Getting To Work…
Posted in Latest News by yobie at 4:45 pm
So Jeff and David’s last post sounds like a dare and a challenge. So this is what I am going to do. I am going to the liquor store, buy a case of RockStar, place an order for double pepperoni pizza with Italian sausage and a sprinkling of feta cheese and line up a bunch of obscure vinyl records, CDs and MP3s… sorry no iTunes s$%! or Microsoft DRM tracks 
I am firing up the the Ubuntu desktop, and code some python, php, Flash and AJAX doo-dads. Here’s the functional specs:
1) Band or label (…or anyone for that matter) should be able to load up their MP3s or WAV files
2) They get to price it anyway they want as long as they pay some fees (…modest fees like we make in GoodStorm. Not like the moronic and usurious fees that some services charge)
3) Here’s the business rule, if you want to give it away you should be able to but if you make money, you have to pay me for the software, hosting, payment processing, etc…
4) Since some of the labels and bands are more “business-like” than others, I’ll code in revenue accounting, royalty accounting, fee split management, cost of goods (i.e. cost of recording, CD pressing, beer money, VW touring van rental, etc…), professional fees that needs payment: lawyers fees, publicist, videographers, graphic artists, lighting guys, writers, roadies, manager and bartender of course!
5) I’ll make it so it is easy to maintain… change prices, publish tour schedules, sell your merchandise ~ tshirts, posters, stickers and your tambourine man can actually maintain it without having finished high school.
6) I’ll make it so it’s easy to send in an email invite.
7) Ohhh… yes, yes… I’ll make so you can put it in a blog, mySpace or some other crazy site. I will make it so your fans can tell you if they hate or love your music.
9) I’ll make it easy for fans to tell others how good or bad the music is.
10) Oh yeah… an email and list blaster too. That would be wild and rockin’
11) I’ll even put in image management so you can store your contract PDFs or album and poster art
12) Oh… oh… must have fan management too (i.e. my friends and lurkers)!!!
13) Venue and road management so you’ll never have to create a check list of things to bring to a venue or road trip
14) I’ll make it so you can run your label from your mobile phone
15) Video of course, we must have a place where you can show your videos and fans can rave or blog about it or pan you to oblivion
Any more ideas???
Now I am going to hole up in my cave, crank up the tunes and see y’all on the Mar 14th Birdman showcase at the deVille.
In short, I’ll build a band, label or music company in a box for free! Just give me a vig when you sell some music or a tshirt.
But unfortunately, I can’t write the music.
As below, so above: and as above, so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles. (Fulcanelli)
The original model of the music business is top-down. A hierarchy where the central issue is distribution ( of product, of power, of money) The new, less familiar, environment is bottom up and the central issue is consumption ( access, utility, reach).
What kind of economic system can model this? What will the “above” look like?
The consumption model begins with an appreciation of the product as it is determined by the consumer ( not conceptualizing the product as it is manufactured). Music is consumed as experiential behaviour. Hearing music - as file, record, ring tone, soundtrack - collating, sharing, socializing these outputs, Seeing the show: live, live on screen, on tape, in video, film, or festival, Wearing the merchandise. Identification with expressed positions or values. Whatever the action is - it is the seamlessness of desire that matters. The current boundaries based on physical states (manufacture , venues, geography, genres) cannot accommodate the seamless state.
Systems (including individuals) that are able to create a total experience are those that allow multiple entry points into their experiential realm. In these “open” systems there is a multitude of choices to be personalized. In the example of a band and their fans there is a co-creation of a unique value chain.
The challenge to be solved is how to aggregate the many experiences that currently define music and to provide the tools that allow us to mine, and expand, our desires. (This is the money trail.)
Do you want the track, the merch, the seat, the show, the season pass, the catalogue, the interview, the documentary, the lyrics, the set-list, the sheet music, the virtual backstage pass, the meet and greet, the private date, the video, the artwork, the cd, the disc, the ring tone, the car horn, the performance rights. Do you want to invest in this demo? Sponsor the album, promote the tour? Do you want to sell tickets? Street-team? Subscribe, purchase, trade, barter? Whatever you desire.
The investment to be re-directed it to easing the user experience, refining access, utility and reach and allowing multiple, transparent methods of payment for the things we want.
In my experience implementing and managing large-scale socio-technical work systems, a technical system is considered to have reached failure when the work-arounds become so numerous as to constitute redundancy. Furthermore - the workarounds are not the new system - however they are a diagnostic and predictive.
It may be helpful to consider social networking and file-sharing, stub-hub, etc. as massive workarounds, rather than new (uneconomic) systems.
“These are the pragmatics of innovation: Until a previous possibility has come into existence, an adjacent possibility couldn’t exist.
The questions that organizations must ask is, What are the adjacent
possibilities within an industry that allow for the creation of
something new ?
In highly competitive markets this is vital
information, because once an adjacent possibility becomes possible, it
will occur. Someone will discover it. There’s no way to predict when,
but it will happen.”
Howard Sherman & Ron Schultz, Open Boundaries. A New Way of
Thinking.
Comment by Sarah — March 7, 2007 @ 1:40 am