Techdirt. Stories filed under "cwf+rtb"

A Music Streaming Service That Builds In CwF+RtB? Built By Trent Reznor And Ian Rogers? Sign Me Up

Mike Masnick — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:54:14 PST

A few months ago in writing about my interview with Trent Reznor, I mentioned that what Reznor was working on with Beats by Dre would be much more interesting than most people thought (at the time, most people were guessing something having to do with headphones). More of the details are starting to come out. First off, there are the two things that everyone in the press is focusing on, the announcement that Trent Reznor has officially been named Chief Creative Officer and Ian Rogers has jumped over from being CEO of TopSpin to be CEO of this new project, called Daisy.

This is great news for a variety of reasons -- I can't think of two better people to team up on such a project (if you're unfamiliar with Ian, you should read this brilliant profile in Wired, and then know that many of us who know Ian think that the article wasn't nearly glowing enough). The fact that these two (and some others who know what they're doing) are teaming up to work on this project is, by itself, big news.

But those high profile announcements seem to be obscuring some of the other news that came out at the same time about the project, which actually reveals a bit more about where this is actually heading. Since Beats bought failed music service MOG for $14 million, many have been expecting a new version of that with some new paint, but it seems a lot more likely that the purchase was more about buying the licenses, and then building something new from scratch, without having to waste time negotiating. Last month, Reznor had hinted that the music service would add more value beyond what today's streaming services offer.

One way it may be doing so? By building the whole "connect with fans, reason to buy" concept directly into the service. While Ian left his CEO spot at TopSpin to take this new gig, there are some other TopSpin details related to this. Not only is he remaining the executive chairman of TopSpin, Beats has invested in TopSpin and Topspin is providing infrastructure for the service. TopSpin, of course, powers a bunch of artist websites and services for "direct to fan" efforts. Basically, they enable "CwF+RtB" (and, apparently, have even used one of my own CwF+RtB videos in explaining it to people).

So, if you take the guy who inspired me to come up with that formula in the first place, and pair him with the guy (and the tools) that have come pretty far along the path towards enabling it all... and what do you get? Well, TopSpin itself makes some suggestions:

Our plan is to set the standard for how consumer music services can integrate and benefit artists.

Here’s an example: When Trent Reznor uses Topspin to release music and merch on his website, his products should appear inside the streaming services, where the millions of fans listening to his catalog of songs should have the ability to connect and hear from Trent directly when he has new music, merchandise, and tour dates.

The core of this partnership, then, is a shared belief that streaming services should do a better job helping fans discover artists and connect with them directly to buy merch, tickets and other products. And so, Topspin GoDirect will become the way the Daisy service gets photos, videos and products from artists, and both companies will work together to make sure fans see those products when they listen to songs.

Three years ago, we suggested that this kind of thing was exactly what Spotify was missing: a platform to help artists do much more, both in terms of connecting with fans, but also in enabling new business models. While Spotify has tried to do some of that with its app platform, those haven't really taken off the way I had hoped. A system built from scratch with that concept in mind, however, gets very interesting very fast.

So you can see a situation where they build a service that actually is good for everyone: fans, musicians and the company itself. That seems like a pretty good deal. True, some of the other services have actually been pretty good for everyone as well, but there are still limitations, which are why there are so many complaints about services.

In the end, execution is everything. If you have a great idea and terrible execution, it won't matter. So it's possible that all of this goes nowhere, but it certainly has a lot of the right pieces to make something great. Now, if they figure out some way to bring on Zoe Keating to consult on some of her ideas about how online streaming music could create closer connections between musicians and fans, I think that would just turbocharge the whole damn thing.

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Kink.com Owner Inoculating Against Piracy By Selling The Scarce

Timothy Geigner — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 03:13:31 PST

Usually when I have the godly duty of writing about porn on this site, it has to do with a pornographic company acting (shockingly) nefarious. Maybe they're reaping millions in a judgment over a handful (unintentional innuendo) of films. Or else they're attacking speech using IP laws to silence critics of their jack-ass-ery. It might be very easy for readers to assume that pornographers as a whole (still unintentional, I swear) would be aligned against the philosophies and economics that we discuss every day. They're an easily painted "bad guy" for a host of social reasons.

But, as reader Flix alerts us, in the diverse population of pornographers, some of them do see the opportunities in the digital revolution. Such is the example of Peter Acworth (possibly NSFW, check your local listings), founder and CEO of Kink.com, who took part in a Reddit AMA. One of the first topics discussed was the impact of piracy on his business and what he plans to do about it.

Q: When its as easy as typing "the name of the movie" + torrent into google and getting at least a dozen sites that have the torrent. How do you deal with piracy of your videos?

PA: Good question!! We are investing heavily in live and social aspects of our products and then integrating them together. I.e. in the future you will join divinebitches.com, and that gets you the material, but also live shows with models, interactivity on their blogs, etc.

Note that he doesn't list off all the reasons why piracy is such a huge problem for him and his business. He just goes straight to how he's improving his business model to inoculate against piracy by supplying un-pirateable content, like live shows and connections/interactivity with models.

This is CwF + RtB at its core. Moreover, assuming the content he's supplying is of a quality that his customers enjoy, it's unbeatable. Sure, you can pirate the films if you like, but you forgoe the rest of the product. It's a wonderful response to all the boobs (okay, that one I did on purpose) shouting "you can't compete with free!"

