Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Digital Download + Physical Product = Consumer Bliss?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 05:00 AM
I happen to be a fan of the band Jars of Clay, so when Digital Media Thoughts reader The Yaz emailed us about an interesting new distribution model, I was immediately interested. The group's forthcoming album, Good Monster, will be available September 5th and is selling for $12.97 USD online. Nothing special there.
What's interesting is that when you purchase the album, you get what they call "instant audio access to the entire album". When the album is released, you get that as well. Instant digital gratification, with the follow-up of a physical product with all the inherant benefits that has as well. As a consumer, that concept excites me a great deal! There's no mention of how the digital version works - whether it's DRM'd audio files or plain MP3s, but the idea behind this is great. And notice the price is no higher than a regular CD (in fact, that seems quite cheap to me). Have you seen any other artists taking this same approach?
[As a side note, I've often wished for exactly the same thing when I'm paying $40 for a UFC pay-per-view match. For $40, I should get access to the show live, and get shipped a DVD for later viewing. As it stands now, for $40 I get an encrypted show that I can't pull off my PVR (I've tried), and worse, the show deletes itself after a couple of weeks. Great value there. :roll: ]
What's interesting is that when you purchase the album, you get what they call "instant audio access to the entire album". When the album is released, you get that as well. Instant digital gratification, with the follow-up of a physical product with all the inherant benefits that has as well. As a consumer, that concept excites me a great deal! There's no mention of how the digital version works - whether it's DRM'd audio files or plain MP3s, but the idea behind this is great. And notice the price is no higher than a regular CD (in fact, that seems quite cheap to me). Have you seen any other artists taking this same approach?
[As a side note, I've often wished for exactly the same thing when I'm paying $40 for a UFC pay-per-view match. For $40, I should get access to the show live, and get shipped a DVD for later viewing. As it stands now, for $40 I get an encrypted show that I can't pull off my PVR (I've tried), and worse, the show deletes itself after a couple of weeks. Great value there. :roll: ]
