Magnatune "Big Ideas"

I've compiled a list of the "big ideas" that I'm strongly considering adding to Magnatune.  They're "big ideas" because they each have the potential to make a significant contribution to Magnatune's growth, rather than smaller ideas which could cause incremental growth.

I'd *love* feedback on the things on this list, as well as what people think my priority list should look like  The first two are almost done -- the "collections" feature is up as of tonight, you can see it at http://magnatune.com/collections/ as well as in many albums. I have more data entry to do over the next few days, to get the collections to be truly useful, but I think it's there enough to see that it's a nice feature.

So here is the "big ideas" list...

- add "collections" to show similar albums, such as "this album is part of the __Eastern-influenced Techno collection__" (this is in beta on the site currently)

- "we are not evil" biz-card sized recruitment cards, included with every CD purchase, and also sent via postal mail to anyone who wants them. Keep them in your wallet, give them to people who would like Magnatune. (these have been made, and are arriving from the printer this week, see http://blogs.magnatune.com/buckman/2005/08/recruiting_card.html

- 5 free copies for friends when you buy - change the policy that when you buy an album at Magnatune, you are legally allowed to share that album with 5 people.  You can rip the CD if you like, or pass the downoad instructions along. However, to make it easy, we'll change the buying form so you can name 5 email addresses of friends who should receive download instructions to this album.  People might also want to buy albums just to introduce their friends to Magnatune music.

- wiki - web site section on Magnatune where fans can post their own favorites, comments, participate in "street teams", meetings and more, and artists can upload concert info, photos, lyrics &c.  Also, if there are related projects, the wiki is a convenient place for those people to organize themselves.  I'm looking at Tiki Wiki.

- fan-submitted podcasts - people make their own podcasts which have no other music by Magnatune (but talking is OK).  We host them, and promote the best of them to our audience.

- lyris email list for each artist - a discussion and announcement list for each artist on Magnatune, so people can discuss the music (and the artist can join in if they want) as well as an announcement list for each artist, so the artist can let people know about new music, concerts, photos, remix contests, etc...

- artist-authored note sent along with an email to purchasers of an album, so that the artist can pass along whatever information they want to each buyer of the music (ie, such as their web site address, contact info, whatever...)

- when a new release comes out, send a "we recommend" email to people who have bought a similar-sounding album by another artist (only if the buyer opted into getting email, of course)

- shopping cart - so people can buy several albums at once

- bulk buying (ie distributorships) - add a "buy in bulk" option when buying, where any one who wants to sell Magnatune CDs can buy them at the super-low price of $6 each (the normal wholesale price of CDs from a distributor is $9). In theory, cafes, art galleries, clothing stores, etc might be interested in selling our CDs.  Anyone who wanted to buy 50 copies of a CD would be allowed to do so (no need to limit it to just companies). The downside is the need to print 1000 CDs of any title that is ordered, which initially costs about $2000 (all costs inclusive) as well as paying for warehousing and fulfilment services for the unsold CDs.

- gift certificates - buy a credit for a certain number of albums - you pick the price you want to pay for the albums, and the gift certificate would be a number of albums, not a dollar amount.

- local meeting groups - the "Cult of Magnatune" meets to have a drink and gossip about how evil the music industry is.  These wouldn't be a heavy sales pitch, just a friendly get-together of people who are into the ideals Magnatune stands for.  Ideally, when there are events we need some volunteers for (such as handing out Magnatune literature at the door to MacWorld)  this could be a way to get people involved.

- much more descriptive newsletter - when new releases come out, say a lot more about each release, something which other specialty online record stores do well (or, for example, Powells Books does well)

- offer pay radio stations - people have saiid they would pay to listen to our radio stations if they were commercial free. Am thinking of offering all our stations w/o commercials at $10/month.

- when buying a CD/download, offer to sell other albums by the same artists, or other "also bought", at a reduced price

- street teams - many labels help their band's fans promote the bands in their area. In the industry, this is called "street teams". For an example, check out Cell Dweller's street team page: http://celldweller.com/2005/streetteam.html - in theory, regional heads of the street teams could be set up, and the Magnatune wiki and discussion lists could be used to organize things.

- quantity buying discount: allow people to buy a 50 or 100 pack of downloadable albums, purchased all at once, discounted steeply (ie, $50 for 30 albums, $70 for 50 album, $100 for 100 albums, maybe $150 for everything on Magnatune).  This could be run in two ways: a permanent buying credit, where you can download any albums you want, taking as long as you want to choose the albums, or it could be a "all 40 albums in the rock section for $50".  The business rationale is that people rarely spend that much money at Magnatune. The incentive for the buyer is that the per-album price goes way down, cheap enough that it makes sense to fill an iPod with Magnatune music.