Of course you can. Sell the customers something scarce in a way that also connects with them.

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Next Time Someone Suggests Piracy Will Kill Music, Remind Them That Music Survived The Last Ice Age

Leigh Beadon — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 19:39:00 PDT

Music predates agriculture. That's something I suppose I always knew, but had never thought about in such clear terms until Bryan Kim illustrated it in a talk at SFMusicTech with a photo of a 35,000-year-old bone flute. This places music before farming and written language on the timeline of humanity, right alongside the earliest known cave paintings in Europe, at the very least. By comparison, recorded music has only been around for a little over a century.

Viewed in that light, the idea that recordings are the central, defining aspect of music or the music industry is just plain ridiculous. Between that ancient flute and today, there have been plenty of different successful models for funding music. Kim points out that the one common thread throughout, which continues today, is that music's primary function is more community-building than anything else:

For most of human history, music was a public and participatory experience, inextricably linked to a plural of people synched in a real-time experience. As a binding agent of dancing and singing bodies, music could literally manifest community. And lest you think our modern society has evolved beyond the tribal utility of music, just think of religious services, major sporting events, weddings, nightclubs, road trips… when was the last time you attended one of these without some sort of collective music ritual?

...

In many ways, music is the original social network. This makes musicians founders of community. In a networked world, that’s powerful.

I found all this especially fascinating because of the conclusion Kim reached, and the model he's dubbed "crowd patronage" for supporting music going forward, combining the traditions of busking and of wealthy patrons that have been dominant in virtually all periods of history and, likely, pre-history. The idea is that you need an "ecosystem of fans" and then they will support you in exchange for "relationship access". It is, essentially, the same as what we've been calling CwF+RtB here at Techdirt. Using Kickstarter as an example, Kim elaborates:

Just like in the era of patronage, pledgers are usually not buying a commodified product. The most successful music Kickstarter projects sell you one or more of three “values”: 1) access to artist (as discussed above), 2) exclusivity and 3) recognition/participation (especially for artist’s creation).

So we’re going to see more artists open up the creation process to their fanbase. Everything from crediting fans in the liner notes, to tracking fans' recorded sounds as real stems, to skyping and polling fans during studio sessions.

As a musician, it’s already technically possible to do this. In the next few years, we’re going to find it become more culturally acceptable on both the artist and fan side. More importantly, artists are going to start finding which sorts of packages their fans actually buy, etching out the contours of a new crowd patronage “model”.

It's great to see more people reaching this conclusion, and especially interesting to see it approached from a broader historical perspective: crowd patronage or CwF+RtB is only a new or radical concept when viewed through the narrow lens of recorded music's few decades of dominance. In the bigger picture, it's actually a return to music's roots as a community tool and a tribal experience. Recorded music is still a fantastic thing that has enriched our lives and our culture in its own way—but the notion that music cannot thrive without the commoditization of discrete units doesn't withstand an ounce of scrutiny. The next time someone suggests such a thing, remind them that humans were carving flutes out of bone 20,000 years before the last ice age ended, when glaciers were still creeping towards the Great Lakes and consuming all of the British Isles, and the last few Neanderthals were still roaming around Europe. It sure makes CDs and records seem a tad less significant.

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Mike Birbiglia & Ira Glass Trying To Skype Into Every Viewing Party Of Their Movie

Mike Masnick — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:33:26 PDT

If you haven't heard, comedian Mike Birbiglia and This American Life's Ira Glass made a movie, called Sleepwalk With Me, based on Birbiglia's act/one man show/book (all of which are hilarious). They did it as a small indie production and have been going crazy coming up with cool ways to connect with fans and get them to support the movie -- such as by doing a ridiculous number of live Q&As, creating cool videos, having a "war" with Joss Whedon, and much much more. Their latest move is particularly cool. The video has now come up on various Video On Demand (VOD) platforms, and they've been encouraging people to hold viewing parties at home tonight... and to make it more fun, they're going to try to Skype or Google Chat into as many of them as possible: I'm curious as to just how many they'll be able to do -- and how long they'll talk to anyone (and how well they'll go), but I'm looking forward to seeing the results. Either way, it's yet another cool way of connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy (CwF+RtB) that's been enabled by the digital age.

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Announcing The New Techdirt Insider Shop

Mike Masnick — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:45:04 PDT

A few years ago, in the pre-Kickstarter (but post-artists-crowdfunding) world, we decided that there was no reason why some of the basic experiments for funding that musicians were doing shouldn't apply to blogs as well. So we launched our own "tiered" "CwF+RtB" (Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy) store entirely as an experiment. By the end of the year, we made over $50,000 with it, which exceeded any modest expectations we might have had. Since then, it's always been on the list of things to do to update the store in a big way, and a few months ago, we finally decided to focus in on it. While it took longer than we expected, we're proud to launch the new version:

The Techdirt Insider Shop

It has many of the same offerings that the original had, but a bunch of new and expanded offerings as well. It's designed more as a store than a "tiered" setup, so shop around a bit. We'll have a few more posts highlighting some key features and merchandise, but for those of you already familiar with the Techdirt Crystal Ball -- which allows you to get early access to some stories and preview the headlines of others -- that's still around, but it's now been expanded, so you get to see some stories up to two hours early, rather than just one. And, if you sign up for a premium package, you can even get the brand new Crystal Ball Plus, which gives you pretty detailed access to all sorts of posts we're working on, including false-start stories that never make it onto the site, and some works that are very much in progress. If you're already a Techdirt Crystal Ball subscriber, your account has been upgraded to the new version, meaning you get to see more stories earlier, and you get some other features.

