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At 03:22 PM 6/23/2002, Richard Zvonar wrote: >Kim's arguments would be right on if we were all trying to make music >that >was commercially viable according to the prevailing tastes of the pop >music market. This, however is not the case. of course. But I honestly can't understand why it makes a difference? Why specifically, would the situation be so much different for Richard Zvonar or Andre LaFosse vs major pop idols like U2 or David Torn? Admittedly I haven't spent much time looking into this subject like some of you have, that's why I ask. I'm not getting it. But from what I've seen so far I can't understand all these arguments that the little guy is doomed. How do the numbers add up to that? >Many (if not a majority) of us are making music that appeals to one or >another of the many small "mini-markets" that are not served by either >the >major record companies or the major broadcasters and Webcasters. The CARP >fee structure was based on an economic model of a major Webcaster (Yahoo, >to be specific) and this doesn't take into account the economics of the >minor Webcasters. This is the part I really don't get. How doesn't it meet the economics of small webcasters? If you are small, then your costs are lower. Scale revenues to meet them. I'm really not understanding why its a problem or how the CARP thing is so debilitating. I'm coming from a position of being a little guy in a big pool, as far as web publishing goes. I know exactly what the economics of it are like. I did a quick run of the CARP numbers as far as I understand them, and to me it doesn't add up to something that is unattainable, whether you are big or small. >These minor players are in many cases deliberately small, without >aspirations to achieve the scale of the Majors. They may not WANT to go >after "real advertising" but as Kim points out, they probably won't >survive without doing that. that's really the part that I say is nonsense. Being a small web publisher myself, I know exactly what it is all about to get advertising and other sources of income from your website. You are not going to get giant accounts with Coke and GM. But you can easily get ads that target whatever niche you've got, from smaller companies that are interested in that. Plus there are several quality ad networks that bind smaller sites together into a larger network and land larger ad accounts. Plus all sorts of other income streams you can create. The numbers I've seen for this just don't look like impossible numbers to me. So manage the situation and make it work. If you are seriously putting up a webcasting business already, it is going to cost you a significant amount of money anyways. Bandwidth is not free. No matter what you have to figure out how to address that cost with real revenues from real advertising. If you aren't willing to do that, then you shouldn't be in the pool. The model of Live365 makes sense to me, and seems well suited to small artists. The have a large network of different "stations", all set up by any user who wants to set one up. Microscopic stations for obscure artists can plug right in there. Live365 then sells advertising across the whole network with everything pooled together. So the little guys just make up a piece of the big pie. Live365 obviously has a lot of people listening, so the market is there, and they should be able to attract reasonable advertising as a result. Yesterday I saw a budweiser ad on there, so I guess they are actually managing to figure out how to do that after all those pathetic MOMI ads. kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@loopers-delight.com | http://www.loopers-delight.com