Posted by Lama is an interesting social network that offers interviews and articles about the most interesting realities of modern times. The idea is to reach out people that are trying to innovate the world, creating new businesses and exploring new directions, and let them talk about what they did: a way to get into the spirit that changes the world we live in, understanding what trigger the progress that we see every day, on the internet and on real life.
Lama recently contacted Auralcrave, asking a few questions about how the project started, what was the original spirit and how the concept evolved since the foundation. The video-interview with Auralcrave founder is available at the link below.
Auralcrave: the video-interview with the founder
Here the trascription of the interview:
Hi Carlo! Could you please tell us a bit more about your work with Auralcrave and what led to your founding the digital magazine?
I was already a freelancer music journalist for many different magazines in Italy, but none of them fully reflected my vision. I wanted something able to combine intellectual content and popular appeal, so something that can open the door to the pleasure of art – and writing about art – and also still be able to get viral. At some point, my wife pushed me to found my own magazine. I did it without many ambitions, even because there are many good publishers on the internet that don’t get the attention they deserve, and nobody needed another one. But it worked very well since the beginning, so apparently it had something that the others didn’t have.
What are some of the main challenges and rewards associated with producing an independent publication in Italy, especially since you live in Germany?
Well, the challenges are the same all over the world for all digital publications, and are very well known. And it’s about finding a business model that makes the publication sustainable in the long term, and can offer a retribution or remuneration to contributors. It’s still something that only few internet actors can effort, but we managed to be better positioned than the others, even compared to magazines that were there before us. We have many revenue channels, and the contributors participates actively in all of them. I’m looking forward to grow more and share even more revenues with our authors, because they all deserve some tangible satisfaction.
What have been some of the most impactful and life-changing stories you’ve covered with Auralcrave?
Well, maybe we don’t really change life, but we help making it more interesting. People like to discover new perspectives and visions on the art they love, and the most successful stories we publish are exactly the ones that enrich the art experience of the reader. For example, discovering the hidden meanings of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin’s music, or the philosophy behind movies that are hard to understand, like David Lynch or Andrei Tarkovsky’s films.
Those are also the topics that made the success of the books we published, by the way, so it means that the reader is really interested in discovering something more behind the art they see.
How has Auralcrave’s readership changed or shifted in the past years? Who are your typical readers?
We are evolving in a very natural way, without forcing any specific direction. We are open-minded and we are open to every kind of contributions, this allows us to respond directly to the new needs of the reader. Typically what happens is that, when a new topic or area becomes trending, the authors that are able to talk about this topic contact us and offer the collaboration – so they are aware that Auralcrave can take every possible direction with no boundaries and they see in this magazine a means to get a connection with the readers. And that’s how we shifted from a music magazine in the beginning to a webspace for interesting stories of any kinds, involving art, culture, philosophy, travelling, media, sports, basically everything.
What’s next for your work with Auralcrave? What will be your main focus throughout the next year?
So far, our evolution was mainly guided by the opportunities and the capabilities that we discovered within our own aptitude. The same will happen also in the future: we will continue publishing books, because it’s a format that people like for our stories, and we will keep extending our topics, because diversity is what best identifies us. There’s no limit on what we can achieve and we have the right enthusiasm, so we can get where we want. It will be a nice journey.