We also have some brand new features on the site for Insiders, including the new First Word/Last Word offering, which I'll have another post discussing in more detail a little later today. There's also the brand new Insider Chat which all of you should be able to see to your right. Certain Insider membership packages allow you to join in the chat. Without one of those... you can still view the chat, but you can't participate. Also, for those who sign up for longer term packages, we have a number of offerings, including special Insider Hangouts (using Google+'s Hangouts feature), which should be a lot of fun. Check out the store for a detailed explanation of all the new blog features that are available.

You want more gear? We've got more gear, including new t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, bottles and other assorted paraphernalia. We've got a brand new Seized t-shirt in honor of various domain seizures (more on that later!) and an updated DMCA takedown t-shirt. The original was our most popular seller, so don't miss out on the new, revamped version. We've also got a very special, limited edition Techdirt staff bundle -- of which only five are available to buy. These are special staff-only hoodies and an assortment of other goodies. If you don't want to splurge to that level (or if they all sell out before you get a chance) we've got some other hoodies to choose from.

Downloads? We've got downloads. You can "pay what you want" for the ebook version of my book Approaching Infinity (built off a collection of Techdirt posts) or our famed Sky is Rising report. Name your price and help support more such works in the future! Hell, if you don't want anything specific in return, you can also just donate some money.

There's plenty more as well, including getting lunch with me -- which we offered only as a one week special last time, but it was quite popular (and a lot of fun) -- as well as the indisputably Awesome Day with Techdirt (which a few folks did last time around, and it really was quite awesome). There are also various business services that tie back into how we normally make a living.

And, last and most certainly least, we still have options for those of you who hate Techdirt. Last time around, we offered to take a year off for merely $100-million, and surprisingly none of you took us up on it. We did have some requests for pro-rated offerings, so we'll now shut down for 24 hours for just $1 million (pocket change!). As for the big one? Well, we always hear the haters insist that price is equal to value, and no one appeared to value that $100-million offering enough... so the price is going up. You can shut us up for an entire year for the new, more luxurious price of $100,000,001. Hurry up. We may raise the prices again before you know it.

Either way, the store platform we've put together is a lot more robust, and we're hopeful that we can do a bunch of other things with it over the next few months and years, so shop away...

Please note that while we've been testing the new store & features extensively, when things go live, problems always pop up. If you spot any errors or bugs, please let us know and we'll get to them as quickly as possible...

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$10,000 Up For Grabs For Most Interesting Content Creator Case Studies!

Mike Masnick — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:04:48 PDT

Along with our just announced brand new Step2 platform (a part of our larger Insight Community effort), we're thrilled to announce a case study contest! We're looking for detailed case studies of experiments that content creators have done, and how they worked out. And we've got $10,000 burning a hole in our pocket to give out to the best case studies.

You can click the link above for the official details, or you can look at the three examples we mentioned in the announcement post:

Amanda Palmer discussing her recent experiences with Kickstarter in funding a new project in conjunction with her husband, Neil Gaiman.
Or, check out Andy Richards of the indie band Uniform Motion (who we've written about a few times, discussing how his transparency about their revenue may have given fans additional reasons to buy, complete with detailed stats about how his transparency resulted in traffic and sales.
Or you can jump over to Zoe Keating's discussion over the question of whether or not doing art for purely strategic reasons is evil... while she also shares a bit of the secret of her success.

We want a lot more like that, and not just in the music space. We're looking for case studies from content creators in music, movies, books and video games and will award $1,000 to each of the top two vote getters who qualify in each of those categories. Separately, we're also looking for fan case studies of how artists in any of those fields connected with you. Again, the top two vote getters will get $1,000 each.

The kinds of case studies we'd love to see:

Done an interesting/different/unique promotion? Tell us about it and share the results in as much detail as possible

Tried an email marketing campaign? What worked and what didn't? Any key metrics?

Attempted crowdfunding? How did you set the rewards? What did people like/not like?

Used new or different platforms or technologies? What kind of results did you see? What could be improved?

Attempted something different -- like a house concert tour? ebook-only release? letting fans take part? releasing unfinished works? What worked, what didn't, what did you learn?
Experimented with "name your own price?" How did it work? What prices worked well? What efforts did you make to trigger certain price points?

Set up a tiered pricing model? How did you choose the tiers? What worked? What did you learn?

How are you connecting with fans? Facebook, Twitter, Podcasts? Google Plus? What works, what doesn't? What really seems to energize fans? What doesn't? Any empirical data that shows how your fans reacted?

Surprise us!

If you're a content creator in any of the qualifying categories, please consider taking part. Some creators are always afraid to share too many details of their "secret sauce," but many who have done so have found that the transparency itself leads to greater connection with fans and -- perhaps more importantly -- getting detailed info out there will help inspire others to do cool things too. Step2 is about learning and helping each other succeed in a rapidly changing world.

