Further musings on Online Music Distributors (OMD's)

'Why is there is so much investment in OMD websites by their proprietors?' was something of a rhetorical question. That there was no flood of answers on incoming postcards, came as no great surprise to me, so, as you might have guessd, I was already primed to answer the question, myself. Here, is the hardly astonishing truth. Income Generation - that is the simple two word answer. Cynical, you might say, but one thing I have discovered, in my short life, is that while genuine altruism does exist, it is not a naturally abundant resource on this planet of ours. We certainly can't expect to find it any more frequently on the internet than we do in our daily lives...

There are a number of different ways that OMD's generate income. I'm not going to provide a list, let alone an exhaustive one, of ways in which OMD's do this, because the thrust of this post is not about the detail of OMD financial aims and imperitives, but to make the general point that OMD's are not in the generosity business. No, they are simply 'in business', and, before you misunderstand me, I am happy to say that my view is that it is okay to be 'in business', it's absolutely fine, and fair enough, for OMD's, or anyone else...I have no complaint about that, whatsoever. I simply want to make the point that OMD's are following a business strategy when they provide facilities for Indie Musicians and encourage their use of the facilities they provide...So, my fellow Indie Musician, by all means, use the facilities OMD's provide, and derive as much benefit from them as you can, but be aware... be aware that the online music business is a business, and you are contributing to the success of your favoured OMD's, whenever you create a 'Band Page', whenever you upload your music, whenever you post in a forum, listen to music, review or comment on a fellow 'Artist', indeed, whenever you interact in any way with an OMD website...

More to come...

THE VIEW FROM THE 5 BAR GATE

16 years old, I'd sit on the
five bar gate outside my
house and look at this view
as I struggled to learn Guitar.....

THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN

The five bar gate and

my house....happy days..

Internet Marketing of Music

Bandwidth costs money. It doesn't matter who you are, your bandwidth is costing, and that's indisputable. So, why are there so many Online Music Distribution websites, out there, willing to host Independant Music and let it eat up bandwidth, all day long, for free? I ask this question because I am genuinely puzzled by some aspects of this 'Internet', this relatively recent phenomenon... Now, I am willing to accept that some people love music to the degree that they want to help it along it's way, and if they happen to have a dollar or two, and some spare capacity on a server, they might want to host their own music, and maybe some friends' music, to spread it around a bit, to a new audience. That's fair enough. But, there are literally hundreds of these websites...many offering superb facilities, in order to make musicians rich and famous, a 'star', all for free, and promising not to ask for a dime when they become one...

Now, because Indie Musicians, in their own perception, are nearly all 'stars in training', and, generally, have little money, the idea that someone might help them make a lot of it, and help them get that elusive 'Record Deal', is very appealing. And, of course, it's also well known that the Internet is the best and easiest way to reach untold millions of sympathetic ears, all of which belong to people who are as anxious to spend their money on your music as you are to take it... So, the Musical hopefuls and wannabe's flock to these Online Music Distributors websites, and upload their music and their band or personal propaganda like crazy.

What no one has told these apprentice Mettalica's, and it doesn't seem to have occurred to many of them spontaneously, is that, mostly, the people frequenting these OMD websites are other apprentice musicians, as anxious as they are to promote their wares...in other words, they are all promoting more to each other than to a more beneficial and receptive audience.

So, to return to my original question..why is there so much investement in these OMD websites? What do the proprietors get out of it? Answers on a postcard...

So what is George Bolam all about?

One thing I do, nowadays, is make music. Here is a link to my personal band website. If you want to hear a different approach to Folk/Country style easy listening music, hit the link and it should take you to my band page. 'InZaneCountry' is all me, I do everything, write the music, play it, sing it, record it. If you have any comments, feel you want to say anything at all, please free to post here, or there's a contact link on the website, so you can contact me directly...

Ok, so here's the link: http://inzanecountry.co.uk

George Bolam