Tag Archive for 'the long tail'

The Long Tail: A Long Tail Band Finally Decides To Sign With A Label, Why?

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Rob Stefaniak
on March 20, 2008
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BirdmonsterThe Long Tail author Chris Anderson posts a follow-up interview with a band he highlighted in his book. The band, Birdmonster, recently decided to sign with a record label after turning down multiple offers about 1.5 years ago. The label they signed with, FADER is an offshoot of the magazine of the same name.

In the beginning, Birdmonster figured it was too early to sign away the ownership of their music when they thought they still had plenty of room to grow on their own. After the release of their DIY debut No Midnight and the year and half of non-stop touring that followed, the business side had become draining (physically, mentally, and financially). All they really wanted to do was go home and write another record. So it became apparent to Birdmonster that if they wanted to continue down that artistic road, they needed help in other areas. The question was what type of label and deal was right for them?

Birdmonster felt that FADER had a similar mindset to them and could at least give them the opportunity to be seen and heard. With their deal, FADER came to them and asked them what they wanted out of it before making an offer. They were the only label to do that.

My feeling is this is a great example of figuring out and then choosing the right partner and strategic brand alignment for your band/business to move forward. FADER (magazine) is mostly a fringe, tastemaker publication - a very cool one in my opinion. FADER (the label) will sign bands that they want to promote through their magazine.  Birdmonster was obviously a good fit.  A band needs a lot of things, mostly money and promotional muscle. A record label can provide a few things, but nowadays mostly money and promotional muscle. Most young bands are in it to “get a deal” without really knowing what they want to get out of it and what they are willing to give up in return.

Grow on your own, figure out what you need, partner, and keep building.

As an aside, FADER (the label) also recently signed Saul Williams. He partnered with Trent Reznor to produce and then independently distribute his album on the Internet with pricing options of 192 Kbps MP3s for free or 320 Kbps for $5.00 (with the option of uncompressed FLAC). It’s all the rage these days…

The Long Tail: Follow-Up: A Long Tail Band Finally Decides to Sign With a Label. Why?

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Now playing: Birdmonster - ‘Cause You Can
via FoxyTunes

1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly @ The Technium

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Rob Stefaniak
on March 8, 2008
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There is a home for Artists in between poverty and stardom. Somewhere lower than stratospheric best-sellerdom, but higher than the potential obscurity offered by The Long Tail.

Kevin Kelly @ The Technium suggests The Long Tail is a mixed blessing for individual Artists as they are overlooked in the equation. In reality, The Long Tail does not raise the sales of creators much, adds massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices and offers no real path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales

So, other than aim for a blockbuster “hit”, what can an Artist do to escape The Long Tail?

Kevin Kelly’s solution is to find and cultivate 1,000 True Fans. The point of this strategy is that you don’t need a “hit” to survive. You don’t need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape The Long Tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living.

1000 True Fans

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything an Artist produces. For an Artist to raise their sales out of the flatline of The Long Tail they need to connect with their True Fans directly. Rather, they need to convert a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans. But, the key challenge for the Artist is to maintain direct contact with their 1,000 True Fans with the added benefit of direct feedback and love.

The genius of the True Fan model is that the fans are able to move an Artist away from the edges of The Long Tail to a degree larger than their numbers indicate. They can do this in three ways: (1) by purchasing more per person, (2) by spending directly so the Artist keeps more per sale, and (3) by enabling new models of support.

The accepted price of being an Artist is large and the likely alternative to making a living based on True Fans is poverty. A dedicated Artist who could cultivate 1,000 True Fans and directly support them using new technology, can potentially make an honest living through the commerce of their art.

Go check out the full article and make sure to read the comments.

1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly @ The Technium

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Now playing: Hot Chip - We’re Looking For A Lot Of Love
via FoxyTunes

Free! Why $0.00 Is The Future Of Business: Cross-Subsidies

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Rob Stefaniak
on February 25, 2008
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Free StickerIn this months WIRED (16.03), editor Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail) pens a great article on why the future of business will be founded on providing goods and services for FREE.

An example of how live performance revenues subsidize recorded music revenue is brought forth using a Brazilian band called Banda Calypso that self-distributes masters of its CDs and CD liner art to local street vendor networks in towns it plans to tour. They have full agreement and expectation that the vendors will copy the CDs, sell them, and keep all the money. They allow this because selling recorded music isn’t their main source of revenue. The band recognizes they are actually in the live performance business. And business is apparently really good for them - they tour and travel from town-to-town via private jet.

In addition, the use of the street vendors for distribution generates more ’street cred’ for Banda Calypso in every town they visit. Their omnipresence in the urban soundscape means they get huge crowds to their rave/dj/concert events. Free music is just publicity for a far more lucrative tour business. Nobody thinks of this as piracy.

Free Prince CD

Last July, Prince debuted his new album, Planet Earth, by stuffing a copy — retail value $19 — into 2.8 million issues of the Sunday edition of London’s Daily Mail. (The paper often includes a CD, but this was the first time it featured all-new material from a star.) How can a platinum artist give away a new release? And how can a newspaper distribute it free of charge?

A) Prince spurred ticket sales. Strictly speaking, the artist lost money on the deal. He charged the Daily Mail a licensing fee of 36 cents a disc rather than his customary $2. But he more than made up the difference in ticket sales. The Purple One sold out 21 shows at London’s 02 Arena in August, bringing him record concert revenue for the region.

