Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Is this when we start talking about the Long Tail?
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Can we not, and pretend we did?
Monetizing the culture is all about alternative revenue streams.
Merchandising is a popular example. Selling advertising space also works, but only if you have a sufficient fanbase to make that space valuable to advertisers. Premium content is another way of doing it -- there are a few bands I can think of who offer DVD's of all of their shows on their website. Attend a show, order the DVD as a souvenir.
Live performances are also part of the solution, but hardly new. The point is to use various revenue streams to support yourself, while treating the recordings themselves more as promotional items. If you can make money off of CD's that's great, but if you can achieve greater exposure by releasing the music freely and then leverage that exposure into alternate revenue streams, that's even better.
This is where we're headed. The market has indicated that it doesn't place the same value on recorded music it once did. Right now everybody's more or less playing catch up. There's been a few attempts so far, but nothing's really caught on yet.