Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:17:10 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100223/1821298278.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100223/1821298278.shtml business models that are working these days. The latest is ReverbNation -- a company that's really focused on the Connect with Fans (CwF) side of the business for a while -- by building what it called a "fan relationship management" system. Basically, it was a more sophisticated email list manager, but with some special features and widgets for bands. The company has been adding a lot of features lately, and now it's announced a deal to make it even easier for a band to sell merch via ReverbNation. Contrary to what the article claims, I don't believe that just selling merch is necessarily a great business model on its own (access, attention and some other things tend to have more potential), but it is certainly a good supplementary part of many CwF+RtB type business models these days. So anything that makes it easier for artists seems like a good thing. Obviously, there are other ways that bands could already do similar things, but the integration directly into ReverbNation's platform is definitely a nice thing.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> getting-there... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100223/1821298278 Fri, 22 May 2009 09:48:49 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090522/0123434972.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090522/0123434972.shtml new startups in the market to help bands do everything they need to do to both make music and make money these days -- and one of the most successful has been ReverbNation, who has created a variety of tools for musicians to help them both distribute music and connect with fans in new and compelling ways. And, now, the company has announced that it not only wants to help bands give away DRM-free mp3 music for free, but it will pay some of them $0.50 per download. Who says free can't pay? Of course, as always, there is a money-making business model involved. In this case, it's that ReverbNation will get to include a small ad in the cover art that appears with the album. Also, it's only open to a 1,000 bands. I'm not convinced this is a sustainable model, as "ad supported" music strikes me as a market where it will be tough to get enough ad revenue to make it worthwhile -- but it's still a neat experiment to watch and see how it evolves. It certainly may help get more indie bands over the fear of putting their music out there for free on purpose -- and hopefully some of those bands will recognize the other benefits of doing so, beyond just the $0.50 per download from ReverbNation.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> can't-make-money-off-free? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090522/0123434972