The Swap

  We are living in a time when acquiring new music can often feel like operating under a police state.  Thanks, in part, to Napster, KaZaa, and the Gestapo techniques of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), what we do with the music we purchase can seem scrutinized to the point of feeling Orwellian.

  But over the last year or so, a multitude of websites that facilitate legal peer-to-peer swapping have begun to crop up.  Some charge a nominal fee for their service; others are free to the user, and are supported by unobtrusive advertising along the site’s unused fringe.  Again, the service is completely legal.  Just as GM cannot dictate what you do with your old car, the RIAA has no recourse against the trading of original CDs.

  There are several sites devoted to the bartering of used CDs, and new sites springing up almost daily.  I recently spent a couple days checking them out, and here’s what you need to know about some of the best:

  www.flipadisc.com:  Flipadisc is one of the newest sites devoted to CD-swapping.  Because it’s only a month old, the site is offering free registration and giving away free credits to newcomers, in order to get the ball rolling.  Flipadisc deals in CDs, DVDs, and video games, and operates on a “one-to-one” system.  This means that for each item you trade out, you receive one credit that can be redeemed for anything that any other user has made available.  CDs can be traded for DVDs, DVDs for video games, et cetera.  If another member requests something that you have listed, you just pack it up and send it directly to them.  All you pay is the postage to send it (usually under $3).  After it has been sent, you receive one credit that can be used on any item that other Flipadisc users have made available.  When it’s all said and done, you’ve traded a CD that you’re tired of for something you really want, and it’s only cost you the postage.

  www.titletrader.com:  Titletrader works exactly like Flipadisc, but also allows users to trade VHS tapes, books and magazines.  It’s basically a one-to-one system, though double-discs are worth 2 credits and box sets are worth one credit per disc.  Imagine trading an old issue of “Rolling Stone” for a CD by the Rolling Stones.  Titletrader can make that happen.

  www.lala.com:  Dealing exclusively in CDs, this is the granddaddy of them all.  Less than two months old, Lala already has over 100,000 members and offers more than 1.8 million CDs, with 30,000 more added daily.  Lala provides the postage-paid mailing envelopes, and charges your credit card $1.75 for every CD you ship—still cheaper than paying the postage yourself.  All you have to do is check the website for requests, drop them in the envelope and run them to the mailbox.  Then surf their enormous collection for the CD you’ve always wanted.  There is also a MySpace-esque networking interface, allowing members to create profile pages and post blogs.  An artist search for DMX brings up 8 CDs, 13 singles, 29 compilations, 24 “members who like DMX the most,” 8 similar CDs, and 20 similar artists.  It’s unbelievable.

  Whatever you’re into, there is sure to be a swapping site that’s tailor-made for your needs, you’ve just gotta explore.  Happy hunting!

-From Pulse
   July 13, 2006

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Hear it on MySpace

  Not long ago, I told you about Starbucks’ ongoing effort to revolutionize and revitalize the record industry.  Through exclusive retailing opportunities, they are cashing in on record sales while the rest of the industry struggles.

  Yet another frontrunner exists in the race to break new artists.  It is at once as high-tech and grassroots as you can find in this information age.  Of course, I’m talking about MySpace.com. 

  MySpace is the Internet’s fastest-growing social networking site.  It attracts more than 14 million different visitors per month, most of whom are teens and twentysomethings.  Becoming a MySpace member is free, and members can create their own homepages with pictures, message boards, blogs, and streaming audio and video.  They post their interests, and seek out friends from across the globe.  It’s easy to lose hours surfing its millions of members.

  Enter the musician.  With the capability MySpace provides to post music on members’ websites, musicians were among the first to begin taking advantage of the feature.  Artists want exposure, and with 14 million unique visitors per month, MySpace became portal number one.  Now the site hosts pages for over 350,000 bands and artists, including Ludacris, Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, REM, and Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins fame).  Corgan recently told Business Week Online, “Now that MySpace is here, bands don’t necessarily need a label to be heard.”  And that is certainly true.

  Enter the sometimes-savvy record label.  MySpace has become an incredibly popular tool for record execs trying to stay ahead of the curve.  Not only can they fish the fertile waters it provides for new acts to sign, their existing artists can create MySpace pages for added exposure.  Labels often post unreleased or rare tracks from top acts to preview or download.  And with rock and alternative radio stations flipping formats, MySpace is quickly displacing radio as the rock labels’ primary mode of exposure.

