The median price point on RocketHub…and other crowdfunding platforms for that matter…is 20 bucks. … Make your $20 price point really jump off the shelf. –Brian Meece, RocketHub co-founder.

Crowdfunding website RocketHub was launched in January 2010 by three musicians/entrepreneurs—Brian Meece, Vladimir Vukicevic, and Jed Cohen. (tonic.com)  Meece was speaking above in his August 2010 interview with CDBaby podcaster Kevin Breuner. Meece continued with more details:

“The single most popular price point on RocketHub, by far, across the board, is $20. So what that means is make your $20 price point really jump off the shelf. Make it really exciting, make it really fun, because that’s what you’re going to move the most of likely. Another very popular price point is the $100 price point, which I also found very intriguing. The $100 price point typically are folks that have built up a lot of trust, or have been following you a little longer. They may be inner-circle folks, you know, your Uncle Bobby from Texas that loves everything that you do and buys 20 of your CD’s everytime they come out, but, you know just loves the fact that he’s got a nephew who’s making records. That’s where he’s probably gonna’ land. You’d be surprised who lands there, but it’s a very, very popular price point. … As a result the average contribution, it hovers day to day, but it’s in about the upper $50s. $57–$59 is the average across the board. So that’s very interesting because when we look at that average number, we could start to say if I wanna’ hit $500, then I need about 8–12 people to really hit that number—not a lot.” (CDBaby Podcast #098)

Guided by my own DIY business rule #6, I don’t need to waste time or money researching market price points for people who buy music. There’s already a company who’s perfected them—Apple:

2010 Apple iPod price comparison (source: apple.com)

Earlier this year Shamal Ranasinghe (@shamalman) presented marketing data from TopSpin Media at MIDEM 2010 in Cannes, France in series of slides. This one displays the advantage of selling at every price point—everything from frequent cheap buys to rare premium package deals:

“Consider Premium Offers”—slide 11. (source: Topspin Media)

On tour » another issue to consider is that location changes value/price.

Graphics: iPod, Topspin, and ‘price shuffle‘ graphics were remixed by RVE.

Okay so I obviously “planned” to write this post a little earlier. I even planned to write it last year. ;)

Giving gifts can be really hard, but if you really know someone, it’s much easier. Everyone is different.

Especially for a musician who is eager to promote themselves and be out there, I really like the idea of a pocket HD camera. If you want people to find you YouTube is the place. Get it on tape—not literally. Get it on bits. I won a Kodak Zi6 from Mashable in 2008 and the quality is unreal. Now there’s also the Zi8. I think the right book could be really good, like something on mixing for someone who does that. The best non-fiction book I read this year was Rework by the people from 37signals.com.

• More Ideas:
• Audiofanzine » Christmas Shopping 2010
• Hypebot » 10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Old-School Record Execs

Merry Xmas (or whatever your holiday of choice is:) and be safe! My end of the year posts are coming up next week. If you’re not already, tune in via RSS or Facebook. I better go start my shopping. Don’t worry I steer clear of the mall and I’ve already done some mental preparation. I’m going to hit Barnes and Noble, Campmor, the Polish store (for chocolate), and Total Wine. That should cover everyone!

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RIP Lala, but let the music rock on. I’m optimistic—what’s your reaction?
previous post: iTunes Is The 7-Eleven of Media

Device Dependency

Apple continues to create a major dependence on iTunes through their mobile products—the iPod, iPhone, and iPad—and I don’t think that anything is going to “kill” iTunes without a war. iTunes is the 7-Eleven of media—it’s more convenient and expensive, but it’s closer to home. For many, the iTunes experience is ingrained behavior—a household name—and part of their daily commute so to speak.

Generation Gap

The second huge advantage Apple has is the generation gap. Older people are more likely to have money to spend, and are less likely to adopt something new—especially if it’s less convenient. For Spotify to compete stateside, it will start through today’s youth. I love the Spotify concept, its mobility, and its adaptivity. They are smart to develop/test/improve their service in one location (Europe) before attempting to roll it out in another market (U.S.)—that’s business expansion 101. I hope that Spotify becomes a hit in the U.S. mainly for the sake of the music. Who wants an iTunes monopoly?

