Of Long Tails, Short Heads, and Turning Music into Money

Flash back to the turn of the millennium and the first draft of our business plan for Jamseed. Our idea was that the majority of musicians who would want to connect directly to their fans with a personalized birthday greeting, a valentine for a fan’s wife, or a really strange fortune cookie* would be either groups who hadn’t achieved massive fame and fortune or those who had, and still have massive fan bases, but no longer commanded the top 40–think Peter Tork.

*If you are brave, a resultant personalized video one of these fortunes
from a very odd comedian to his (possibly only) fan is here.

It wasn’t that we didn’t want to attract the main acts like Radiohead and Beyoncé **, but we thought that not only would it be hard to convince record companies of our novel idea, but that there’s an untapped market need to link fans with artists outside the mainstream. And, moreover, that where the tail went, the rest of the animal/market would follow.

**A gift basket of seasonal fruit for the person who can get this out of my head.

This graphic represents who we originally thought of as the market for Jamseed:

A = The super famous, i.e. Elvis, the Eagles, other bands that make the big bucks.

B = The “long tailers,” or the emerging artist, i.e. your local tip-jar jazz bar jockeys; the pass-the-hat crowd.

C = Mr. Tork, Rick Astley, etc.

You may notice this looks a lot like Chris Anderson’s famous “long tail.” This isn’t an accident. We listened when Mr. Anderson (whose last name always makes me think of Neo) said there is a business to be had on the Internet seeing to the needs of “B”. This is the group that has been underserved by the traditional record industry; yet they have enormous value and a fan base to be reached.

And if you believe in the long tail and concepts like “1,000 true fans” as proposed by Kevin Kelly, then the numbers also suggest this as a very valid business model for the Internet and its infinite shelf space.

Or do all of have it wrong? Recent research on music sales seems to indicate that we, and Mr. Anderson were quite possibly wrong, at least when it comes to the rock-n-roll biz. To wit, a presentation by Will Page called, “Long Tail Interrogated.”

He took a look at online music sales and found:

• 80% of the tracks [of the 13 million released in 2008] sold nothing at all.
• Approximately 80% of sales revenue came from around 3% of the active tracks…you’re looking at a 80/0.38% rule for all the inventory on the digital shelf.
• Only 40 tracks sold more than 100,000 copies, accounting for 8% of the business. Think about that — back in the physical world, forty tracks could be just 4 albums…

Will hasn’t released the source of all his data, so for comparison I can provide you with some homegrown research into my own 16,305 iTunes songs (all legally copied from my own CDs, of course).

***Of that top 381 songs, 43 are by the Beatles, 30 the Monkees and 12
by Neil Diamond. And no, I am not asked to DJ at many parties.

My personal music tastes seem to bear the data out, and the possibility that most music online doesn’t get listened to appears to be a stark rebuttal of both Chris Anderson and our business plan.

Or is it? Music has always been a hit-driven business. And our business model acknowledges that most musicians are having a tough time selling their music online. But are 80% unsold tracks any different than the bins of “remainder” CDs that once occupied the Broadway sidewalk where Tower Records used to be?

Does not being able sell music mean that those bin-bands don’t have fans who aren’t willing and interested in some level of personal memorabilia and connection with them? Absolutely not. Will that allow these musicians to quit their day jobs? That’s a different issue.

Nevertheless, those musicians have always been able to earn what they can through live performance. The Internet provides a way to give the equivalent of live shows for audiences of one — which is Jamseed’s true business model.

What fan wouldn’t relish getting a camera phone-recorded video of a band on the tour bus shouting out the fan’s name? Because it’s not the MP3 that has value, but the connection the fan has with the music and the musicians. And unlike the MP3, that personal video has value, is 100% useless for pirating, and will never end up on the remainder rack.

What it does mean for Jamseed is that we need to get some of those short-head acts (the opposite of the long tail) using the service. We need them to show other musicians that there is value in engaging your fans one-to-one. More of a head leading the tail, if you will.

And Beyoncé, if you’re reading this, we’d be happy to hear from you.****

****The second footnote just means I really like the
song…Really…It’s the dance,
just…can’t…stop…watching…it…hypnotized….

