“New Model” stream-of-conscious

start with a name. call it a “DAP” – digital audio package. call it a “MAP” – multimedia audio package or multimedia artist package. call it something and then give it a feature that distinguishes this “new model” from the MP3/AAC/compressed digital audio model. a feature could be a photo or photos. a video or videos. a “making of” documentary. a lyric sheet. an application. an introduction from the artist. extensive album art. access to a club. update-able features: podcasts, videocasts, news, shows, link aggregates, rss feeds, twitter feeds. exclusive tracks. exclusive content. files for remixing. video files for video-creating. a personal fucking “thank you” note. whatever! the “new model” could have one or all of these features and still legitimately be a “new model”. it’s a question of which features are most valuable. perhaps there’s a template? something consistent but customizable – the way your page on a social network works. standardize the template and give it uses. let artists/labels login from the artist/label side and customize their product. let them change and update elements of content. let the artists make the new model ground zero for news, exclusives, authority, access. as they do so, they expose all the other outlets – the free outlets – for what they really are: secondary sources. the blogs and social networks would still be there, they’d still thrive. a whole culture would still exist around the free jukebox, the casual listener/secondary source audience. the only difference would be that the action would now initiate in a paid environment before it reverberated through the free environments. it would be a perk for the paying consumers – the core audience – to get information and content first. it would be part of what they pay for. if they don’t care, they can consume casually, freely, just as they do now. if they do care, they can pay for the record, the features, the new model. money straight to the artist. evolving content, features, access, perks to the paying fans. AND the whole brouhaha of outlets, networks, giveaways, streams, middlemen that’s regaling us right now. what is there to lose?

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