When I first wrote about A Musical Stock Exchange called SellaBand, the site was just getting started. Springwise – where I first heard of SellaBand – is back with information about the site now that it’s one year old. How’s it going? 4,000+ bands have signed up with 7 albums either done or in the works. And that’s just the first year.
“Fans have invested over USD 1,000,000 in the bands they believe in. The first band to raise USD 50,000 was Nemesea, which did so in 83 days.”
I’m particularly intrigued by the plans for enhancements which include “the tools to scout talent, track the recording process and promote ‘the heck out of the artist’ once an album has been released.”
Just like mico-lending (kiva, Prosper & PlaNetFinance)is revolutionizing banking and finance, SellaBand and sites like it are doing the same to music. And none of this is a surprise.
Industries, like all things (your career. your life.), are cyclical. In addition to ups and downs, growth and atrophy, successes and failures, there are transformational times of shifting power and/or structure.
For instance, at one time, there were over 3000 automobile manufacturers in the US. Over time, a mass consolidation occurred until we had the “big three” of today. There are hundreds of reasons behind this change, but for now we’ll say that people didn’t need 3000 varieties to meet their needs. That has changed again. My goal here isn’t to give my theories on the auto industry, but I believe there is a growing market for thousands of varieties of automobiles. Things have changed.
The same is true for the music industry. There were also hundreds and thousands of publishing/recording houses 50 to 100 years ago, now there are four or five. But there aren’t just four or five. Just like Lotus, Scion and Tesla, the music world has indie labels and artists popping up all over the place. But their not just popping up, they are successfully finding fans and selling music.
Both of these trends – auto & music – are being driven and supported by the global marketplace. 1,000,000 people cannot support 3000 auto manufacturers, but 8 or 9 billion can. Tesla doesn’t need to sell millions of cars per year to make a statement and make a living.
And neither do you.
