OK. All I did was create a blog at blogger.com and I'm pointing my URL to it. I got sick of running my own Wordpress install and messing with it. Here is my most recent post:
After one week, I’m pulling the plug on my free downloads. After column 66, where I extolled the virtues of my forward thinking 21st century marketing skills, it’s not easy to admit I was wrong… uh, actually, it’s REALLY easy to admit I was wrong. I have no problem making mistakes. And this column is about what I’ve learned, what I’m still learning, and what I want to learn. So with apologies to harmonycentral forums, where I’ve already discussed this, here’s the deal…
I’ve spent the last few days talking to as many people as possible about the idea of free 128k mp3 downloads. And the results of those conversations were interesting. It’s always better to ASK people than to guess. Some key points:
• Younger people do not have a problem with going to a web site and listening to music streamed. Older people like it less.
• Some people actually prefer streamed music to downloads. One reason is they can listen to it from any computer. This did not make sense to me. If you download the song, you can put it anywhere. Doesn’t have to make sense to me - it’s how some people felt.
• The majority of people 35 and older that I talked to (who weren’t musicians) had no real understanding of higher quality file formats and what that means. To them, they thought I had just decided to give my music away, period. Eek.
• A few people actually got annoyed with me because they bought my CD and were wondering why I didn’t tell them my music was free. Eek again.
• Streaming music caused repeat visits, which is a good thing because it means people are thinking about you and coming back.
My biggest mistake was making assumptions instead of doing research - even limited research of talking to actual real people. A whole lot of people, young and old, have no clue that a 128k crappy sounding mp3 file is actually that much crappier than a CD.
So it seems to me that streaming music is much more likely to cause an eventual sale than offering free downloads of low quality format. I’m off to redo my bandcamp settings. I just thought I’d share the results of this, so people can avoid this mistake, or at least laugh at how stupid I was to try it. There’s some comic value in that.
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