instructions on how to fall faster from the top

Ok, take a business plan that has worked for years and break it apart slightly to give Users a sense of independence. There, that is the full business plan for iTunes. Their thoughts were good you know, just about 5 years late. After all the Napsters, Kazza, pirate bays, and bit torrents already had that idea. So iTunes idea was to take their idea and put a price on it. I’ve never been too much of a fan, but they have been somewhat successful. I mean even I purchased 1 album from them, Anthony Hamiltons Point of It All.

Ok it’s set, they’re following the same plan as freeware with a price and they sold a few billion. People are getting confortable with this, and their sales are expanding by large percenatges compared to the falling of physical sales. So of course with every business mind, when a product starts selling why not bump the price? I mean it’s a great idea for physical products when it costs more for distribution, but where is the overhead rising in digital music? Does it cost more not to upload? No thats free. I just don’t see a reason for this price increase. And suprise suprise, their sales are down… again.

Now some songs are cheaper than their original .99, but with all the newest songs at 1.29 its a great business idea, and it looks good on paper if same sales continue.

In general this would have worked great… what, 10 years ago?  Nice Try iTunes, its a good model. Just a little late. iTunes will either change their price or fall eventually, but with the low overhead and high profit it may take awhile.

I know I’m a little late on this but some people still didn’t know iTunes bumped their prices up so speak what you want about this.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Step 1

- Take an idea from another site selling the same products for free

Step 2

- Sell for an amount to help the artists out (good idea, i mean they still needa get paid)

Step 3

- offer less than what some of the free sites give

Step 4

- After some success, bump the price

Step 5

- File chapter 11 so you can keep your bently’s and million dollar house.

Major/ Minor

Viacom the owner of MTV has recently cut 850 jobs in the rise of this recession. This recession has also allowed anybody to be apart of the music industry… WMG’s stock is at $2.67 a stock. People claim it is an old business plan, others say music is not a monetary market anymore. Every week I keep seeing album sales every week, but digital sales have been steadily rising. Kanye’s single sold 1.3 million times on iTunes to date (2/4/08). So is digital the answer?

In Business, sales have to show growth and improvement otherwise stocks will drop and investor confidence will drop as well. Usually when a business grows too fast, and even a slow down of growth can strike fear. There will always be this wall where all business’s hit where they have to cut some expenses to continue growth until it can not make money anymore. That is where the flaw of iPods come in. If everybody has an iPod, where can the growth be? What improvements can they make? iPod sales drop now, but that is expected and still people lose confidence in them still. Where to go when you make the top?

Music is a business like any other, and no matter how much you market something, if people don’t need it they won’t get it. You can make it all pretty and everything, but if people can get it for free they still will. Digital sales, album sales, all music sales are close to fail soon, and I believe it is an end to ‘music sales’ but not an end to music. I see labels changing to the 360 deal which I believe is great to keep income and allow labels to not give up in pushing their artists. Yes, it is still mafia tactics where if you can’t get revenue from one place, you squeeze em in other area’s. The more I study business and marketing, the more I realize that without the push of a strong team, nobody can make it. As a more entrepreneurship mindset comes across America, we are becoming more DIY (Do It Yourself). DIY can only get you so far, and with the help of the internet, everybody can DIY, but than comes the ego with that thinking your as strong as a label.

The way to a new beginning is not the end of an old. Every day should be a new beginning in expanding from what was of yesterday. People settle for one plan, one product, one everything. That is why I love places like target. They can get income from many places, they do not have everything in one product which is what most labels do. We need to learn to do more than just music, artists need to expand from just singing/ rapping whatever they do. 50 Cent invested in Vitamen water and got close to half a billion dollars.

My point is, it is the end of one sided music. We need to learn to multitask more than what we are already doing. Regular grocery stores should expand with music, and more mainstream items for kids, teens and more. Record stores should sell more band merchandise, open up a place for shows and etc. Places need to come on a major/ minor system where they are mostly this, but they also have this. Most places have that, but it needs to become more apart of the business plan, rather than just a side thought

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Why 99 cents is too much for a song.

I know this is looong overdue, but it doesn’t matter. 99 cents is still standard for a song and it’s too much. Think about this, a cd costs, lets go for the low, $15 for a cd with 16 songs. Minus $6 for distribution the cd is $9 to send to best buy. Best buy gets their profit loss cut (They take a loss because you buy a cd and they make a profit on the cd player; they win) and lets say the cd is worth $6. I’m not good at math, so my calculator says each song is 40 cents. Without the cuts, the songs are worth roughly 94 cents.

Now why pay 99 cents? I would love to support your artists, love to support your million dollar condo’s for the big artists, and for the struggling artists, I would love to support your music if it went back to the bootleg $5 cd days, maybe $10 for your cd if I got to listen to it first. But really, I myself have been on the roman noodle diet trying to pay off my loans, how am I gonna for over 99 cents for a song that I can hear on the radio if I had one, overplayed on MTV if I had cable? When somebody came to me trying to sell their independent album for $8, I talked them down to five.

With the recording process getting cheaper because of Pro Tools LE, mbox and not even needing pure acoustics no more, why should the fans still pay the same price? I say with all these lay offs of the major labels come through, at least have online MP3’s DRM free, and maybe 50 cents. Why pay cd price for an mp3 you can even easier get for free. Sell more at shows, with other things, get creative with it. With computers getting cheaper, free wi fi, people can more easily access iTunes, but even easier access these downloading sites to get all songs for free. The rich complain because their money flow is slowing, and the not so rich are over saturating the industry online, somebody either needs to stand out now, or make the mp3’s cheaper or free with ticket sales. You get better quality for free than paid for now and its crazy.

I’ve been coming up with my own plans on ways to boost the industry and most of them have one thing. Make mp3’s cheapers, cd’s cheaper, more profit to the artist means more power to their music, and most importantly, although Lil Wayne is close to double platinum or already made it… does not mean you will. One strategy is not the same for the next anymore, get creative or get lost in this huge sea of too many fish with not enough bait. Please comment and tell me what yall think.

From the mind of Keveeno