Keep JamKazam Alive & Improving
Donation protected
Hello Everyone -
A few years ago, three co-founders created JamKazam and set out on a journey to fundamentally alter what is possible in the world of music performance. Our vision was (and still is) to make it possible for musicians to play live in sync from different locations over the Internet - as if sitting in the same room. Along the way, we added things like the ability to play along with your favorite songs, live broadcast performances, teach/take music lessons, and more.
We invested a good chunk of our own money into this vision, and on top of this worked full-time literally for years with no pay to get JamKazam off the ground. We also managed to raise a little bit of money from outside investors, but honestly not nearly enough to achieve our vision. There is so much more we could do to make this service easier to use, significantly reduce latency (lag) in sessions, deliver great new features, and provide better support for our users.
Unfortunately, at this point we have all been forced to take regular full-time jobs to support ourselves and our families, and we are running low on funds just to continue to pay the cash expenses to keep JamKazam running - things like hosting fees, royalties, and all the usual things needed to operate a business like this.
We recognize it's a bad time to ask for help, given that millions of people are hurting financially and emotionally right now, but we need assistance to keep JamKazam operational. And we need more help if we are going to do more than keep it alive - to drive it forward to better meet the needs of the worldwide community of musicians.
As we consider our options, we are also taking into account that musicians need JamKazam more than ever, as none of us can meet up in the same place to play together. And this is likely to continue to be the case - at least in phases - for quite some time. We want to help, and this is how we can best do it.
If you decide to contribute funds to support JamKazam’s mission, we will use these funds to improve the service. A short list of things we’d like to be able to do, depending on the level of support from this GoFundMe, include:
Reduce Internet Latency
We’ve had a solution on the drawing board for years now to reduce Internet latency between musicians significantly. We’ve conducted experiments that prove we can do this, and recently we’ve built the technology to do it. But we do not have the capital to deploy this technology. This is at or near the top of our list and is key to making JamKazam work better for more musicians and bands.
Guarantee Session Connections
Many of you have noticed that sometimes other users are “grayed out” in your sessions, and audio won’t stream between musicians when this happens. This issue is caused by the networking approach we use, and this problem would be fixed by the same Internet latency reduction we described in the bullet above. We can make network connections work in 99%+ of sessions.
Provide Better Support
Right now we cannot provide any support to our users. We simply do not have the time and are very overwhelmed by the surge in the use of the service. We’d like to have someone available to provide support, but we would need to be able to compensate someone for doing this. At the least, we’d like to produce more and better help documentation.
Fix Bugs & Improve User Interface
The user interface on the JamKazam application was never great to begin with, and it has not aged well. The app would benefit from a UI refresh. The whole app would also benefit from a comprehensive testing process that identifies all the bugs that have cropped up over time, and a dedicated effort to fix these bugs to make the application more stable and reliable.
Help Musicians to Generate Income
Another area where we can help is to improve JamKazam’s broadcast features to enable bands to generate income from performances, and to enable music teachers to generate income from higher quality lessons online.
What Else?
We have plenty of other ideas of great things we can do, and we will also most definitely continue to listen to all of you – our JamKazammers – to help guide our path forward. All of your feedback over the years has helped the JamKazam service to become what it is today.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to consider supporting this JamKazam GoFundMe. We believe in the power of music and its importance in people’s lives. We hope you'll join us in the work of helping musicians play together and share their art and performances with fans everywhere.
Best Regards and Stay Safe,
David, Peter, and Seth
(the JamKazam co-founders)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
p.s. Here are some links to videos that show more of what JamKazam can do:
Watch how 6 bands played together from different locations in Austin at our Virtual Jamfest launch
See how far we have pushed the envelope with a band playing live from Chicago Austin Brooklyn and Atlanta
Learn how you can play along with your favorite bands and songs
Consider teaching music lessons on JamKazam with far better audio quality and far lower latency than Zoom
Live broadcast your performances on YouTube Facebook and Twitch for fun or use our integrated ticketing features to generate income
We cannot produce the JamBlaster product due to a lack of capital but it is nifty
A few years ago, three co-founders created JamKazam and set out on a journey to fundamentally alter what is possible in the world of music performance. Our vision was (and still is) to make it possible for musicians to play live in sync from different locations over the Internet - as if sitting in the same room. Along the way, we added things like the ability to play along with your favorite songs, live broadcast performances, teach/take music lessons, and more.