If you're not a content creator who qualifies, please consider entering the fan contest, but also alert your favorite content creators in the qualifying categories that they should enter!

We're looking forward to learning about all the great and interesting experiments, success stories and lessons learned.

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Announcing Step2 -- Our New Platform For Helping Creators Succeed

Mike Masnick — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:20:34 PDT

Today we're extremely excited to announce the launch of Step2, our discussion platform for helping creators, fans, techies, business folks and anyone else work together to help creators figure out ways to better succeed with their efforts. It's been nearly three years since I first did my MidemNet presentation that discussed the idea of Connecting with Fans + a Reason to Buy = Business Model -- better known as CwF+RtB=$$$. Since that time, I've spent plenty of time writing, speaking, consulting and thinking about this concept and have tried to outline it in as much detail as possible. Still, I can't even begin to say how many times I've had content creators -- be they musicians, filmmakers, authors, software developers, photographers, poets, painters, etc. -- reach out and ask what should they do to better connect with fans? What should they do to come up with better reasons to buy? I've tried to help them whenever possible to the extent that I can, but each situation is unique. Nothing in CwF+RtB was supposed to about "here's the exact path to success." It was a set of principles, and each person/organization could apply it appropriately to their circumstance.

In thinking about this, we realized that what's really missing out there is a true community to help people figure this stuff out. There's really no great place for a content creator to ask people how can they better connect with a fan base. There's really no great place out there for an artist to compare different store hosting platforms to see which ones might serve their needs better. There's really no great place out there for someone to figure out just how should they set up this business model/online store/crowdfunding campaign. And there's no great place for fans to reach out and help the creators they love as well with these same sorts of questions.

So we built one.

There's a famous internet meme out there that began with a South Park episode many years ago, which has become known as the "Profit!" meme, which goes something like this:

Step 1: Do something
Step 2: ??????
Step 3: Profit!

At times, I know that's how many content creators feel about the range of opportunities that the digital age presents them. So, our Step2 platform is hopefully designed to help creators make those question marks in their own "Step 2" a bit more clear and useful.

So how can Step2 be used? Well, that's partly up to the community to decide! But here are some suggestions:

Content Creators:

Ask the community how to better succeed -- whether it's to better connect with fans or to come up with unique and compelling business model ideas.
Discuss challenges or choices you're facing and get feedback. What platforms make sense? Should you focus on touring or build a local fan base? Should you self-publish or try to get a publishing deal? Can you really crowdfund this movie? etc.
Share your experiences as a case study. To get feedback and to help others learn from and be inspired by your experiences. In a little while we'll be posting about a contest we're launching in conjunction with the Step2 launch, where we're offering up a total of $10,000 to people for sharing their case studies. For a few great examples of case studies, check out:
1. Amanda Palmer discussing her recent experiences with Kickstarter in funding a new project in conjunction with her husband, Neil Gaiman.
2. Or, check out Andy Richards of the indie band Uniform Motion (whom we've written about a few times), discussing how his transparency about their revenue may have given fans additional reasons to buy, complete with detailed stats about how his transparency resulted in traffic and sales.
3. Or you can jump over to Zoe Keating's discussion over the question of whether or not doing art for purely strategic reasons is evil... while she also shares a bit of the secret of her success.

Fans:

Share your own case studies as a fan. Show artists how it feels to have an artist treat you well, and highlight cool examples of artists that have connected with you. Inspire more artists.
Want to help out your favorite artist? Start a discussion about cool things they're already doing and encourage more people to check them out.
See someone you like who you think could do better? Make some suggestions about ways they could do even better.
See someone you like doing something you don't like? Maybe present some alternative ideas

Everyone:

This is a community project. Even if you don't know some of those participating, you'll be amazed at how gratifying it is to try to help people succeed with their work. While I haven't had time to help as many content creators as I would have liked, every time I'm able to spend some time helping artists, it's always been a very rewarding experience.
Help people recognize that there's a world of opportunity out there, and there are all sorts of great ways to embrace it and to succeed. Talking to folks who succeed today, you almost inevitably hear a variation on the theme that they saw someone else succeeding and were inspired to know that they could do that too.

To be clear: while we often talk about music, this is about all sorts of creators. Music, movies, videos, software, photographs, poetry, web pages, companies, blogs, magazines... whatever. Jump in and start discussing, sharing and spreading ideas.

Special Thanks!:

First off a special thanks to our awesome sponsors for this project, from whom you'll be hearing more as Step2 moves forward. TopSpin provides an amazing platform for content creators to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy. Its platform is used by big name artists like Eminem, Lady Gaga, the Beastie Boys and Paul McCartney, as well as tons of up and coming artists. And it's not just for music. They're powering sites for the likes of filmmaker Kevin Smith and are working with authors as well. We'll be seeing more details and case studies from folks associated with TopSpin in the near future. Then we have the Future of Music Coalition, who has been doing all sorts of wonderful things helping musicians deal with a changing market. Their latest project (again, which you'll be hearing more about) is the massive artist revenue streams project, in which they're gathering data from tons of musicians to better understand all revenue streams for artists these days. SongKick is an amazing new platform that is really doing cool things for the touring industry, and has some amazing insight into that important revenue stream for musicians, which we'll try to delve into on Step2. And last, but certainly not least, is Bandzoogle, a website platform for content creators that makes it easy for creators to build extremely powerful (and profitable) websites. As we recently noted, artists using Bandzoogle are making a lot of money, and we're looking forward to finding out more about how they do that.

