digital distribution?

[ken]

What do you all think of this?

http://lsmedia.biz/index.php

Ken

[deshead]

What do you all think of this?
http://lsmedia.biz/index.php

Heh, I think I'm glad he got his payment engine working: http://www.yourmusicforums.com/archive/ ... t-792.html



It's an interesting concept. He has essentially set up a niche bandwidth reselling business. Though I'm not sure if 40% is the right commission. Magnatune takes 50% and they also do marketing and promotion. CD Baby only takes 9%. And his bandwidth and storage charges seem a little arbitrary, but I guess he had to start somewhere.

For a lot of artists, this will be a Godsend. There's a level of tech savvy required to set up a micro payment system and manage the bandwidth. As as musician, though, I'm more inclined towards the CD Baby/MP3Tunes (or even SoundStation) model, because of the exposure.

He doesn't seem to have any clients yet. Did the site just launch?

[roymond]

I am playing around with osCommerce as well. It certainly has potential, and his customization is sweet. But, as has been noted, there's no content. So, if this has been launched, sucks to be him with no friends to offer their wares up for the launch party! It's little more than vaporware...and that's soooo 90s.

[brad]

60% seems like a crummy deal for what amounts to a bit of bandwidth, storage and order processing. Unless the site can actually drive some sales to you, I don't get why anyone would use it. Just sign up with CD Baby for $30 + barcode and you wind up in all the digital services and also have online orders taken care of.

http://www.payloadz.com is another digital media selling service. They seem to be into the monthly fees rather than transaction fees which seems unrealistic for small-time sellers.

[jb]

Figure out how to let us sell songs for a nickel, Roy. Without requiring some kind of faux bank account.

[roymond]

Figure out how to let us sell songs for a nickel, Roy. Without requiring some kind of faux bank account.

PayPal? I don't know. Is this in response to my comments above?

[jb]

Yeah, plus you're smart.

PayPal will never work. Cut's too big. I was thinking while walking to get some lunch today that what if we could aggregate credit card transactions somehow. Like, let people buy something for a nickel, but not go off to the credit card company until we had like, ten bucks worth of charges to transact.

Unfortunately, that would require a credit card company willing to take a cut out of a batch rather than out of every transaction.

Or what if they did take a cut of every transaction, but were able to charge us in fractions of a penny and not make us pay until it hit a round number or something?

Talkin' out my butt here, but you know. There was that article recently where some professor was like "we should charge a nickel for songs", so that got me thinking. I could probably eventually sell a dollar's worth of songs...

*shrug*

[roymond]

Micro payments are tough. Anything under a real lot, for that matter. Yeah, when someone takes a cut for seemingly no service, it's hardly a service. I think a nickle a song is a great idea. Like playing poker with pennies. To say you sold a dollar's worth would feel great! Songfight play money. Within a community it would work. And OSeCommerce could probably handle the accounts separately. I don't know if my butt's bigger than your's at this point.

[jack]

you'd have to have very large economies of scale or be extremely benevolent (which i know you are JB) to charge a nickel. but i'd pay a nickel for one of your songs.

[jack]

what would be cool would be to have some of those kiosk-like change machines you see in safeway set up in malls, that convert your spare change to song credits. have them set up to give downloadable music into those flash stick players. like brad's got now. insert your stick and your nickles and get yoor downloads. i mean, we're all dying to get rid of all those nickels laying around the house.

i'll bet the price per song will seriously decrease in the next couple years. and CDs are history.

[deshead]

I love the model AllOfMP3.com uses: you pay a chunk up front (say $10) and effectively make micro-payments (2 cents per megabyte) for each song you buy.

I'd buy a $5 Songfight credit to dole out a nickel at a time. I'd even go as high as 7.5 cents for one of jb's songs.

[jb]

yeah i guess that's my problem with the only scheme that seems to make sense-- i have to pay money up front to put into escrow for spending later. for some reason i have a distaste for that model-- for one thing i'd rather have my money in a bank until i spend it. half a cent interest is still half a cent. i don't wind wasting money (ahem) but i'd rather do it on purpose or out of laziness (hello citibank mortgage) than put money in a non-interest-accruing account hedged on a bet that i'm gonna find something i want to download on a site.

you just know that allofmp3.com has your and every other customer's $10-or-part-thereof in an account accruing interest that belongs to YOU. they'd be stupid not to. what's the interest on a million bucks for one day?

[ken]

That's an interesting idea. What if you got an interest payment on your credit, like one download a month for $5 or more credits. I mean an idea like this, you aren't going to bank hundreds of dollars waiting for an album you like to pop up. $5 in the bank is cheap for nickel downloads. You weren't going to earn all that much interest on it anyway.

Ken

[Hoblit]

I'm no expert on credit card vending but I do know that a lot of companies out there put up little signs that they won't run a credit card for less than a $10 purchase. Also, a lot of these same people want you to run your visa as a debit card if it is in fact a bank card. This tells me that their merchant account costs them a certain amount of money per transaction and type. We already know this I know...this has been established. My point is that maybe a nickle a song might not be as feesable because of this. HOWEVER, I'd suggest sometihng along the lines of a 100 song download for $5. You know, a build your own playlist way cheaper than anybody else is offering. You pay your $5...then you download your songs at your leisure.

Or single artists bundles blah blah blah.

The credits thing sounds too micro managed. I mean, five cents is five cents..it's clutter just as much on the internet as it is in your change basket at the house.

or just go the whole monthly thing like the big timers.

[jb]

The credits thing sounds too micro managed. I mean, five cents is five cents..it's clutter just as much on the internet as it is in your change basket at the house.

Not true! As my loose-change bucket, I had a jumbo-sized Planters Cheez Ball can filled 3/4 with dimes, nickels, and pennies.

Total = $127.34

That ain't chump change to me!

I dumped it all into the Coinstar machine at the grocery store. You can donate directly to the Red Cross (or several other charities) that way. <b>hint hint</b>

<h1>HINT</h1>

[jack]

Apple needs to buy Coinstar.

[fluffy]

Coinstar also takes out a 6% cut.

[jb]

Coinstar also takes out a 6% cut.

Not for charity donations. They pipe them straight through to the charity.

[HeuristicsInc]

speaking of digital distribution, i just found out my new cd is available on itunes. cool, eh.
-bill

[Hoblit]

The credits thing sounds too micro managed. I mean, five cents is five cents..it's clutter just as much on the internet as it is in your change basket at the house.

Not true! As my loose-change bucket, I had a jumbo-sized Planters Cheez Ball can filled 3/4 with dimes, nickels, and pennies.

Total = $127.34

That ain't chump change to me!

Yeah, I do similar things with my change...because it piles up and I don't use it. Right before christmas I counted up the quarter jar that was only 1/3 the way full. (restaurant sized pickle jar) I counted up $117.25.

Christmas was saved.

[fluffy]

Coinstar also takes out a 6% cut.

Not for charity donations. They pipe them straight through to the charity.

Of course, they probably get a pretty good tax break on those.

I was just drawing a parallel between them and CDBaby though. :D