The online advertising business

bordalix — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:01:00 -0500

eMarketeer published a study about online advertising spending in the UK, present and future (bold mine):

Advertisers will spend £3.4 billion in 2008, a rise of 27% from the year before, according to new online ad spending figures released by eMarketer. Internet advertising spending will continue to show double-digit growth through 2010, passing £4.3 billion in 2010 and exceeding £5 billion in 2012.

Even considering that the UK market isn't the world market, it's a very good insight, which allows me to say we are on the right track to growth. In this case, numbers speak for themselves:

Netlabels

bordalix — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:21:00 -0600

Recently I read (in more than one place) about netlabels, so I decided to take a deeper look at it, and try to better understand what's behind it. A netlabel works like a traditional record label, producing and promoting music projects. But similarities ends here, since they are different in a matter of formats and economics:

A netlabel distributes is music in digital audio format, online. Netlabels don't produce plastic, all their music is available somewhere in the net, in a mp3 or ogg format. And you can have them for free, it's yours to get it.

So, where is the money, someone could ask. Well, netlabels are in the business of creating brands, for themselves and for the bands they represent. And brands create value, so their business is to earn money from concerts and merchandising.

The question that arises immediately is, will they get it? The recent cases of the Artic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah says that there is a possibility. What I know is, that this way, more people can try, so we will have a lot of music to choose from, and those who are really good, will prevail. Like Nathan Torkington wrote in an article for O'Reilly Radar:

In the beginning, musicians were performers, who didn't need a perfect technique so long as they had the carry their live shows. When recording was invented, performers complained that the recording technology captured all their technical flaws and none of their charisma, and the infernal devices would put them out of business. Recordings created a new class of musician, people who sounded great on vinyl/tape/CD even if they had the stage presence of a wet fish and their live shows sucked. Now we see the value of a recorded piece of music heading to zero and that same class of hot picking wet fish is complaining because increasingly the only way to make money out of music is to perform live (which they suck at, remember).

You can find a lot of netlabels in the Netlabel Catalogue, but I decided to compile a list of portuguese netlabels.

If you know more netlabels, or know a place with this list is already set, please tell me about it in the comments section.

update: thanks to sal, two more netlabels added to the list, and a reference to a directory of netlabels and more.

update 2: just found this netlabel, wolf+lamb, who made is entire site code available for anyone who wants to release a similar service. This could be a major boost in the netlabel business.

The place João Bordalo calls home: Tag business

The online advertising business

Netlabels