Also, a special thanks to the crew here at Floor64 for the hard work in putting all this together and iterating on the original idea and turning it into a reality. Finally (and perhaps most importantly) an extra special thanks for the community of folks out there who have bandied about many of the ideas about how to connect with fans, and how to build cooler, better business models that inspired us to put together this platform.

So go ahead, jump in, join some existing discussions, start some new discussions, and let's help create and document as many success stories as we can.

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Case Study: How Dave Matthews Band Has Embraced The Modern Music Industry In Extraordinarily Profitable Ways

Mike Masnick — Tue, 4 Jan 2011 14:58:34 PST

Over the last few weeks, we've noticed a few of our usual critics attacking the basic claims concerning successful music business models, because some of the bigger concert tours this past year ran into trouble, and because some of those tours seemed to realize they were charging too much. Of course, it's unfortunate when people misunderstand basic statistics and what data shows. First of all, we've never claimed that concerts were the only way to make money in the music business. There are lots of ways to offer scarce goods that have nothing to do with touring. Second, the fact that some big tours had trouble -- and misjudged the market is hardly a condemnation of touring as a money maker. It just means that some tours misjudged the market. This is hardly a surprise. For years, many tours had underpriced tickets, leading to a valuable aftermarket for scalpers. But over the past few years, major acts and venues have tried to capture more of that for themselves, leading them to push the market ever higher. There was obviously a limit as to how high those prices could go, and people have started to figure that out. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

But the key point to recognize is that just because some acts misjudged the market, that's not a condemnation of these other ways to make money. This claim reminds me of similar claims back in the early 1990s about the productivity of computers in the workplace. A few companies did massive implementations that were done poorly, and turned out to be way too costly. And with poor implementation and poor planning, the end result was that these new computer systems didn't increase productivity. Suddenly, there were claims and press coverage about how computers didn't lead to any productivity gain. The mistake was conflating a bad implementation with what would happen if you implemented stuff properly. No one here has said that "just touring" automatically is a successful strategy. That's because it's not true. Instead, a properly implemented multi-prong strategy, that fits with both what the musicians want and their fans want, can work quite well.

A perfect example of that may be the Dave Matthews Band. Slate recently did an article on the massive success of the band. A big part of that, not surprisingly, is a relentless touring schedule. However, as the article notes, DMB is making a lot more money touring than most people realize. It's consistently one of the top earning touring acts in North America, despite not being as "big" a name as the others on the list. In 2010, for example, DMB was the 3rd largest grossing tour in North America, after Bon Jovi and Roger Waters, and ahead of such names as Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga and The Black Eyed Peas. And they did this with significantly lower prices than most of the other acts in the top 10. While tickets to Lady Gaga concerts averaged $98 and Sir Paul's concerts went for a staggering $138.49, DMB's average ticket price was $57.38. And, as the article notes, they did this in a massively profitable way, unlike some concert tours which cost so much as to have them losing money. On top of that, the band uses the famed Grateful Dead model for keeping fans coming back for more: changing up their songs each time, and having fun going off on different jams, that make each concert unique.

But, of course, it's not just about touring. The band has done its own version of CwF+RtB, with over 80,000 fans paying $35 per year for its fan-club (and the 80,000 number is three years old, so I'd imagine the real numbers are now much higher). That's $2.8 million from the fan club alone. Similarly, the band appears to sell a ton of merchandise. The article notes that, back in 1998, the band would sell $200,000 in merchandise per day, while on tour. Obviously, that data is way out of date, but the band seems to have little trouble coming with good "reasons to buy" for its fans.

I have no doubt that the usual critics will mock this, claim it's an exception, or somehow complain that this is somehow "bad." But it seems clear that it's working great for the band itself, and they're quite happy with it. And, really, in the end, that's what these business models are about. Finding the right mix for bands to connect with fans in a meaningful way, while setting up the structure that allows those fans to support the band. DMB seems like a perfect example of a band doing this on a massively large scale.

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Preparing New Techdirt CwF+RtB Offerings, And Extending The Crystal Ball For Those Who Bought

Mike Masnick — Thu, 7 Oct 2010 14:57:00 PDT

We haven't talked much about our very own CwF+RtB offering in a while, but when it launched in the summer of 2009, one of the items was the Techdirt Crystal Ball, which gives you a peek into some posts on Techdirt before others have a chance to see them -- and it's become a popular feature for many. The deal was that it was a one year offering, after which we hoped people would renew. However, as we started to get close to that one-year deadline, we were working on some new ideas for new CwF+RtB offerings... and we didn't want people to feel compelled to re-up without us offering any additional "reason to buy." So we (quietly) extended anyone who bought a Techdirt Crystal Ball (which came with most other offerings as well) by a couple months.

Unfortunately, it's been a busy couple of months... and one of the reasons why we still haven't released the new offerings is that some of them actually involve some backend development on our part, which is ongoing. After realizing that we weren't going to have everything we wanted in place by now, we've actually extended everyone's 12-month Crystal Ball for an extra 12 months -- and we hope that when we're ready to release the new offerings, you'll find them worth buying as well.

