Tumbhi is an online talent showcase platform which intends to allow aspiring artists create and host multimedia portfolios on the portal and showcase their artistic talent.
The portal aims to target artists like aspiring photographers, writers, actors, models, singers, music composers, short-film-makers, lyricists, and poets among others for this initiative. It claims to already have artist portfolios from more than 1000 cities across 135 countries.
Portfolios: When we checked the website, we noticed that the site offers a list of featured artists across various disciplines on the homepage. It also allows one to browse through portfolios across various categories mentioned above and refine search by the sub-category, popularity, rating and freshness of the portfolios. There is also a keyword-based search box which allows one to search portfolios of various artists. Interestingly, users can also toggle the website language to view a dedicated Hindi website, following which all the menu options are translated to Hindi.
One can also click on any specific portfolio on the portal to view a sample work from the artist and learn more details about the artist. The sample work expectedly varies depending on the type of the artist. For instance, it can be a short story in case of authors, a short audio clip in case of singers, a sample picture in case of photographers and a short video clip in case of film makers.
Further, one can also rate, and post comments about the existing sample work, add the portfolio page to their favorites or share the portfolio page via email and social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Uploading Portfolios: Users can either sign up for the service through Facebook connect or by filling up a form with requisite details like name, gender, email address among others on the portal.
Following registration, one can select the skill level (Amateur/Professional), their discipline and upload files of their sample. At the time of writing this article, we noticed that one can upload 10 files at a time with varying file sizes and format depending upon the discipline chosen. For instance, musicians can upload 10 audio files with a duration of 1-5 minutes each and file size of 100 MB or less, while film makers can upload 10 video files of duration 10-15 minutes each and file size of 400 MB or less. One can later type in his/her portfolio title, description and tags which describe their portfolio, and submit it for review.
The company says that selected portfolio will be published on Tumbhi, and users can keep track of the portfolio status on their account. That being said, there is currently no information on the review process of these portfolios.
At the time of writing this article, both the signup process and uploading portfolios is completely free. It would be interesting to see the company introduces any paid upgrades for portfolios in the future.
Mentors: Tumbhi claims to have a board of mentors comprising of popular artists across various disciplines including Anurag Kashyap (Filmmaker), Javed Siddiqui (Screenwriter), Pankaj Shukla (Senior Journalist), Pankuj Parashar (Film Director), Sunjoy Monga (Naturalist), Lil Mo (R&B Singer), Prashant Godbole (Photographer), LC Singh (Producer), Nirav Shah (Cinematographer), Om Katare (Theatre Director), Ramdas Palsule (Instrumentalist) and more recently Irshad Kamil (Lyricist) and Kiran Khalap (Brand Consultant and Book Author). The company also claims to have already made six short films with artists from Tumbhi.com, mentored by the film maker Anurag Kashyap.
Content Ownership? According to the site’s terms and conditions, users will retain the ownership of the original content they upload and store on the website, however the company will retain rights to all compilations, collective works or derivative work created by them, which may include the user’s content. In addition, the site will also own a irrevocable royalty-free license to use, reproduce and distribute the content.
Similar Initiatives: In October 2011, Reliance Entertainment, the media and entertainment arm of Reliance ADA Group had announced a strategic investment in California(US)-based, Talenthouse, a creative collaboration platform, and the formation of their joint venture, Talenthouse India. The company had stated its plans to focus on nurturing fresh and creative talent in the country and provide relevant collaboration opportunities at international level as well. Balaji Telefilms had also started a media recruitment portal Hoonur.com, which was later relaunched as a social network allowing artists to network among themselves.
K Sera Sera Productions and Rajshri Media also had their own talent search portals KMediaTalent and RajshriTalent respectively, however it looks both the productions studios have pulled the plug on these, since the domains were parked pages at the time of writing this article.
