Extract from an interview with Robin and Charlie from Worldwide-Dance-Web

Robin and Charlie are founders of worldwide-dance-web, a progressive community based platform for promoters, DJs and clubs. Two years in incubation, the site was launched to critical acclaim at the Leeds Love Parade.

M: How did worldwide-dance-web come about?
R: It all started about two years ago. I was trying to look for a way of taking what had always been a hobby {the music scene, partying, clubbing etc} and to create a business out of that and to couple it with the interest I had in the Internet… About a year ago, the idea for worldwide-dance-web was created and I guess six months ago was when it really began to happen and take shape.

M: The site is about giving a platform to aspiring DJs and clubs. What's the thinking behind that, are they unable to it for themselves?
R: I think that over the last ten years the whole clubbing industry has seen the same people out there earning huge sums of money. Ludicrous really for someone putting two pieces of plastic on a turntable and hitting the start buttons. It's obviously a very skillful job that they do, but I don't think that it's right that a few players dominate the whole market. Yes, DJs can promote themselves and lots of them break through the barrier and get up to that top level. I see the Internet as being as able to promote on a much broader basis and up until its arrival, it was a case of sending out demo tapes and frankly most promoters across the country get five hundred of those a month… I began to think about a site that would be interesting for the promoters, because we are effectively going to be helping them do their job to promote their night. For the punters it's a source of information and by tapping DJs onto the back of this, there are two different bodies coming to the site - it all starts to cross over and that's how I think that it will begin to work.

M: What about quality control?
R: We will personally vet every DJ that goes onto the site and at the end of the day, it will be our decision {mine, Charlie's and Debbie's}. If we are not convinced that the guy is good enough technically and if I don't know enough about the musical style that the guy is playing, then I'll probably get someone in who understands that music genre. The good thing with the Internet is that you can judge very quickly whether anyone out there likes it or not. When and where people have been on the site, so we go 'he's getting on awful lot of traffic' and that's how we can tell straight away.

M: Being 'independent' at the moment, what does that mean to you?
R: The first thing that struck me was just working for myself. This is the first time that I've obviously done this and it's something that I'm thoroughly enjoying and I think that to be able to escape the 'rat race' and to be in charge of your destiny is a fantastic feeling. We've got to make it successful obviously, assuming that we do things right, I don't see why we can't. The whole thing of working with your old friends (and eventually my wife is going to join us), it's going to be a family type business and I think that that is a nice thing to do.

M: In terms of creative culture. What do you think the way forward is on the Internet?
R: I think 'independents' can survive, but we have to be very clever and we might get a knock on the door from one of the big boys that you can't refuse… I think that if you're clever and understand the Internet culture, the Internet is a very powerful thing. It allows small people to be a lot bigger than they are and you can get away with a lot of things. I don't think that people will look at our site and think that that has been done by a couple of blokes in a back room. It hasn't cost a ridiculous some of money to create it. For example, the thing that we just did in Leeds, we were the only dot com company there and that to me says a lot. It was the biggest single dance event of the year and in the UK to date, and we thought that we had to be involved in it. There was a quarter of a million people there, so we had a massive amount of exposure eight days after we launched. I think that that was a clever move and believe me, there are plenty more of those to come.

M: Any other thoughts you'd like to add Robin?
R: I would say to anyone else that is looking at this idea and looking to the Internet as a way of starting a business, research it properly. See what other competition there is out there. The Net does hide things away and it's sometimes hard to find all the other people doing what you are thinking of doing, so do your homework properly. If you think that you've got a strong idea and you've got the finance to afford it, then go for it. It's a fantastic culture. We got back from Leeds and started checking our emails from people who had got the site address from the float and it was just fantastic. People getting in touch saying that that was wicked. To get that buzz, we knew that we were doing it for the right reasons.

The worldwide-dance-web float is currently voted the third most popular float from the Love Parade at the Radio 1 web site.

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