In the meantime, as we're working on new offerings, I did want to see if anyone had other ideas of what they'd like to see as an offering. No promises, of course, but we're already planning to incorporate some user suggestions, and it would be great to hear about what others might find compelling.

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Guardian Tries CwF+RtB, While Experimenting With Hack Day Event

Mike Masnick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:25:35 PDT

With our upcoming Techdirt Saves* Journalism event to be held June 16th at Google's offices, we've been looking deeper and deeper into stories of newspapers doing interesting things. The Guardian, over in the UK, has been pretty adamant that a paywall is a bad, bad idea, and has, instead, been looking into some more innovative business models. In fact, it recently announced a premium membership program that sounds quite a bit like the whole CwF+RtB formula that we've talked about for quite some time -- and which (of course) we've experimented with ourselves for a while now. Back when the NY Times was exploring options, it also had considered a similar system, but chose to go with a straight paywall instead.

The Guardian's offering is that you pay £25 per year and you get a variety of scarcities outside of the content of the paper (which remains free). Those scarcities include things like newsroom visits and events involving journalists and editors (i.e., the scarcity of "access") and other offers as well -- such as tickets to various cultural events. Unlike the various paywall efforts out there, none of this is about locking up infinitely copyable content, but about using that content to make scarcities, like access, more valuable and giving people a real reason to buy. It'll be interesting to see how well it goes. I like the basic idea of it, though I think they could do some more to segment their audiences.

That's not all The Guardian is doing. At the same time it announced this Guardian Extra program, it also held a "hack day", where the Guardian asked various media partners to ask for certain tools or features, and folks would try to create them using the Guardian's open platform. The results (for a quick two day hack event) look pretty impressive. It's pretty cool to see these sorts of experiments going on in news organizations, rather than the typical "woe is us" complaining.

If you'd like to talk about these ideas and many others (as well as hopefully come up with some new ideas for what news organizations, both new and old, can do going forward), I hope you'll consider attending our Techdirt Saves* Journalism event. Sign up for here, if you haven't already: We look forward to seeing you there.

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Photographer Makes One-Third Of His Living Expenses Off Only 94 Fans

Dennis Yang — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:22:00 PDT

Jim Hein writes "a very well known Fine Art photographer is using the CwF+RtB model. He breaks things down into actual dollars and cents. He has figured out how many "True Fans" he needs to make a living."

Photographer Ctein's "Contributor Program" gives his fans the opportunity to collect his prints and allow him to focus on creating. He shared the latest results:

Make no mistake, I didn't get anywhere close to 1000 True Fans (didn't expect to), I got 94. But those Contributors provided me with approximately $15,500 gross revenues, $12,500 net. That's about one third of what I need to live on, not a life-altering level of support but certainly a life-enhancing one that provides me with considerably more time to work on my art -- the point of this.

Even though the tiers start at only $9.50 a month, his average sale was around $165 -- demonstrating that he has given his customers a real reason to buy. Additionally, Ctein recognizes that his subscribers are his most passionate fans, so he takes this as an opportunity to further solidify his connection to them:

Last winter I offered them about a dozen extra dye transfer prints from the first TOP print sale at an extraordinarily low price, and super-cheap copies of my photo restoration book before the new edition came out. They also got advance notice of this year's print sale.

Offering exclusives is one of the ten scarcities that we've discussed before, so it's great to see it in practice. The other lesson that Ctein learned from his experiment is that, yes, it does take work. He now has to devote about 3 days a month dealing with the administration of his subscriber program. That said, spending 3 days a month on something that provides 1/3 of your living expenses seems like a worthwhile investment. And this is only in the first few months of launching his program -- if he's able to improve the performance, he could do much better. So yes, it's exciting to see photographers embracing the CwF+RtB concepts and making them work.

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Modest Success Is Still Success For Indie Bands

Michael Ho — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:11:00 PDT

A few months ago, we wrote about the band Pomplamoose for its unique way of making a living by selling its music digitally. The musical duo playfully connected with fans, sold homemade soap, and even encouraged listeners to give goats to charity. More recently, the band has gained more attention and was accepted into YouTube's Musicians Wanted program where YouTube offers a 50/50 ad revenue split with independent artists who use Google's video platform. Pomplamoose fan Joseph Johnson also points us to an interview with the band in which they describe their creative process and talk a bit about how they manage without the backing of a major label:

Ms. DAWN: I mean, if you can't just do it all yourself, then you do need help. If, for example, you're somebody who writes songs, like Lady Gaga, and you need everything, you know, that's going to make you Lady Gaga, then you need a big, fat label. But if you're just a band, I don't think we're in an era anymore where you need that sort of major backing.

Pomplamoose admits that the band doesn't cash $10 million royalty checks for its music, but that its two singers make a modest living doing what they enjoy doing. They don't play in clubs too much and haven't gone on tour because it's a lot of work for them to set up live shows. Actually, given the way they record their music videos, they don't really know how to play their own songs in a "normal" linear way without editing and remixing. And interestingly, they seem to be making enough to pay for the mechanical rights for the songs they cover.

