Quadio: the collegiate Spotify

Photo courtesy of Quadio
New app lets student musicians network with other student musicians.

New music sharing platform for students

According to Spotify’s FAQ information, there are over 20,000 tracks per day being released on their platform. Considering their millions of subscribed artists across the world, that may not be that surprising. But as part of their “Artist Wrapped” annual release in 2019, they have been unveiling some general statistics as well, stating that “more than 1.2 million artists on the platform were listened to for more than 100 hours last year and 169,000 (spanning 208 countries and territories) were listened to for more than 10,000 hours.” Needless to say, Spotify, while a great resource for a wide variety of music, is growing deeply oversaturated for artists. Luckily for the upcoming college musicians of today, there is an opportunity to still be heard.

Founded by Marcus and Joe Welch in 2018, Quadio merges the structure of social media and music streaming into one—as the current website mantra states, “Make Music, Make Friends.” The platform is exclusive to college students, and though it is still in its beta phase until sometime later this year, once it launches, all a student needs to join is their university email. Users can search through other collegiate artists based on “charts” categorized by university, state, regional, and national filters. Currently, there is a contest for artists with the top number of listeners in their region—winners will be flown out to New York to be featured in a concert.

One of Quadio’s traveling teams reached out to two of CU Denver’s music students, Edwina Maben and Isabelle Amato, about working as Campus Representatives. Edwina, being a budding musician herself, has already put up her music and says it’s a quick and easy process functioning “like Instagram but with tracks instead of pictures.” She has connected with other artists and found friendships across the United States. There are artists with 12 listeners and others with 120,000—so it’s a great place to establish traction and get involved with other up-and-comings (who could become future collaborators).

Quadio publishes features like “10 in 10,” a quick ten minute and ten question interview, and “Artist of the Day,” which Maben and Generation Nomad, another Denver artist, have already been featured on. The platform has the potential to not just get students of the Music Entertainment Industry Studies connected to each other but connected to artists in colleges coast to coast. Getting involved with Quadio while it is in its infancy is a rare opportunity for college artists to establish a following.

Maben and Amato will be launching an information event as well as workshops concerning the app for students and faculty coming sometime this semester.

Codes are available to join the exclusive beta phase until it launches. Email edwina.maben@ucdenver.edu or isabelle.amato@ucdenver.edu