- discount as you go: 30% discount on another CD if you buy another one today (increasing discount per CD during that day). When you buy one CD, the system offers you a 30% discount if you buy another CD today.  Perhaps, the discounts increase as you buy more in one day.  But, this may backfire and people may choose not to buy when they want an album, instead saving up several purchases to get the discount.

Comments

[Guillaume Lederrey]

I think at least some of those ideas are pretty cool ! I really like the podcast idea ... but I wait to see if there is actually good content to it. One of the great thing with magnatune is the quality of the artists, I hope the podcasters will be of the same level !
I also think paying for radio is a great idea, but I'm not sure I'd be ready to pay 10$/month ... I'll have to think about it. And as will be in Rwanda with no good internet connection for the next year, my thinking will wait ...
One more idea : I'd really like to have the lyrics for the songs I buy. Even just as a text file bundled with the download ...
Thanks for the great job you are doing !

[Nick Craig-Wood]

My 3 favourite ideas in the above :-

Collections: This is good - anything which helps people find the music that they want. Personally I tend to look for things that are related to music that I know I like and this helps, along with other people bought this.

Shopping cart: yes please. Not having one puts a barrier to people buying lots of stuff which is surely a bad idea.

Quantity buying discount: great idea - yes please. I like the idea of putting $100 in the Magnatune bank to spend when I like. Good for Magnatune's cash flow too! Not so keen on a bulk pack of all albums in a section though that might appeal to others.

[John Buckman]

Guillaume wrote:
"One more idea : I'd really like to have the lyrics for the songs I buy. Even just as a text file bundled with the download ..."

Whenever I can get the lyrics from a band, I do this. The Lyrics show up as part of the PDF artwork you can download when you buy. For example, Asteria has given me their lyrics, and the first few pages of the artwork PDF is the CD booklet art, but then it continues with lyrics and music. The new Burnshee Thornside (coming shortly) also has all the lyrics in the PDF. It's just hard to get them from the musicians. :D

[Nick Busigin]

Collections:  Great idea! May I suggest adding a category: Vocal Music (featuring songs or CDs with exceptional vocals of all genres).

biz-card sized recruitment cards:  I really like this idea.  Maybe it would be worthwhile providing a downloadable form of the business card as well?

5 free copies for friends when you buy  If my memory serves me, there is currently no restriction on copying the CD for a friend (or for yourself)if you've bought it, or am I wrong? It strikes me that this strategy would encourage people to use Magnatune, especially if people had to download their copies and in the process become familiar with how Magnatune works.  I can see this potentially encouraging groups of friends pooling their purchases so they get the most bang for their bucks.  Interesting way to spread the word.

wiki - web site section on Magnatune:  This may turn out to be an interesting addition, although I'm not sure about the "street team" thing.  Just the term itself conjures up associations with major labels and all the baggage that goes along with that.

fan-submitted podcasts:  (with only Magnatune artists/music) - this could work.  Would you be screening these for quality, etc.?

lyris email list for each artist:Would you have a way of protecting these lists from spammers?

artist-authored note sent along with an email to purchasers of an album:  Great idea and probably not too much work to implement.  (Hey, nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself!:)

"we recommend" email to people who have bought a similar-sounding album:  Another good idea!

bulk buying (ie distributorships):  This may be a very good idea for selling physical CDs through small record stores.  I have a friend who has a small and very eclectic CD store. He immediately expressed an interest in selling CDs by Magnatune artists in his store after I played him some cuts from a number of CDs on the Magnatune web site.  One thing to keep in mind though... he picks CDs for his store mainly by the quality of the music, but he also pays attention to whether the CD is attractive as "eye candy" on his display shelves.

Well, that's probably enough comments for now. :-)

Nick

[Nathan Jones]

I'm impressed by your list. I'm particularly impressed by the way you embrace the idea that giving away stuff can help grow your market. The example in this list is the five free copies for friends idea. Lots of people share music already, but Magnatune's not-evil approach makes some of us want to do the right thing. Telling as that a limited amount of sharing is acceptable is a great idea, and much more realistic than the ineffective copy controls employed by larger companies.

I love the idea of gift certificates for albums, not dollars.

My other favourites on this list are the ones that encourage a relationship between artist and customer. The mailing lists and artist-authored notes are good. I'd also like to see a system where artists could update their own pages - the main pages, not separate wiki pages. This would help avoid them getting static (at the moment, I don't feel inclined to come back t visit). They could then link to a separate wiki or CMS based subsite where fans can get involved. The subsite could host lyrics, discussions amongst fans, extra news, whatever...

