I love sharing new music. I hear something new that I think is awesome and I can’t wait to tell my friends about it.
We all know the music industry has been dying a slow death for some time now. The state of FM radio is embarrassing and if you aren’t already an established artist, gaining traction as a new band is pretty hard. Sure, the Internet allows you to reach a larger audience through sites like Facebook, Twitter, Bandcamp and YouTube, but people just keep giving music away for free because they think it’s the only way to get fans.
As a result, bands are working their butts off to put out a good product and rarely seeing any monetary return. There has to be a way for bands to build a fan base without giving everything away and still keep fans excited about getting new music while actually paying for it.
Well, Omri Mor and the team and ZIIBRA.com might have found a way to bridge that gap so that artists and fans can both be happy. ZIIBRA is a platform for selling and sharing music that allows everyone involved a chance to win.
Here’s how it works:
An independent band or artist releases their new record through ZIIBRA. A preview of that record goes up on the site to get fans excited. Fans pledge to buy the record at a certain price.
This is where the incentive to share comes in.
The more people who pledge to buy the record, the more the price goes down. If you pledge $9.99 and then several more people pledge after you the price goes down and now your pledge might only be $5.99. You save money by doing what you were going to do anyway and telling your friends to get the awesome new music. Meanwhile, the desire of the purchaser to save money by sharing with friends is actually driving more buzz about the artist through social media.
How can anyone possibly lose?
I am excited about this week’s release of The Doldrums’ self-titled EP. This will be my first pledge. Maybe go try it out for yourself so we can all get a good deal.
Check a Doldrums song here, courtesy of the good people at ZIIBRA.
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