The future of musical marketing (1)

From the band point of view – With a little optimistic attitude

Music is no more sold on CD but only on the internet as data stream.
The majors don’t exist no more. Like any business company that build and sells its own products, or like a professional office, the band sells its own productions with the help of some artistic advisors and/or a management agency.
In other words, the band works alone and control its own work, the music, putting money (and risk) in its own activity, exactly as any other economic entity.
And of course the band controls all the revenues, with which it must pay expenses, the advisors and also living. Just as any other economic entity.
The music has no protection system. By now everybody knows that it’s impossible to control the copy without controlling and blocking all the net and the copy itself is not a loss so big. Now the people pay a little P2P tax as part of the internet access cost and the decreasing of music price, without support, printing, distribution and several robberies, can cover the copies loss. The price of ten songs could be € 4 but it’s € 8 to 10 just to cover the copies loss.
The beginning of a band career is as usual. The difference is that the band runs its business alone.
They begin play around, record some music at home or in a little studio with a little expense and sell it on his site or on the site of a music distribution service that charges a little. Until now the band only needs a chartered accountant.
Of course the people can download some song from the band’s site to hear and give it to friends. So, if the music is good, their name spreads and some music critics begin to hear it. And then a music critic who leads a blog with 10.000 visit per day comes to their site. Not a major with a letter of intent, a so called “deal memo” to which the band remains bound while the major choose between this band or another. Not a major because there is nothing to gain when it’s the artist that control itself and his/her music.
So a music critic hear the band. And this critic is not a pretentious bastard who works for a big music magazine. He is a person who holds a blog and has build his reputation online with years of smart posting. He is a free-lance and has no boss. He knows that many people trust him and this trust is the foundation of his success, is the reason why the radios ask him for programs and the magazines ask him for articles. But he has no boss.
He knows that discovering new interesting bands is the reason of his success and the TVs introduce him as the one who discovered Heterophobia and Gregg Turner and the Blood Drained Cows.
So he don’t ask the band for $ 10.000 to write a good review. He simply listen to their music and write some line to the band and go to their concert and then put a post on his blog and their site many more people come.
And then, if the things runs well, the band maybe turn to a music advisor or to an image advisor to improve the music or the live act, but it’s always the band who controls its music.
And then, if the things runs very well, the band search for a business management service to help handle tours, merchandise and maybe lawyer because the singer told they are more popular than Jesus they get banned by Bush administration.
And at least the band realizes that they became really popular and they can make their own business management service and kick out the advisors and the lawyers and all this parasites.
Agh! What a hard work lead his business alone…

A dream?

Composers and geographers

Alexander Island

Seems to be a place where geographers finally remember composers. In the Alexander Island (71°00′S 70°00′W, part of Antarctica) you can find the Shostakovich, Beethoven and Monteverdi Peninsulas, the Mendelssohn Inlet, the Brahms Inlet and the Verdi Inlet. The Bach Ice Shelf, Rossini Point and Berlioz Point are a bit away.
Many other sites in this island have composers names.
Click here to see a bigger map

Weekday Morning Time

Oggi è uscito questo dai Fortune di Unix. Concordo pienamente.

What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style “hold” for two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.
— Dave Barry, “$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!”

Sei un zombie?

Guardando l’ennesimo tentativo di attacco virale via mail (si spera fermato dall’antivirus) o diretto a una porta del computer (e bloccato dal firewall), oppure trovandosi con la macchina bloccata e impestata fino ai capelli, molti di voi si saranno chiesti “ma perché? chi ci guadagna in tutto questo giro di virus?”
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La scienza che risolve i problemi

Update 14/11/2007
La pagina è stata rimossa

Ecco come la Halliburton risolve da par suo i problemi del Global Warming.

Da vedere soprattutto le foto.

BE PARANOID!

Qualche giorno dopo l’arresto di Provenzano, durante una intervista TV con uno degli inquirenti (di cui purtroppo non ricordo il nome), ho sentito una dichiarazione che mi ha colpito.
In sintesi, quel funzionario, per dare l’idea della complessità dell’indagine, a un certo punto ha detto: «Vi rendete conto di quanto sia difficile individuare qualcuno che come massima tecnologia usa una macchina da scrivere?».
Traduzione (mia): è difficilissimo beccare qualcuno che non usa telefono, cellulare, internet, email, carta di credito, bancomat, tessera sanitaria, raccolte punti, certimat, schede TV, TV via cavo, telegrammi, etc, tutte tecnologie che seminano tracce.
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