Applying a Music Business Model To a Blog 43
An anonymous reader writes "Many of you may be familiar with Mike Masnick, from the site Techdirt. Beyond just chronicling tech stories for years, he's also been following various music and media industry business models as well. While he's usually among the first (like Slashdot) to express dismay at silly activities from the recording industry, lately he's been cataloging numerous success stories, like business models from Trent Reznor, Amanda Palmer, and Josh Freese. Mike and Techdirt are now taking things a step further, and wondering what would happen if they took the lessons from those success stories and applied it to a media publication: their own Techdirt. The result is 'Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy.' Check out the very special offer for the RIAA."
Their problem: Balancing the pricing! (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea in itself is great, and what I always said. The only problem is, that their prices are not from this world.
They absolutely and without discussion need some proper pre-buyer pricing acceptance feedback.
What I recommend, is asking the user, what he would like to pay. And only showing the price you want, after they chose their price. Then when their pricing is above it, you say that they can get it cheaper, and when it is below it, you say that you're sorry, but that you do not want do give that away for that price.
This way you get instant feedback and a free survey. Also people feel involved.
Then you change the prices to the value, where "price * people who want to buy at that price" is maximized, and send anyone who did not buy but might now, a little note about the change in price. Make it clear that the price fell because of their feedback.
Ok, the only problem with this would be, that it could be manipulated, because the people could give more than one vote, or might not be honest in the first place.
Anyone got a real solution for this? (I bet there is a solution that you learn when you study economics & co. Which I never did.)
Re:Free Content? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your brother is a producer and an engineer. No kidding he can't sell tshirts to fans. He isn't the musician. Musicians market to fans. Or they would, if the record label they signed with didn't agree to do that part for them. Your brother, as a recording engineer, markets himself to musicians, not fans. The fact that he can't make money from fans is entirely pointless. He isn't supposed to make money from fans. His work is done for the artists, and his pay should be negotiated with the artists. Artists can opt to either pay people like your brother for their specialty and expertise, or they learn to do it themselves. Or, they're cute girls, and they talk some recording geek into doing it.
If they're a new band, they can sacrifice and save to be able to afford a quality professional. They can find/develop their own sound engineers. They can become their own engineers. Pretty much the options that bands have always had. Only now its easier to do an adequate job with some software you can run on your home machine. Will it be Reznor level of quality? Well .. no. But new bands aren't likely to hit that mark, anyway. And it won't have anything to do with the recording engineer they choose, if you catch my meaning.
ESPN360 isn't free to the end user. The cost of the service is merely distributed to all the ISP's customers. Even if you couldn't care less about sports, you pay. If you want to go that route, you can start paying me for .. well .. nothing that you'd want, I'd imagine. But since you're not concerned with that sort of requirement for a business transaction, I'm okay with it too. We'll even bury it in the fees for your ISP. Or your property taxes. Or whatever. Something you already pay for, so that it'll be "free to you" too.