Nick Busigin wrote:
"If my memory serves me, there is currently no restriction on copying the CD for a friend (or for yourself)if you've bought it, or am I wrong?"

There's a difference between technological copy controls and what you're allowed to copy. Magnatune doesn't do anything to prevent a copy from being made, but it's still technically a copyright infringement to copy albums for your friends. This five-copies idea is a nice way to say "we want to sell music, but we're happy for you to introduce your friends by sharing with them".

[Nick Busigin]

Nathan wrote:
"There's a difference between technological copy controls and what you're allowed to copy. Magnatune doesn't do anything to prevent a copy from being made, but it's still technically a copyright infringement to copy albums for your friends. This five-copies idea is a nice way to say "we want to sell music, but we're happy for you to introduce your friends by sharing with them".

Nathan, I wasn't suggesting that people go ahead and make copies without paying for them. I understand that the purpose of the copying is soley to introduce people to Magnatune and its artists (in an attempt to encourage them to buy and support the artists and Magnatune).

What I was pointing out is that the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License that Magnatunes uses for its artists already allows this sharing, with no limits as long as it is not for commercial gain - if I understand the license terms correctly. John's 5-copies idea appears to suggest that 5 is the number that John would like to see people limit their sharing-for-the-purpose-of-promotion to.

Have a look at: CC license fine print.

John, am I correct in this interpretation?

Nick

[Johan Nilsson]

I love when things grow, and ideas flow:
Top 5 ideas on my list (i.e, ideas that will work: Just do it! How can I help?):
1. artist-authored note sent along
2. 5 free copies for friends when you buy
3. much more descriptive newsletter
4. Quantity buying discount
5. Lyrics

/K. Burnshee

[John Buckman]

What I was pointing out is that the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License that Magnatunes uses for its artists already allows this sharing, with no limits as long as it is not for commercial gain. John, am I correct in this interpretation?

The CC license applies only to the MP3s, and not to the purchased copies. Otherwise, people could legally take the final CDs they bought and put them on a p2p network, which isn't really my intention. So no, you can't (legally) give the purchased music to the world, and the "5 free copies" idea is a modification to the traditional "home use" license that governs almost all media one can buy.

[Nick Busigin]

John B. wrote: The CC license applies only to the MP3s, and not to the purchased copies.

I misunderstood what the CC applied to. However, in reading the Magnatune Online Distribution Agreement, I only found two references to the use of the CC license:

Section 2.1.f where it states:

Artist has reviewed the Creative Commons License and hereby confirms that Artist’s Work may be licensed by and through the Creative Commons License.

and

Section 3.1.b where it states:

Artist agrees that its Work shall be released or distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License.

Restricting it to the MP3 files makes perfect sense, but where is this made clear on the web site or in the on-line distribution agreement?

Nick

[John Buckman]

"Restricting it to the MP3 files makes perfect sense, but where is this made clear on the web site or in the on-line distribution agreement?"

It's not made clear in the distribution agreement with the musician, because with the musician, I want to ability to release all their music under the CC someday in the future, if that makes business sense. The musician gives me the ability to do that. But, on the web site, in a few different places, I indicate that the mp3s are CC licensed. For example, click on license/cc next to any album, and the CC terms are spelled out.

[Nathan Jones]

Hi John,

Another comment/suggestion. The new collections feature is causing me to explore Magnatune's music more. What would be handy is some sort of Save For Later function.

Often, the first time I listen to an album, I'm not sure whether I want to buy it or not. If I like an album (but not to the extent of buying on impulse), I'll either bookmark it or simply try to remember the name. The result? Either way, I then tend to forget about the albums I'd like to revisit.

If you had an option (cookie based, login based, or a choice of both) to save or bookmark an artist, our subsequent visits to Magnatune would be richer as we see a list of things we're already interested in. Could be called "Wish List" (common on sites like Amazon), "Save for Later" (seen on eMusic), Bookmarks, Favourites, etc.

[Harry]

Hi John,
I 'd vote for anything that encourages fans participation and communities with fans and artists. So:
wiki site
podcasts
discussions with fans and artists on news, lyrics, developments.

Keep up the good work!

[tyler smith]

you have a very talented and skilled writting. i had a great time reading your comments. all the artist knew one another: http://www.wnyprogressreport.wnymedia.net/?p=2 , there was once this guy

[TC]

I have several podcasts but there is no track information. I would love this as there is a piano based song on the 2007-07-09 Jazz podcat dowloaded from iTunes that I really like. I would buy more of the artist's music but I do not know the name.