Cando Entertainment

The history of Okayplayer stretches back quite a few years led by Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, Richard Nichols and Dan Petruzzi at the helm. With the respect artists like Amy Winehouse, Common, DJ Jazzy Jef, Eryka Badu, J Dilla, Mos Def, The Roots, Skillz and more -- OKP has been making strides in bridging artists and fans together.

Cando was brought in to migrate data from their previous platform which was spread across numerous applications into a single, common format. Additionally, Cando provided integration support and custom programming to extend the underlying platform they were relaunching on.

The beta site just recently launched, take a look here.


The Independent Comedy Network is a very forward looking company that approached Cando to develop a really, cool and creative web site as a gateway to their growing collection of episodic shows. The goal was to create something that was completely original and the path we took was a hand-drawn site. Nowadays when sites are going for a very "Web 2.0" look and feel, ICN wanted to approach the project very differently. With a slate of original material being released at the top of February 2008, the site had to reflect their vision completely.

With just a few short weeks, Cando worked closely with the Marc Cambell and the ICN staff in creating the vision and building out the functionality. With a community site being attached to the project, ICN wanted to focus on the content but still create a viable platform for fans of the shows to interact. The result is a great seamless integration of content, community and presence for their shows and brand.

Cando is extremely fortunate to have been part of the team that helped Marc Campbell and his team bring ICN.TV to the 'reasonably' intelligent.



CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation, requested Cando to develop a web application to represent their initiative in creating a massive, free Wi-Fi network covering Times Square to Central Park South in NYC in conjunction with CBS Outdoor. The goal was to integrate content from a number of CBS properties, hyperlocal content, and a social network into a seamless user experience.

During the development cycle, Cando worked closely with Cyriac Roeding, Executive Vice-President of CBS Interactive, and various teams at CBS Mobile, CBS News, CBS Sports, Last.fm and WCBS, to ensure their vision was fully realized within the scope of the project.

The portal development was spearheaded by Jerry Thompson (Co-Founder / CTO), Walter Bell (Co-Founder / Creative Director), Damon Wirth (Lead Developer) and James Ehly (CSS/XHTML Developer).

Cando worked extremely close with other next-generation content companies such as 1020 (hyperlocal content & advertising), Yelp (local reviews), Last.fm (music), Goowy (video technology), Veoh (video streaming) and Ning (social network provider), and integrated their cutting edge technologies in the project.

The "CBS Mobile Zone," will be powered by CBS Outdoor billboards and MTA New York City Transit-owned urban panels located above select subway station entrances that have been fitted with transmitters in a joint initiative between CBS Interactive and CBS Outdoor. In addition, many local businesses will be offered free routers allowing companies and patrons to tap into the "CBS Mobile Zone" from indoors. In launching this first-of-its-kind Wi-Fi network, CBS partnered with the MTA New York City Transit and several next-generation companies including Tropos, BIG, Fon, Ning, Goowy, Veoh, Yelp, 1020, Aptilo and Cando Entertainment, with more to be added throughout the duration of the midtown offering. The "CBS Mobile Zone" also provides interactive advertising opportunities that can be localized down to the individual billboard.

Cando is proud to have been part of the team that brought the vision of Cyriac and his teams at CBS to the masses.

See:
CBS press release: http://www.cbscorporation.com/news/prdetails.php?id=17255&pe=1
CBS Mobile ((Zone)) - NYC: http://www.cbsmobilezone.com


Rawkus Records was established in 1996 by Brian Brater and Jarret Meyer, with financial backing from a school friend, James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch. In 1999 the label entered into a distribution deal with Interscope/Geffen, whose parent company was Universal Music.

Over the years, Rawkus has recorded several notable independent hip hop artists, including Company Flow, the High and Mighty, Mos Def and Talib Kweli (as Blackstar), Common, Pharoahe Monch, and Skillz.

In July 2005 it was announced that Rawkus had re-emerged with a new distribution deal with RED Distribution and a new vision for Rawkus Records online.

Cando sat down with the founders to explore their ultimate goals and vision. Within a short period of time Cando had rolled out a number of phases which would ultimately become Rawkus 2.0 and help them relaunch their official label site.

Since the relaunch, Rawkus has been retooling its online presence into a lifestyle portal. Working with a number of successful and award-winning bloggers, the Rawkus Network was born. Incorporating daily Hip Hop and fashion news, music rumors and gossip, RSS feeds, a complete social network component integrated with a seamless and integrated look-and-feel that includes user profiles, blogs, forums, photos, videos, music, groups, internal private messaging and more -- the Rawkus Network has evolved into one of the fastest growing web destinations on the internet.

The relaunch helped to create a 720% increase in daily visitors to the site. The Rawkus social network component alone is experiencing exponetal growth. With over 140% growth each month to its registered members, Rawkus has established a viable platform to expand, promote and provide relevant Hip Hop related news generating over 1 million page views per month.

With a starting ranking on Alexa.com of over 300,000, the Rawkus Network now ranks 11,280 within a few short months.

Cando Entertainment
245 8th Avenue, Suite 842
New York, NY 10011 USA

info@cando-ent.com

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