Mr. CONTE: ... we make sure that we have all our ducks in a row. We bought mechanical licenses to all of our covers before we put them on iTunes. So it's all legit and legal.

So despite criticism that says bands like OK Go have failed and can't make it without a label, the reality is that more bands are able to create more music -- and are getting paid in a variety of different ways. Selling plastic disks isn't the only way to make a living. Touring isn't the only way to make a living. Selling T-shirts isn't the only way to make a living. And Google ads certainly aren't going to save every struggling indie band, either. In fact, there is no silver bullet for how a band can support itself. Simply put, the barrier to become a famous band has dropped considerably, but that doesn't guarantee success -- however, it makes it a lot easier for a much broader array of musicians to try to become professionals doing what they enjoy.

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More Movies Trying Out Tiered CwF+RtB Support Models

Mike Masnick — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 15:43:00 PDT

We're getting so many examples of content creators making use of CwF+RtB business models lately, that it's difficult to figure out which ones are worth posting. Mostly, of course, we're still hearing about the music industry, where these sorts of models are becoming more common, but here are two interesting ones that are in the movie business, where such models haven't been as common. The first, pointed out by rosspruden is about a Spanish film called The Cosmonaut which has a few unique features surrounding it. Ross listed them out:

the filmmakers are releasing their work under a CC license to let others mix and reuse their film.
the film is fully funded from fan donations (so the film never needs to turn a profit)
profits are generated from sales of scarce goods
fans are allowed to invest in the project for real financial profit (not virtual profit), which isn't allowed according to SEC regulations (yet)

The fan funding element is definitely interesting -- though I'm still not convinced that investing for real financial profit really works that well in these situations. As we've seen with things like Sellaband's problems, those can have downsides as well. Money is one incentive, but certainly not the only one. And, with crowdfunding projects, it often seems like giving the crowdfunders financial (as opposed to non-financial) incentives can lead to problems. People get less into supporting the content creators and then start worrying about what they might get back out of it. This isn't to say it can't work, but it has pitfalls. Still, either way, it's definitely nice to see the Creative Commons license on the film, and the plan to let others not just watch it, but remix and reuse the film.

The second example comes from Ryan Estrada, who is involved in a project to create an animated romantic horror-comedy that is using a crowdfunding model as well, with the focus on being able to get "in the movie" in some manner.

This isn't entirely new. We've seen some other movies do the same -- and even just the idea of getting your name in the credits (the cheapest option) was something that filmmakers like Kevin Smith have done in the past (though, not for money). However, I think this actually works especially well in an animated movie. One of the (quite reasonable) concerns that filmmakers have expressed in hearing about fan funding movie projects that involve "get a part in the movie" is that this could seriously diminish the quality of the movie if the fans can't act. But with an animated film, the idea is that you send in an image, and then an animated "you" shows up in the film. That seems to work a lot better, and to build a real connection with the fans.

Again, I'm not saying either of these will be success stories, but they're two recent attempts at trying something new in filmmaking, and both seemed worth mentioning and discussing here.

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Prince Discovers That If You Charge People To Connect With You, You Actually Have To Connect

Mike Masnick — Fri, 2 Apr 2010 17:29:00 PDT

If you've never seen Kevin Smith's long, but quite funny, explanation of his week of making a documentary for Prince, it's quite worth watching -- just to get a sense of "Prince World" and the way Prince will have big ideas that he starts, but never does much to follow through on. With that as background, it's really not surprising to read about the absolute disaster that his recent "fan club" business model experiment became:

The result, LotusFlow3r.com, resembled a galactic aquarium, featuring doodads like a rotating orb that played videos. The promise: fans who ponied up $77 for a year-long membership would receive the three new albums, plus an ensuing flow of exclusive content, like unreleased tracks and archival videos.

A year later, LotusFlow3r has gone dark, thousands of Prince's fans are very annoyed and Clay has been dismissed from Prince's kingdom almost as abruptly as he was invited in.

The mess got a lot more attention lately when a supposed "glitch" (uh, ok...) started automatically charging fans credit cards for membership renewals, despite the fact that the site had gone dormant and people had specifically asked not to have their membership renewed.

There was a point, a few years back, where it looked like Prince would be the first rockstar to really embrace these sorts of new business models. He definitely was doing all kinds of experiments that involved getting people to pay for scarcities, often while giving the music away for free. And many of the experiments looked like they were done in a way to better connect with fans. But it quickly became apparent that Prince was missing a big element in all of this, in that while he wanted to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy, he also wanted to be massively controlling about it.

The one thing that artists who are successfully embracing these models are discovering is that, in part, you have to go with the flow, and see where your fans take you. Part of the connecting is listening to the fans, rather than just telling them how they must enjoy your works. Prince has never been particularly good at that aspect of the fan relationship. We've talked about the value of improvisational business modeling, where you do regular experiments -- and Prince certainly does that, but at no point does he seem to pay attention to how the fans react to the improvisations.

In the end, he seems entirely focused on his own whims, and while that may be entertaining for himself, it appears to be pissing off an awful lot of fans. If you're Prince, and you've got fans to spare, perhaps that's fine. But it's hardly a model worth emulating.