We invested a good chunk of our own money into this vision, and on top of this worked full-time literally for years with no pay to get JamKazam off the ground. We also managed to raise a little bit of money from outside investors, but honestly not nearly enough to achieve our vision. There is so much more we could do to make this service easier to use, significantly reduce latency (lag) in sessions, deliver great new features, and provide better support for our users.
Unfortunately, at this point we have all been forced to take regular full-time jobs to support ourselves and our families, and we are running low on funds just to continue to pay the cash expenses to keep JamKazam running - things like hosting fees, royalties, and all the usual things needed to operate a business like this.
We recognize it's a bad time to ask for help, given that millions of people are hurting financially and emotionally right now, but we need assistance to keep JamKazam operational. And we need more help if we are going to do more than keep it alive - to drive it forward to better meet the needs of the worldwide community of musicians.
As we consider our options, we are also taking into account that musicians need JamKazam more than ever, as none of us can meet up in the same place to play together. And this is likely to continue to be the case - at least in phases - for quite some time. We want to help, and this is how we can best do it.
If you decide to contribute funds to support JamKazam’s mission, we will use these funds to improve the service. A short list of things we’d like to be able to do, depending on the level of support from this GoFundMe, include:
Reduce Internet Latency
We’ve had a solution on the drawing board for years now to reduce Internet latency between musicians significantly. We’ve conducted experiments that prove we can do this, and recently we’ve built the technology to do it. But we do not have the capital to deploy this technology. This is at or near the top of our list and is key to making JamKazam work better for more musicians and bands.
Guarantee Session Connections
Many of you have noticed that sometimes other users are “grayed out” in your sessions, and audio won’t stream between musicians when this happens. This issue is caused by the networking approach we use, and this problem would be fixed by the same Internet latency reduction we described in the bullet above. We can make network connections work in 99%+ of sessions.
Provide Better Support
Right now we cannot provide any support to our users. We simply do not have the time and are very overwhelmed by the surge in the use of the service. We’d like to have someone available to provide support, but we would need to be able to compensate someone for doing this. At the least, we’d like to produce more and better help documentation.
Fix Bugs & Improve User Interface
The user interface on the JamKazam application was never great to begin with, and it has not aged well. The app would benefit from a UI refresh. The whole app would also benefit from a comprehensive testing process that identifies all the bugs that have cropped up over time, and a dedicated effort to fix these bugs to make the application more stable and reliable.
Help Musicians to Generate Income
Another area where we can help is to improve JamKazam’s broadcast features to enable bands to generate income from performances, and to enable music teachers to generate income from higher quality lessons online.
What Else?
We have plenty of other ideas of great things we can do, and we will also most definitely continue to listen to all of you – our JamKazammers – to help guide our path forward. All of your feedback over the years has helped the JamKazam service to become what it is today.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to consider supporting this JamKazam GoFundMe. We believe in the power of music and its importance in people’s lives. We hope you'll join us in the work of helping musicians play together and share their art and performances with fans everywhere.
Best Regards and Stay Safe,
David, Peter, and Seth
(the JamKazam co-founders)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
p.s. Here are some links to videos that show more of what JamKazam can do:
Watch how 6 bands played together from different locations in Austin at our Virtual Jamfest launch
See how far we have pushed the envelope with a band playing live from Chicago Austin Brooklyn and Atlanta
Learn how you can play along with your favorite bands and songs
Consider teaching music lessons on JamKazam with far better audio quality and far lower latency than Zoom
Live broadcast your performances on YouTube Facebook and Twitch for fun or use our integrated ticketing features to generate income
We cannot produce the JamBlaster product due to a lack of capital but it is nifty
Organizer
David Wilson
Organizer
Austin, TX
