Marketing Pilgrim

Five months ago, Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, exclusively as a pay-as-you-feel download from their website (well, okay, you could also order it from their website as a discobox edition which came with a bunch of extras and a set price). Since then, we’ve seen a little in the way of digital music sales experimentation.

Now Nine Inch Nails is joining Radiohead in the downloadable album arena (though it should be noted that In Rainbows is now being sold “traditionally”). The latest NIN album, Ghosts I-IV was released last night and the site was quickly mobbed.

Ever since I blogged for a music site, I’ve watched how the Internet has transformed the music industry.

Here are some recent highlights – and they are sad songs:

• Radiohead gives the finger to record labels and at the last minute releases their album In Rainbows on their web site.
• Sites like Imeem stream major label songs free on their site and of course there are plenty of illegal download sites.
• Or there is a Chinese search engine that ignors copyrights altogether (check this out).

PC World has a list of the 25 most innovative products of 2007. While most of them are actual gadgets—the iPhone, the Kindle, and various other pieces of hardware—many of them are web apps. Among the most interesting picks:

1. Google Gears—heralded as a step toward the browser as a desktop

9. Facebook API—duh.

17. Zoho Notebook—compiles all kinds of information and enables you to share it

18. Radiohead’s In Rainbows—check out our our coverage of In Rainbows if you missed this ongoing story

20. Mint.com—brings all your personal finance information together, from bank accounts to credit cards

We’ve covered the Radiohead experiment since it started. And as of Monday, the experiment is over. It did give them a lot of press, I’m not so sure it gave them a lot of cash. Normally artists aren’t the best at distribution and marketing, which is why there are middlemen. In every industry I’ve seen this usually serves both sides well.

Just three months after they started the experiment, Radiohead is going back to the traditional way of selling albums – in stores. The band let their fans decide what to pay for their new album. Some fans thought free was a great price. Radiohead didn’t give out numbers, though comScore took a stab at it. They estimated that 62 percent of those who downloaded In Rainbows didn’t pay for it.

I don’t know, Andy. Maybe things are winding down for the holidays—or maybe we’re all too busy Christmas shopping online to think of full-length stories for the news tidbits we find .

• Is SMS the ‘Net,’ and can they be neutral? Several groups have petitioned the FCC to stop Telecom Censorship of Text Messages
• Well. Of all the criticisms of AskEraser, this is the assessment to which I have to give the most resounding, “DUH.” AskEraser Deletes Data, But Also Reduces User Personalization

Earlier this week, comScore released data that said that 62% of Radiohead downloaders don’t pay. While plenty came to the band’s defense, we had no official word on the price people were paying.

Mathew Ingram reports that Radiohead has contradicted comScore’s report in an official statement:

In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group’s representatives would like to remind people that… it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales.

It’s been one month since we all started buzzing about Radiohead’s latest experiment: a downloadable set-your-own-price release of their latest album. I’m sure many people saw this as the band’s vote of confidence in the genuine goodness of humanity—although I’m sure they realized that not everyone would be willing to pay when they could get it for free.

And it looks like both sides are right. A few weeks in, it looked as though the average price being paid was £8 (about $16). However, immediately after that report came a second—in reality, the price paid was more like £2.50 (about $5)—less than Radiohead would have received from their record company per album had they gone the traditional route.

Radiohead, the English rock band is striking out on their own when it comes to online sales of their newest album. When Radiohead’s contract with recording company EMI expired, they decided not to sign a deal but to sell their music through their web site.

They recently completed their seventh studio album, In Rainbows. They launched a new site this month, where you can preorder a digital download on their web site. This message greets you (no yells at you):

RADIOHEAD HAVE MADE A RECORD.
SO FAR, IT IS ONLY AVAILABLE FROM THIS WEBSITE.
YOU CAN PRE-ORDER IT IN THESE FORMATS: DISCOBOX AND DOWNLOAD.