follow Promoly on Facebook, Twitter, and its own site as well.
