kudyba Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 I'll preface my diatribe my saying that I did get in on their IPO but only sold HALF my shares thinking with my heart and not my head--breaking an Investment 101 rule of thumb--and thought I'd hold on to the rest and sell it a year or more later for AT LEAST the IPO price and all of that would be pure profit (since I paid the cap. gains on it last year). The first clue that something was awry should've been early on when we learned that Mr. Robertson was barely even a music fan but simply an entrepreneur who found that "mp3" was the second most popular search word in the search engines. But I chose to overlook that as I believed in what they were trying to do. For all intents and purposes, they gave artists/bands a chance to establish a FREE presence on the Net, with a place to post sound files, gig listings, lyrics, a gig calendar, guestbook, statistics, selling DAM CD's, and even a link to wherever you had a CD for sale. In other words, they gave us the tools to create a web site and make a little bit of extra money FOR FREE!!! No need to pay web masters who slopped up pages in Netscape Composer (hey that's where I started--I still have a Netscape 1.1 installation diskette)...And then they gave artists the opportunity to earn FREE money just by getting downloads, selling DAM CD's and getting on MP3.com radio stations. Not too freakin' bad! I really have to believe that the old "bait 'n' switch" scam wasn't something Mr. Robertson planned almost from the beginning. Establish a huge community by being first to market and worry about profits later. Classic 1999 Net thinking. Some where along the line he realized that in order to have any chance at boosting his stock price, he was going to have to start showing some revenues. For the first 2 years, more than 90% of their revenue came from banner advertising. That was Clue #2! Then came the digital locker, aka my.mp3.com, fiasco. Clue #3!!! But again I overlooked that and thought that the labels were just trying to squash an idea that they didn't create or own. Besides, what was the real harm of allowing users who purchased an artist's CD ability to simply stream the songs from that CD on anyone's computer provided you registered and used your own user name & password? For crying out loud it's a MP3!!! And on a computer with most likely crappy sounding speakers! OK maybe they should've asked permission or negotiated a percentage of the banner revenues for the service, but no label would've given it to them. So I thought it was simply David vs Goliath! Which leads to clue #4: their stock price kept tanking as did most other dot bombs. (Should I mention clue #4.5 that Sephora seemed to be there only advertiser?) And it only got worse as Mr. Robertson needed to generate revenue quicker. The message boards changed so that every reply to a thread forced another click, so obviously done to increase page views. P4P. Back the Band (ughh!) Then only getting earnings if you signed up for P4P. Then adding a ridiculous handling charge on DAM/Net CD's. Then lowering the amount shared each month. Then the LA Weekly article about bands being thrown out of the earnings participation for supposedly cheating. And finally, being sold to precisely one of the beasts that Mr. Robertson oh so professed to call dinosaurs. But boy do I wish I listened to Mr. David Hooper (of Indiebiz.com fame) when he told me the night before the IPO to dump ALL the shares whenever I made the call to sell--because we all assumed we'd be selling the next day anyway! It was quite exciting watching the stock explode out of the gates above $95 but when I started seeing the price go down within minutes, boy my fingers couldn't dial fast enough! Ahh what the heck. I'll keep my site up anyway. I'll hold on to the rest of the Vivendi/Universal shares I'll get. From one garbage company to another... http://www.mp3.com/beezoo http://www.mp3.com/arthurkill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rold Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 Originally posted by kudyba: Establish a huge community by being first to market and worry about profits later. Classic 1999 Net thinking. http://www.mp3.com/beezoo http://www.mp3.com/arthurkill How in the Sam Hill do they manage getting that much backing without having to generate revenue? I mean, just to host mp3.com on the web must cost tens or hundreds of thousands a month given the necessary storage. Never mind staff, etc. How do investors/creditors buy the whole "we'll worry about it later idea?" Sorry, just curious... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Harold meh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobro Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 Originally posted by rold: How in the Sam Hill do they manage getting that much backing without having to generate revenue? I mean, just to host mp3.com on the web must cost tens or hundreds of thousands a month given the necessary storage. Never mind staff, etc. How do investors/creditors buy the whole "we'll worry about it later idea?" Sorry, just curious... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Harold Just about everyone I with whom I have discussed this seems to have assumed from the word go that the whole point of mp3.com was to rattle the cage of the majors then cut a deal with them. Cheating by bands is however quite real, and only hurt indies in the long run. We were approached by one hero who had 4 monster computers automatically hitting everyone in the "club" 24 hours a day- membership in the "club" of course required hitting his page, and he apparently tracked fidelity to the scheme by monitoring his stats as well as requiring "email this track to a friend" hits on his stuff. We didn't join of course, but I watched the pages of others cc'd and saw some of them leap from a dollar or two to $1,000 and more in a matter of a couple of weeks. We have always thought of mp3.com as nice free advertising space on the web but the extrodinary amount of email spam we get both from mp3.com itself and other bands is annoying. -CB PS. The link is to our own dot-com site, not to an mp3 site http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif %5C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alphajerk Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 ill give you yet another clue... my cracker ass got a song to number 1 on the hip hop charts there... right above snoop doggity dog. WITHOUT cheating. hell i even printed out the chart page because it would probably be the ONLY time i ever get a song to number one anywhere. yeah, i started seeing the "holes" right before IPO, although i wish i had bought and sold right then... so maybe you are kicking yourself in the ass but im probably kicking mine harder for that thinking about that one... i could of bought a NICE studio with those kind of profits. alphajerk FATcompilation "if god is truly just, i tremble for the fate of my country" -thomas jefferson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WFTurner Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 >>The message boards changed so that every reply to a thread forced another click, so obviously done to increase page views.<< Used to be able to get to web stats page with a couple of clicks, now it's better than half a dozen. They supposedly we're doing a crack down on cheaters but the same names are at the top of all genres so I take it the suspicions we're unfounded. ------------------ William F. Turner Songwriter turnermusic William F. Turner Songwriter turnersongs Sometimes the truth is rude... tough shit... get used to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WFTurner Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 >>Then adding a ridiculous handling charge on DAM/Net CD's.<< Yes. The cheapest CD now is $10.99? Pretty steep expectations without upgrading the system so you can at least make them from something better than a 128kbs mp3 file. Almost an act of desperation in searching for more income. ------------------ William F. Turner Songwriter turnermusic William F. Turner Songwriter turnersongs Sometimes the truth is rude... tough shit... get used to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobro Posted June 16, 2001 Share Posted June 16, 2001 Originally posted by WFTurner: >>The message boards changed so that every reply to a thread forced another click, so obviously done to increase page views.<< Used to be able to get to web stats page with a couple of clicks, now it's better than half a dozen. They supposedly we're doing a crack down on cheaters but the same names are at the top of all genres so I take it the suspicions we're unfounded. I never assume the worst about others (idealistic, naive or both, hehe)- it's just that the ones you know are conniving who can cast a fetid shadow on others. It's great to see indies doing well and it pisses me off that their work should be tainted by any association with con artists. It was the shoe ad with which I was spammed this morning by mp3.com that got me to comment on this thread. That was too ridiculous too truly annoy, but what did piss me off recently was finding that multimedia promotional files of one of the so-called "alternative" pop artists had been written to my harddisk without permission, apparently when I upgraded some Windows program (?). When Spam-I-Am shoves the fork in your face it's one thing, but trying to sneak it up your ass when you're not looking is way off limits. -CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dansouth Posted June 17, 2001 Share Posted June 17, 2001 arthurkill? Are you from Staten Island? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kudyba Posted June 17, 2001 Author Share Posted June 17, 2001 Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com: arthurkill? Are you from Staten Island? LOL! No I speak English! 3 of the guys in the band are though. Guess that river inspired them...I just joined the band about a month ago...opening for White Lion (without Vito) at Obesessions in NJ this Thursday... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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