Well, since my last idea got some great feedback, I thought I'd post a new idea here as well. I figure that by exposing my ideas to a large group of geniuses (which is what this forum seems to be) can save me a lot of time down the road if I decide to pursue the idea.
First, a bit of an intro to the idea.
Okay, this one's a bit closer to my heart. I'm a musician, and I can't help laughing at the current state of the music industry. It's pretty pathetic. The large record labels seem to be clinging to their old ideas of marketing and selling albums, and it doesn't seem to be working too well. I think that the music industry still has tons of potential, though. People will always listen to music, and when you listen to music, you tend to base your life around the type of music you listen to.
I think that music should be free. Obviously, I'm not the only one, because millions and millions of songs are downloaded for free everyday (don't quote me on that statistic). So here's my proposition.
I want to make a platform like iTunes or Rhapsody, but make all the music completely free to download. I want to make sure that the download speed is fast, so that getting your music at this website is truly the most efficient way to download music. Instead of paying $1 per song or whatever, it's all free to the customer.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think that bands or their labels would be willing to allow their songs to be downloaded for free without some type of compensation. Here's where the ad network comes into play. Basically, you could download a song for free, but you would have to watch or interact with an advertisement in order to download the song/album. The advertisement might be in the form of a picture, but more effective ads would be video ads like on youtube, or interactive ads such as survey's, games, etc.
With the advertising, I strongly believe that you could target people MUCH better than with youtube. For youtube, I rarely see an ad that I care about in the slightest. With this type of service, though, the ad would be based on the genre of the music. For example, if you're downloading indie music, you would be shown an ad for Urban Outfitters. If you're downloading electro rap pop hits, you would be shown an ad for Nike or Hollister. On top of this, bands could work with advertisers to endorse a specific product, and have that ad played whenever someone would download that specific band's songs.
I don't have all the details figured out for the ad prices and such, but overall, the artist would end up getting the majority of revenue for the amount of times their album has been downloaded. Obviously, this portion of the idea needs to be fleshed out a LOT more.
I think the overall idea sounds great. However, digging a bit deeper reveals a few problems. First off, I would probably need to hire someone to design the website, and make sure the overall system works. I'm sure that wouldn't be cheap. Second off, I have no idea about the types of resources it would take to run this kind of site. Where would all the songs be stored?
I'm interested in hearing some outside opinions on this idea. It seems like a good idea to me right now, but there are probably some glaring flaws that are pretty apparent to someone looking from a different perspective. I appreciate it!
First, a bit of an intro to the idea.
Okay, this one's a bit closer to my heart. I'm a musician, and I can't help laughing at the current state of the music industry. It's pretty pathetic. The large record labels seem to be clinging to their old ideas of marketing and selling albums, and it doesn't seem to be working too well. I think that the music industry still has tons of potential, though. People will always listen to music, and when you listen to music, you tend to base your life around the type of music you listen to.
I think that music should be free. Obviously, I'm not the only one, because millions and millions of songs are downloaded for free everyday (don't quote me on that statistic). So here's my proposition.
I want to make a platform like iTunes or Rhapsody, but make all the music completely free to download. I want to make sure that the download speed is fast, so that getting your music at this website is truly the most efficient way to download music. Instead of paying $1 per song or whatever, it's all free to the customer.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think that bands or their labels would be willing to allow their songs to be downloaded for free without some type of compensation. Here's where the ad network comes into play. Basically, you could download a song for free, but you would have to watch or interact with an advertisement in order to download the song/album. The advertisement might be in the form of a picture, but more effective ads would be video ads like on youtube, or interactive ads such as survey's, games, etc.
With the advertising, I strongly believe that you could target people MUCH better than with youtube. For youtube, I rarely see an ad that I care about in the slightest. With this type of service, though, the ad would be based on the genre of the music. For example, if you're downloading indie music, you would be shown an ad for Urban Outfitters. If you're downloading electro rap pop hits, you would be shown an ad for Nike or Hollister. On top of this, bands could work with advertisers to endorse a specific product, and have that ad played whenever someone would download that specific band's songs.
I don't have all the details figured out for the ad prices and such, but overall, the artist would end up getting the majority of revenue for the amount of times their album has been downloaded. Obviously, this portion of the idea needs to be fleshed out a LOT more.
I think the overall idea sounds great. However, digging a bit deeper reveals a few problems. First off, I would probably need to hire someone to design the website, and make sure the overall system works. I'm sure that wouldn't be cheap. Second off, I have no idea about the types of resources it would take to run this kind of site. Where would all the songs be stored?
I'm interested in hearing some outside opinions on this idea. It seems like a good idea to me right now, but there are probably some glaring flaws that are pretty apparent to someone looking from a different perspective. I appreciate it!
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