Apple Affinity

Apple products have strong affinity, and an army of enthusiasts drinking their Slurpees. Anyone looking to compete with them has to have an equal or greater affinity, and/or introduce something totally disruptive (which Spotify has done to a degree). Spotify has game, but so does Apple, who made a calculated move with last year’s Lala acquisition. One big thing to remember is that music has always been about the experience, and it always has been.

Apple Shuttle

Human Brain Connections by ethanhein on flickr

Based on estimated traffic data from compete.com, this visualization compares November 2009 website visits for 27 popular, legal, music stream-or-download destinations. The heat map is to scale—larger map areas represent higher website traffic. Green indicates positive growth in 2009. Red indicates negative growth in 2009. Hold your mouse over each area for stats. Use Ctrl + to zoom.

Pandora is the radio powerhouse, but MySpace Music, disturbingly, has the highest traffic, and MySpace acquired both Imeem and iLike this year. iTunes is omitted here because it’s not web-based—yet—but clearly it is widely used. The top three percentage gainers were Grooveshark, Lala, and Spotify. Grooveshark has shown the most consistent growth throughout the year, and let me tell you I think it’s going to be a Jaws-like monster (especially when it goes mobile). It delivers free full-on cloud-based streaming and user uploads. Grooveshark’s iPhone app is pending Apple’s approval, but I wonder if Apple will be reluctant to approve it because it would be sharp competition with iTunes and their newly acquired Lala. It’s no surprise that Google was also looking to buy Lala—maybe they’ll turn to bite Grooveshark. Grooveshark’s minimalistic home page is even Google-esque, and there’s something to be said for simple design. Being curious as to mobile applications’ influence on website traffic, I listed available mobile apps with the sortable data below.

Tweets about Apple acquiring Lala have been flooding Twitter for 3+ days now. A number of sources have provided news and analysis on the acquisition. Personally I think Apple aims to move iTunes to the web in an effort to control mobile cloud-based music streaming via iPhones and iPods. Mobility is paramount, and I think that buying Lala was a sound move for Apple. By combining the best features of iTunes and Lala, Apple should be able to make a more seamless streaming experience with a simpler payment process—a simple payment process leads to more people buying. You can bet there will be an iPhone app that enables buying and simplifies the buying process.

Die-hard Lala users hope that Apple will keep Lala’s key features in tact, and many are looking forward to new feature possibilities. Hopefully with the help of its Lala’s developers, Apple will be able to build onto Lala’s platform making music more accessible. Lala enables users to upload mp3′s from their computer so they can access them from anywhere through their Lala account. In Lala’s words, “Play it anywhere on the web. Most of your music will be matched to Lala’s catalog [and] any remaining unmatched MP3s can be uploaded to Lala.”

A massive user-submitted music library is being built in the cloud. What I’d really like to see is for everyone’s uploads to be available to everyone, much like they are in Grooveshark—a free music streaming service that lets users upload tracks to the cloud. Let’s compare their relative popularity with other some streaming/download services—Spotify, MOG, and Amie Street—in the graph below:

What’s worth noting about MOG having the most visitors is that MOG markets itself more as a social network—their tagline is “Discover People Through Music and Music Through People.” Having social features clearly plays a big role in web-based music discovery—it’s social music discovery. Extended stats and analysis are to follow in Part 2 later this week.

• Photo: Lala Apple Logo Mashup by VirtualMusictv/Flickr
• View Lala screenshots.

Did I mention that these services handle the submission process to the Apple iTunes Store for you? Please share how you’re using these for your band etc. Plus, what other platforms am I missing? Update: we were informed about a new 4th platform via the comment section below. Here’s the 411:

Update 2: More app services for musicians have hit the scene—see app services.