Very good question. Most of us know Sound Exchange is the digital PRO created to deal with royalties generated over the internet and through digital music devices, however it is still quite vague to a vast majority of the musicians and writers what EXACTLY Sound Exchange does. Thanks to Youtube, these questions can now be answered in 2:26 .
Enjoy
I want to tell you about Music City Interactive. Â MCI is a site that was dreamed up over some great greek food with my friend Tony Groticelli. Â Tony and I were commenting on the fact that there were multiple factions of tech-minded folks in Nashville.. but they were quite scattered. Â I mean... we have Barcamp , Podcamp, Geek Breakfast, Digital Nashville, and probably a dozen other gather places for like-minded geeks but there was not one place you could go to find information on all of these... let alone learn about other interesting happenings around music city. We decided that we would try to do something about it. Â We would establish a blog aggregator. Â A "Mashable" for Nashville's music and technology set. Â Hence the brand spanking new blog: Music City Interactive. Â This is very young and at this point.. we are still REALLY working out the kinks, but the idea is- we will have multiple bloggers who write on various issues surrounding technology and music contribute via their RSS feeds. Â Here in one place- you will be able to find and learn about (hopefully) every facet of the music, social media, technology and where they all intersect.
CHECK IT OUT! More on this later.
I love flash sales! I love everything about them. They are discounted, quick, dirty, and in limited quantities. They are urgency and discount bundled into one fantastic package that I as a consumer cannot resist. Obviously, they have been around for a while now. Amazon.com has often push urgency marketing on their customer base and many other sites have attempted to emulate this tactic with varied levels of success. However it seems that just lately, companies are starting to figure out the value in this type of marketing and sales. Now more than ever... sites like Woot, Rue La La, Gilt, Haute Look, and others are popping up for everything from consumer goods, to clothing, wine, t-shirts, etc. And they are smart about their marketing... these sites are "invitation only" (click above for "invitations")... they build scarcity around the deal. Scarcity is power! If it is an expiring deal, or a limited number of deals... it is much more attractive isnt it? Combine this with top-notch social media networking and you have a powder keg of cash drawing, deal making, fantastic-ness (yes I just invented this word). So... when is music gonna wise up and get on the bandwagon?
Great question.
Bob Lefsetz figures that it will begin with concert ticket sales... How cool would that be? Well- we already have scarcity (there are only a number of seats you know..)... so add to that an expiring deal and you may just have something great!
I would like to see it in recorded music as well. Obviously, there are great daily deals to be found in e-commerce with Amazon and iTunes leading the pack but these dont really count in my book. The sites listed far above are deal of the day sites. Sites people who love technology, fashion, t-shirts, etc. go to on a daily basis and accept "spam" from because they ASKED FOR IT in order to get a great deal... Why haven't we embraced this yet as a Music industry? It wouldn't be too hard... In my book you have general music lovers and genre specific lovers... take the top 10 genres and hook up a deal from each every two days or so... JACKPOT! I think this will be a great way forward should anyone have the chutzpah to pull it off (I am available to consult- since it was MY IDEA).
I think the industry could do well to take some notes from these other folks. This may not be the idea to right the ship, but it does help bail some of the water. Til that happens... much of my holiday shopping will be relegated to name brand handbags and sunglases rather than that great Pink Floyd box set I had my eye on...
"Raise Your Baton" was the title of this post. This struck me on a number of levels as both a musician, lover of classical music, business person, and last but not least... the son of a conductor (not train, but music).
In this short post he spoke of the vast amount of resources available and the ease at which one can enter the business community these days whether it be as a record label, publisher, artist, or tech startup. He goes on to surmise that trying to do it all yourself will drive you nuts and the smartest of entrepreneurs should surround themselves with capable people who can help achieve and accomplish the task at hand. The smartest entrepreneur will raise their baton and become the conductor of the project.
This analogy is really great. Some of the people I respect most in this world were the ones willing to admit they didn't know how to do everything. One such person always used to say- "I don't know how to do everything... that's why I surround myself with experts like youself (moi?)... who do." Until now I always took this sentiment to be nothing more than a nice statement.. but in fact he is right. He IS the conductor. You see, as Bruce Houghton points out- the conductor doesn't know how to play every instrument in the orchestra... but he(she) does know how to read music and he knows what the symphony should sound like. The source of my admiration IS the conductor of his business and it's success.
So how do you become the conductor? Bruce accurately puts it as this... " Start by learning your business. Assemble the players. Then raise your baton." How simple... and perfect! Music to my ears.