But there's a bigger point here as well. If you're trying to use a CwF+RtB-style business model, you have to actually connect with fans in some manner. You can't just leave them high and dry. Is that difficult? Sure. Does it take work? Absolutely. But isn't that part of the point? The value that's built up from genuine connections is what makes these business models work. Taking people's money and then leaving them feeling empty handed may be the way the recording industry used to work, but it's not the path forward.

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The Christian Science Monitor's Bold (And Successful) Experiments

Marcus Carab — Fri, 2 Apr 2010 16:03:00 PDT

Reader cram points us to a paidContent post by John Yemma, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, in which he makes a lot of great points about digital strategies for news publishing.

A year ago, we ceased publishing the daily, 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor newspaper and launched a weekly magazine to complement our website, on which we doubled down by reorienting our newsroom to be web-first. Our web traffic climbed from 6 million page views last April to 13 million in February. Our print circulation rose from 43,000 to 77,000 in the same period.

This is the sort of bold move that might be the last hope for some struggling publications, and it's also an example of CwF+RtB. Magazines still hold value to readers as an attractive physical item in a way that newspapers don't—by connecting with fans online and then giving them a better reason to buy the print product, CSM increased the readership of both.

Those who defend newspapers out of nostalgia often cite the relaxing Sunday newspaper as a reason the medium should survive, but what they fail to realize is that there's no reason that experience has to die along with the cheap daily rag. If there is genuine demand for it, publishers will supply it, and smart publications will shift their focus to improve that aspect of their product, just like CSM did.

Yemma also warns against putting too much stock in "digital razzle dazzle": multimedia for multimedia's sake, deployed with little or no thought given to its purpose or effectiveness. The editorial and design aspects of print news have been evolving for decades; digital news must go back to first premises.

The multimedia debate needs a new question: How are we using technology to create a more relevant product? We're not going to "save" media by out-featuring each other. We can and will re-cement media by using the technology to deliver the experience consumers want most: intelligent, meaningful news that's accessible where they are in the moment.

Hopefully it isn't too blasphemous to say: amen to that!

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Jill Sobule Goes Into The Studio With CwF+RtB

Mike Masnick — Thu, 1 Apr 2010 14:33:00 PDT

Singer Jill Sobule was one of the more high profile musicians to successfully embrace a crowdfunded album using a tiered approach, successfully raising the money for her last album in less than two months. Sobule was kind enough to participate in our own CwF+RtB experience and even wrote up a nice guest post for us as well. In talking with both her and her manager, what came through was that the two of them really were working hard to understand this new world and how to thrive in it -- so I've been excited to see what they would come up with next. Of course, that's a bit misleading, because Jill's been constantly communicating and connecting with her fans via various social networking platforms, but now she's launching a small scale, but fun experiment in recording her next album: which is that she's selling a very limited number of tickets to spend time in the studio with her and John Doe (and apparently some surprise backing musicians).

What's cool is that the different ticket offerings are well targeted for different types of fans. There's an all day pass for musicians who want to experience the entire process of making a professional album. There's a "creative patron" level that skips the morning setup, but picks up with the afternoon session, and finally there's a "music lovers" level that focuses on just the actual recording part. The goal of the offering by itself isn't to get rich, but to add some cool, valuable, scarce reasons to buy that also serve to better connect with fans. It seems like a cool experiment, and I'll be excited to see how it turns out.

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Roger Ebert Gives People A Reason To Buy

Mike Masnick — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:45:00 PST

Last month, we wrote about Esquire's incredibly moving profile of Roger Ebert as part of our discussion of a segment of that article concerning Disney taking down the video of the tribute show for Gene Siskel that Ebert did right after his longtime sparring partner passed away. If you liked the Esquire piece, you should also check out Will Leitch's touching personal story about Roger Ebert, which shows how incredibly nice Ebert had been to Leitch very early on in Leitch's career (and how Leitch screwed it up in a regretfully rebellious moment).

What comes through in both pieces is how utterly nice and decent Ebert seems to be. After the Leitch piece ran, Ebert tweeted to Leitch that "all is forgiven." For decades, tons of people have connected with Ebert through his old television show, and through his movie reviews, blogs and columns. More recently, he's been connecting in a big way via Twitter as well.

And now he's trying something different. He's giving his fans a reason to buy. While we often talk about the whole CwF+RtB business model in the context of replacing traditional models -- such as for music, books and movies, it can clearly work in other areas as well. Our own curiosity led us to try setting up our own CwF+RtB offering -- which was a fantastic success (and, yes, we know we need to replenish and offer more -- hold on, it's coming).

So we're always glad to see others jumping on the bandwagon and trying similar ideas as well. In Ebert's case, it's The Ebert Club, which is a yearly subscription that grants you additional access and benefits for a mere $5. A lot of what you get is available for free, but there are some good scarcities in there -- including private discussion threads and early access to special Ebertfest events including a special meet-and-greet with Ebert himself.

It sounds like they're looking to do more as well, so it will be interesting to see what comes of it. There aren't any tiers -- it's one price fits all -- though I could see room for a tiered offering down the road as well with additional benefits (private film screenings with just club members?). But what it's really showing is that this whole concept of connecting with fans and giving them a real (scarce) reason to buy goes beyond what you might expect -- and opens up all sorts of new possibilities elsewhere as well. And, considering that Leitch's "falling out" with Ebert was over Ebert being the king of "old media," this sort of venture seems very, very new media.

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