Monday, March 23, 2009

CD Baby and The Long Tail

by Ginger

While reading the first few chapters of The Long Tail, I began to think about an online company called CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com). If you haven't heard of it, it's an online source for independent music artists to sell and promote their music. Created by Derek Sivers as a way for his music friends to sell music, it has grown into a $22 Million company. Just like Facebook and Twitter, it was never intended to grow to the size it is now. Most of these independent artists are way down in the long tail, but collectively they make up a large majority of music sold today. As Chris Anderson states in the book, “popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability.” In regards to these artists, he also states it “doesn’t mean they don’t have a potential audience; it’s just that it’s a small one.” Everyone has an audience; it is just having the tools to get the music out there to find them. Most of these musicians aren’t trying to become the next great artist; they just want people to listen to their music. As Chris Anderson talks about, most will keep their day jobs (amateur vs. professional). So now when an artist plays a show and someone says, hey where can I buy your CD?, they can just say “it’s at CDBaby.com, baby!” I encourage you to check out the website if you haven’t seen it before. Here is a good video about CD Baby by the founder of mixergy.com and also a couple of links to video of Derek Sivers talking about artists on CD Baby:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDloYl9TzaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIooc_370Hw

7 comments:

  1. Great Post Ginger, just watched the video. It just reenforces what we are learning. Passion produces purpose and purpose produces profits.

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  2. (Ted) Great info Ginger. Since we have been tasked to help a failing "For Profit" business, isn't their more of a burden put on the financial outcome of the project. It is one thing to create something out of passion that takes off, and quite another to try to innovate a product that may or may not be able to stay viable.

    This is just one of the issues/questions I am struggling with as I wrap my head around these new paradigms.

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  3. (Ginger) I know what you mean Ted. In one of the videos that I posted a link to, Derek Sivers is talking about how artists should just try an idea and if it doesn't work, go onto the next one. Which is good, if you don't have any monetary investment in it. If you do, that gets a little tricky. I can imagine sometimes it is hard to turn your passion into innovation without a couple of tries at the diffusion process. It's definately a risk.

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  4. I had some of the same feelings about "just trying" an idea out. A few years ago when I got my TiVO I had the idea to set recordings from a computer. Like if I were out of town and forgot to record a show, I could simply log on and set it from around the world. However, I have no clue about that stuff, nor millions of dollars to play with electronics, or who to talk to about the idea. I'm sure me, a customer calling TiVO up with an idea would have been brushed off. So it is somewhat of a problem to just run with it. It looks nice on paper, but the implementation is the hard part.

    Lori

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  5. I have read farther into The Long Tail and found that the author actually mentions CD Baby when writing about the band Birdmonster (pg. 104). They used CD Baby to distribute their CD, which significantly lowered the cost of distribution from a what a record label deal would have been.

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  6. The steps Derek Sivers followed to launch this website is very inspiring. He was patient, persistent,and focused. We all have an idea or two that could change traditional way of doing things but,oftentimes,we entertain the fear of failure that the idea would not be popular or work.We have to learn to exhaust all avenues and opportunities out there before drawing conclusions.
    Soon after i left class on Saturday,i made a phone call to my pastor about how we can disseminate his sermons to the entire church members instead of relying solely on the 30 minutes slot he gets on Channel 21 every Thursday 7pm . Having discussed the dwindling television audience in class,i was stimulated to take the media department in the church to a new level.I explained to the pastor how tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Skype could be harnessed to reach ALL,especially the youth, and the intermittent church goers. My pastor was very excited and readily bought into the idea. After this "Techno-media" conversation, it was agreed that a youth summit be convened at church to put all the interesting ideas to work.I have been made the coordinator of this summit, and i am positive about the outcome. I have been empowered by this course,and i will use all the skills and tools available to "move mountains".

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  7. I like the section on "get feedback". Derek said "get feedback", but don't take all the feedback and ideas and incorporate them. He said it has to fit for the company. I believe this is so important. A company has to have a CLEAR mission. If the idea doesn't fit the mission, don't do it. Stick to your mission and do that well.

    Sarah Cates

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