CNNMoney:
That other way turned out to be what amounts to a pyramid scheme. But that’s not to say the concept of engaging fans to promote and sell music isn’t a good idea. “Peer recommendation” models like PassAlong embrace this concept better. With PassAlong, users get points each time a song they recommend (or pass-along) to friends is ultimately purchased.
The reason these work better is that recommendation is more a push model-the person doing the recommending pushes his/her recommendations to friends. BurnLounge is a pull model-friends have to visit the tastemaker’s site to see what’s for sale. Sure BurnLounge has tacked on some social networking components to the service, but the model is still fundamentally flawed.
Anybody getting into the digital music game expecting to make a fortune off of a la carte sales commissions is out of their freaking mind, and anybody trying to convince them otherwise is either just as crazy or flat out lying. How about some other ways of rewarding effective tastemakers — such as a bounty for each friend they sign up to a subscription music service, or giving high-traffic generators a share of advertising revenue?
None of these alternatives are lucrative enough to make anyone quit their day job (unless they’re reporters perhaps), but they might be incentive enough to convince the digital faithful to convert more consumers to the flock.
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