A Viable New Way of Looking at the Music Industry
Posted by: Craig in Brilliant Idea!, Internet, tags: music industrySellaband may be onto something. They might just have found a new and viable alternative to the antiquated music industry. In a nutshell their idea is to marry social financing with independent bands looking to make it big. And the idea may just work.
Social financing is a derivative of social networking - commonly considered one of the foundations to what is known as Web 2.0. The idea is to bring investors and those looking for investors together in one place. Investors have a wide range of possible investments to consider while those looking for investors try to sell their ideas. Once an investor has found an idea, product or even a person they feel is worth an investment they make an offer that includes repayment terms. The recipient considers all the offers on the table and accepts the offers he or she feels they can manage in terms of interest rate, length of the loan and any other included terms.
Sellaband has taken this concept and focused it on the music industry. Artists and bands have the opportunity to sign up for the service and promote themselves to a vast and increasing audience. Fans - known as Believers on Sellaband - can find and listen to artists based on genre, country of origin or even when they signed up for Sellaband. If a believer finds a artist or band they believe in they have the opportunity to invest in their product - minimum investment is $10. The artist’s goal is to find enough believers that they amass $50,000 (5,000 believers @ $10 each; 2,500 @ $20; 1,000 @ $50…you get the idea). Once that goal is attained Sellaband gets the artist into the studio to produce an CD working with what I would consider middle to top tier producers and recording studios. They are also connected with a A&R executive to help them along the way.
The real beauty of this is that Believers and Artists share in all the profits generated by ad revenue along with Sellaband once the CD has been produced. And overall share is determined by unique visitors that download an artists music. The more downloads, the higher the market share for the artist (and their believers). Sales of the CD are handled by the band and believers are supposed to share in the sale of those as well. The more the artist and believers promote the CD, the more revenue is generated. Pretty simple.
Right now Sellaband has 7231 registered artists and has helped 11 find the financial resources to record a CD thus far. Not huge numbers by any means, but it really comes down to a artist’s ability to self-promote. And in today’s overly connected world, that’s not difficult. I know of a few indy bands I’d shell out $10 to help go towards recording a CD - yeah, I know a CD can be recorded for much less than $50,000 and come out sounding fabulous. But there in lies the problem as well. Once you’ve recorded your new masterpiece and the studio down the street - what do you do with it? Sellaband is taking the process to the next level - A&R executive, top notch studios throughout the world and well known producers that have track records of success. To say your CD was produced by Boots Ottestad, Chris Kimsey or Hadyn Bendall means just a little more than your CD was self produced.
I don’t know if Sellaband will fly - it’s a good idea who’s time has surely come. If they are able to generate ad revenue to keep their site going, funding for artists will come if the artists utilize the promotional avenues available to them. And the more the artists promote, the more unique views Sellaband will get. For the sake of the music industry I hope Sellaband makes it.
Entries (RSS)