  Now enter the always-opportunistic media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.  Last Monday, July 18, Murdoch’s News Corp. announced that it had purchased Intermix Media, Inc., MySpace’s parent company, for $580 million.  (News Corp. owns 20^th Century Fox, all of the Fox cable networks, DirecTV, the New York Post, HarperCollins publishers, and the National Rugby League, among many other things.)  Naturally, many religious MySpace users bristled at the acquisition.  What this will mean for the site remains to be seen, but initially there is no detectable change.

  MySpace president Tom Anderson posted a bulletin on the site on Friday, saying “Everyone seems scared that MySpace is going to change.  I’m not leaving, and I'm still making the decisions about the site, and I'm not going to let things suck.”  He goes on to dispel the rumors that have arisen about the future of MySpace.  “We are not going to become a pay site. We are not increasing advertising. We are not allowing anyone to monitor the site. We are not deleting any content or censoring people in any new way.  [And] we are not exploiting anyone's data or violating anyone's privacy.”

  Next time you’re online, look for me on MySpace.  I’ll be checking in frequently—unless it starts to suck.

-From Pulse
   July 28, 2005

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Exclusively at Starbucks

  Okay, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the record industry is struggling.  For a variety of reasons, it’s becoming more and more difficult to sell full-length CD’s.  There’s the legal and illegal downloading of singles and a reluctance in consumers to buy entire albums.  There’s technology that allows the copying of CD’s, but no technology that effectively prevents it.  There’s the ever-growing iPod craze.  And there are compilation CD’s, like “NOW That’s What I Call Music,” that toss all of the year’s hits onto one CD.

  In essence, album sales are slumping because avenues of acquiring music are broadening.  Online sales are soaring, but there is also a mortar-and-brick outlet that has stumbled upon a novel marketing campaign—one that could change the way you are exposed to new music.  That’s right—Starbucks.

  There is no brand, no corporation, that is more lifestyle-oriented than Starbucks.  Starbucks is at once an indicator of status, income, relaxation, and taste.  To the Starbucks consumer, the name evokes a quality of life, of discerning taste, of environmental issues.  It’s more than a fixture in their daily routines, it’s an addiction.  It is the perfectly branded enterprise. 

  On the other hand, it is also stigmatized.  Critics might think of Starbucks as snobby, elitist, and overpriced.  To outsiders, it’s a true icon of Corporate America that panders to middle-class yuppies.  But inherent in that ideology is the admission that Starbucks reaches that demographic in a way that few, if any, retailers can.

  The Starbucks experience is, in many ways, as much about the atmosphere as it is the coffee.  In a complicated and multifaceted marketing campaign called Starbucks Hear Music, they have begun peddling the music they play—music that defines the Starbucks lifestyle.  This means that they have to be incredibly selective.  Stocking an album is an endorsement, and in this approach they have become the editorial voice for their consumers.  They expose the consumer to new music, and often provide the exclusive opportunity to purchase it.

  And they have met with great success.  They carried Ray Charles’ “Genius Loves Company,” and sold nearly 600,000 of the 3 million sold worldwide.  They have the exclusive rights to Alanis Morissette’s acoustic re-release of “Jagged Little Pill,” which sold 60,000 copies in its first week.  It hit Starbucks locations June 13, but an exclusive six week window was negotiated, and won’t be distributed to other national retailers until July 25. 

  Starbucks’ selectiveness has become newsworthy.  Their choice to stock a title grabs headlines.  Their decision not to grabs more.  They recently decided against carrying Bruce Springsteen’s “Devils And Dust,” in part because of explicit lyrics in the song “Reno,” which describes an experience with a prostitute.  Yet Wal-Mart, the last bastion of morality, carried the album (and boasted the exclusive rights to the DualDisc version).

  In addition to selling CD’s, Starbucks also has it’s own channel on XM satellite radio, which it uses to expose consumers to their product.  They are single-handedly breaking the all-girl group Antigone Rising.  And Hear Music media bars are beginning to spring up, where you can burn your own custom CD’s while sipping Frappuccinos.

  To find out other ways Starbucks is revolutionizing the music industry, log on to www.starbucks.com.   

-From Pulse
   July 7, 2005

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