What do you think? Is the long tail a model that works for musicians online? Does MySpace really help artists who would never have been stocked at an brick-and-vinyl record store? Or does the limitless scope of the Internet cause new artists to be isolated without the helping hand of A&R reps? And what about your own personal music tastes? If you make a “smart playlist” on y our iTunes that only includes tracks that have never been played, what do see?

Community Relations

In 2003, Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) announced plans to build an advanced high-security laboratory to study virulent biological agents. Stakeholders expected the lab to conduct groundbreaking research leading to public health and counterterrorism advances that would combat weaponized versions of Ebola, tularemia, anthrax, and other lethal diseases. At first, the project was widely hailed as a boon to national security, to the region’s standing as a biotech leader, and to Boston’s economy.

And then suddenly the tide turned. Known officially as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, the facility was sited near BUMC at the junction of Boston’s residential South End and Roxbury neighborhoods. The more residents heard about the kinds of substances their new neighbor would handle, the less eager they were to have the building in their midst. How secure would it be? What if something got out? Wouldn’t the lab be a high-profile target for terrorists? If it was as safe as proponents claimed, why couldn’t it be built in an affluent suburb like Brookline, Newton, or Wellesley?

In no small part, online activism drove powerful community opposition. A single-issue website,stopthebiolab.org, quickly galvanized a community of staunch resistance. Established organizations devoted to the environment, public health, and social justice (the Conservation Law Foundation, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and Boston Mobilization, among others) used their websites to amplify the message. Lawsuits were filed, and in no time the lab went from slam dunk to slog. The facility’s opening has been delayed by a federal court order for further environmental safety studies. Research may never be permitted on the most dangerous substances the lab was built to study.

Businesses and other institutions have long practiced “community outreach” to nurture positive, cooperative relationships between themselves and the public. Before the internet, firms had far more time to methodically monitor and respond to community activity. With the rise of social media, that luxury has vanished, leaving a community-management vacuum in dire need of fresh skills, adaptive tactics, and a coherent strategy. In fact, in today’s hyperconnected world, a company’s community has few geographical barriers; it comprises all customers and interested parties, not just local neighbors. This article, based on our research examining social media engagement at more than two dozen firms, describes the changes wrought by social media platforms and shows how your company can make the most of this brave new world.

What’s Different About New Communities?

IT-enabled collaborative tools such as social networks, wikis, and blogs greatly increase a community’s speed of formation and magnify its impact and reach. New communities come together and disperse quickly and are often led by different people at different moments. And mobile interfaces keep groups on the alert, ready to drum up information or break into action.

Communities vary widely in their purpose and membership—and in their tone, which can range from friendly and collaborative to ardently hostile. The importance of sorting out which is which—and then deciding whether and how to engage—makes the discipline of managing them a delicate and highly strategic internal capability.

Many of the social media communities we cite come from the health care industry, where participation is robust and influential. A report from Manhattan Research suggests that more than 60 million Americans are consumers of “health 2.0” resources. They read or contribute to blogs, wikis, social networks, and other peer-produced efforts, using Google as the de facto starting point. The lessons we extract here apply to online communities in other knowledge-driven fields, such as law (Divorce360 ), finance ( Wikinvest , Marketocracy ), publishing ( Wikipedia , the Huffington Post ), and R&D ( InnoCentive , IdeaStorm ).

With social media, we’ve moved beyond the era of stand-alone, static webpages. Today’s communities actively post and vet information. Users increasingly treat these venues as their firststop in gathering data and forming an opinion. A recent Pew study found that nearly 40% of Americans say they have doubted a medical professional’s opinion or diagnosis because it conflicted with information they’d found online. If users put that much faith in what they learn on the internet, what will they be willing to believe if members of a social media forum start trashing your organization? And are you prepared to handle it when it happens?

Paper Rose

Paper Rose

Paper Rose

Music Is The Best way To Remove Dust

music.................

I've found this song to be so true...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1p6Xbqrbx0

Music Speaks Alot