B) The Daily Mail boosted its brand. The freebie bumped up the newspaper’s circulation 20 percent that day. That brought in extra revenue, but not enough to cover expenses. Still, Daily Mail execs consider the giveaway a success. Managing editor Stephen Miron says the gimmick worked editorially and financially: “Because we’re pioneers, advertisers want to be with us.”

How Can A CD Be Free? – WIRED 16.03

Free! Why $0.00 Is The Future Of Business – WIRED 16.03

How To: Make Money Around Free Content @ WIRED How-To Wiki

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Now playing: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
via FoxyTunes

Proto-Markets & The Long Tail

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Rob Stefaniak
on February 12, 2008
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I have been thinking about the ‘proto-market’ lately because of an exciting project I am currently working on called Drummer Hunter, a website dedicated to helping drummers and bands connect. It primarily services the ‘proto-market’, the local and small scale music scenes where new talent and styles emerge. The ‘proto-market’ exists at the edge of the sphere of commercial music production.

And so after some googling, I stumbled upon this article, The Changing Face of the Music Industry, that does a nice job of connecting the ‘proto-market’ with the Long Tail. I think it is from 2005, but still relevant.

FYI - Jason Toynbee was a professor of mine. Here is a summary in which I have extracted a few bits and pieces:

As a backdrop to the here and now in which the struggle for the survival of the major record company is being played out, Jason Toynbee’s Institutional Autonomy or IA theory (2000) in recognizing what he describes as ‘proto-markets’ is of real value. Proto-markets include the musicians who exist outside the present commodified structure of the music industry i.e. the vast majority. The notion of the proto-market identifies the groups and individuals that arguably stand to gain most from the collapse of the major label system. These proto-markets contribute to the first stage of IA theory undisciplined labor force that exist largely autonomously of record companies.

In the world of the Long Tail there is no such thing as over-supply and everything has a chance of consumption. Combine enough non-hits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits…the biggest money is in the smallest sales…the market that lies outside the reach of the physical retailer is big and getting bigger. As a result, almost anything is worth offering on the off chance it will find a buyer… In a Long Tail economy, it’s more expensive to evaluate than to release. Just do it!

The main predicament the major labels have is summed up by channel conflict, whereas the labels fear that if they price online music lower, their CD retailers will revolt or more likely go out of business more quickly than they actually are. As obvious as this may seem there are further problems. The choice facing fans is not how many songs to buy in digital download form, but how many songs to buy rather than download for free. Intuitively, consumers know that free music is not really free: aside from any legal risks, it’s a time-consuming hassle to build a collection…

With so much music available, consumers will eventually prefer to rent and have more choice than just buy and own some of the music they like. ‘By offering fair pricing, ease of use, and consistent quality, you can compete with free.’ (Anderson:2004:p8) This in effect returns music to its pre-recorded days of service as opposed to product. ‘Drastically lower prices for music products and you will see piracy disappear quickly.’ (Leonhard 2004:P8)

Or as Adorno (1941) would contend, ‘Popular music becomes a multiple choice questionnaire,’ with ‘music as largely social cement.’

For the Artists who currently occupy the ‘proto-market’ to produce recordings and make them available on the Internet, in a Long Tail economy, they will eventually find a buyer/renter/fan.

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Now playing: Nada Surf - Weightless
via FoxyTunes

A Brave New World: The Music Biz At The Dawn Of 2008 — Ars Technica

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Rob Stefaniak
on January 25, 2008
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Great article and case study on the changing music industry by Nate Anderson at Ars Technica, a technology news and reviews site. In short, CD sales are down, major label revenues are sliding, and the music industry looks to be in recession. But music isn’t dying; it’s changing…

Ok, we already knew all that, but it’s still a good read. Here are a couple of great quotes:

What’s happening is obvious; consumers are making far more purchases than ever before, but are often choosing to grab only selected tracks rather than complete albums. The album may not be dying in a general way, but it has certainly lost its importance as the primary way that buyers in the digital era get their music. Bands with a track record of putting out uneven albums won’t be able to milk that strategy for massive profits anymore, nor will any labels that nurture such acts.

It’s often said that it’s hard to compete with free, and that may be true for some segments of the population. (Are college kids ever really going to cough up much cash?) But for most adults who don’t get off on breaking the law or on stiffing artists, it’s easy enough to compete with free. Make something that’s faster, more reliable, with better metadata and album art, and a huge DRM-free selection. Throw in charts, some editorial staff, and some community features, and money is there to be made.

Throw in a solid graphic with numbers on digital and physical music sales from 2003 through 2007…

Digital And Physical Music Sales - 2003-07

Also, make sure to check out the eMusic case study on page 2. Some impressive numbers on digital downloads and the state of indie music in general is brought forward…

Internet distribution has opened up music (like many other products) to the effects of the “long tail.” Since huge quantities of goods costs so little to store and deliver, online venues can offer products that appeal only to very small numbers of people and still make money. “The long tail does better online,” said [eMusic CEO David] Pakman, saying that eMusic is proof of that fact.

A Brave New World: The Music Biz At The Dawn Of 2008

The Long Tail: China: The Future Of Free?

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Rob Stefaniak
on January 3, 2008
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Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, outlines facts and new models of the Chinese music industry - at the cutting edge of finding ways to make money in every way other than the sale of songs, since the traditional process of selling music as a product (certainly CDs) is considered pretty much a lost cause. Fascinating stuff…

The Long Tail: China: The Future Of Free?