2004: Hunter of online music

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Tags: Arts, centenary-edition, music

Nick Crocker, BA

Record labels have previously been threatened by the rise of music sharing on the internet, but one UQ graduate is helping them put the online chatter to good use.

Nick Crocker

The Arts alumnus is the co-founder of We Are Hunted, a website that uses blogs, forums and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to track the 99 most popular songs online each day.

Nick Crocker, who also runs internet innovation company Native Digital, said he came up with the idea for We Are Hunted after realising how much musical activity there was online.

“I figured it would be worth somehow tracking all that chatter but the problem was, I didn’t know how,” he said.

“It wasn’t until I sat on an industry panel with the founder of Wotnews, Stephen Phillips, until I realised that the technology was there and available and Brisbane-based.

“Stephen and I chatted over a beer after the event and within a week we struck up a partnership that became We Are Hunted.”

Mr Crocker’s first hints of his future in music and business came while he was a student at UQ, writing about the local music scene and profiling young entrepreneurs for the Sunday Mail.

He became general manager at a digital music company before launching Native Digital, which consults to companies including record labels, helping them evolve their presence and engagement online.

As well as being a resource for recording companies to track what is popular, Mr Crocker wanted We Are Hunted to be a way for music fans to discover new bands.

“If we can open people up to new music in new ways then we will have created something very special,” he said.

By Tegan Taylor

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