Karmafan.com - Patronage for the Internet era

OhMyNews allows its users to use a tip jars allowing them to raise money from their readers.

Media analyst Kim Jae-young noted that OhmyTV relies on the long-tail aspect of micropayment for its financial independence. OhmyTV was able to raise a huge sum of money by tapping into lower 80% of on-line crowd, coupled with near-zero transaction cost on the Web, Kim said.

This is not the first time that the OhmyNews tip jar system was able to collect a huge amount of spontaneous financial contributions. In 2004, when Kim Yong-ok, a well-known Korean professor in Eastern Philosophy, published an article on OhmyNews critical of the opponents of a government decision to relocate the capital city, he saw his tip jar quickly brimming with $30,000 of hard cash paid for by nearly 8,000 contributors.

Here’s the complete story from OhMyNews.

We believe sites like YouTube, Last.FM, and all blogging sites should surely provide their content creators to use a tip-jar for raising support from their fans. At Karmafan of course we have tied the tip jar in to Facebook and will be adding support for MySpace very soon too. Way to go OhMyNews!

Insound, a online service that allows musicians to sell their albums and merchadise has started a new program called “Give more, Get more“. I quote from their site to explain what the program does -

Every time you buy an MP3 album from Insound (not EPs or singles), Insound will donate $.25 of our take to a touring band. We choose 6 lucky bands that we like, but you get to select the actual artist to earmark your quarter to. Furthermore, should you wish to “tip” additional funds to these great artists, you can add your own tip during checkout.

I found out about the program from a blog post at Idolator. As expected the comments there are raising questions about the central idea of tipping and also how Insound chose these random six bands? There are also nuances that Insound is now owned by Warner and how much can consumers trust them to support Indie musicians. I don’t particularly mind what they do with their quarter, after all it is their money.

On the other hand, what I find most interesting is that a service like Insound is using the idea of tipping to support musicians. Is this an implicit acknowledgement of the need for a patronage system for artists?

There we are - another effort to “sell” music goes under. CLIQ, a service that allows people to buy music that they are listening to on their digital radios. Thanks to The Register for pointing out the news.

The idea behind CLIQ is neat, you are listening to some piece of music on the digital radio, you like, you buy it. So why didn’t it work out? CLIQ blames it on the slow adoption of DAB or Digital radio as we call it. I think there is more to it.

It will be nice to see a Cliq like service for streaming radios on the web. Well, let’s see there already are a few, the oldest one being Magnatune, who keeps 50% cut off what you pay to buy a record.

We at Karmafan believe trying to sell music in such a way as it is profitable for the artists and all the other middlemen in between is a tad hard, if not outright passe.

Let music flow freely, there are numerous channels out there that don’t involve a middleman keeping a cut. Then let fans support the musicians - directly. That’s how the future will be.

David Sedaris talks in an interview how and why he used a tip jar at his book tour, raising $4000 from fans. Here is how David answers the question - You put a tip jar at your book-signing table?

Oh, yes. I would get there two to three hours early, and would sign books until 15 minutes before the reading. And I talk to everyone so I don’t sign that many books in two and a half hours. And then just before you start the reading part you go to the back of the room and you say I will sign your book right now for $5. And that’s how you really make your money because any one in their right mind, if they have a choice between paying $5 and waiting for four hours, would choose to pay $5.

Then once I started doing that, there was no stopping me. Because a lot of time at book stores there’s only one chair in the room and it’s behind the podium. I used to give it to a pregnant woman. I’d say if there’s anyone here who’s on crutches or pregnant, you can have this chair. But then I thought I’m giving away something I could be making money off of. So then I would say, for $20 dollars you can have this chair and be the first person to get your book signed after the reading.

…. It was like a Robin Hood thing. If I said to people, “Oh give me this money, and I’ll give it to charity,” they’re not going to give it to me. I tell people that I’ll spend it on crazy things on myself, and I do do that. But sometimes you go to a public-radio station and there’s an intern who is not getting paid, so you give them $100. Or you’re signing books and there’s someone who looks like they could use $50. So you say, you look like you could use $50, and you give them $50.

Read the full interview where David talks about the tip jar gimmick here on Newsweek (thanks to “Collection Developments” for pointing out the interview).

Now, if we translate this gimmick to the Internet and imagine an musician instead of an author. Where would you use the Karmafan tip jar? Next to where your music is available? Will you mention your Karmafan home page during a concert? On gig posters? On the back of CD covers? With the mp3s that you are making available on the Internet?

Time for a poll on our forum. The question is, “Where will you put your Karmafan home page address?“

We’re pleased to announce the launch of Karmafan on Facebook. With 70 million users worldwide, Facebook is a great way for artists to gather support from fans. Facebook also automatically spreads the word to your friends when you give support.

If you’re already on Facebook you can add the Karmafan application to show your friends which artists or sites you have supported. Now you can support or invite artists and sites without leaving Facebook - each time telling your friends who you have supported with Karmafan’s Facebook news feeds.

Even if you aren’t on Facebook you already have a Karmafan page on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/karmafan/fans/profile?name=anonymous

Let your friends know who you support - install the Karmafan application on your Facebook profile:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6407661474

If you are an artist or a musician just add a site to your Karmafan profile to start receiving support from your fans on Facebook.
http://karmafan.com/account/seek_patrons

See examples of how Karmafan fits into your Facebook profile:
http://karmafan.com/site/facebook

Discuss the ideas behind Karmafan or get help: join the new Karmafan
Forum at http://forum.karmafan.com

Kevin Kelly had some very positive ideas about the value of 1000 True Fans, but today he posted a piece about what happens when you’re an artist who finds they don’t seem to have 1000 fans, as Chris Valenti discovered when he realised his dream and recorded an album?

Every independent music artist shares the same experience. They are excited to record their songs and receive their first 1,000 copies of their new CD. After selling some to their fans, giving out others to their family and friends, and sending out copies to various music industry and media people, they then share another experience every other artist has: What do you do with the other 800 CDs still sitting in your living room?

Find out more at 800cdsthemovie.com or watch the trailer on YouTube.

Why are musicians so fixated on the idea of producing a CD that they’re willing to invest that much money in plastic they then have to sell, when all they need to do is record their work and release it over the Internet?

The Guardian had an article in their G2 section today about how Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, is convinced that free is the only way to go:

On the web, the marginal costs of manufacturing and distribution are zero, or close to it. This means that you can now experiment with giving away one thing to sell something else much more than you could in the pre-internet era. The traditional model is of giving 1% of goods away as samples in order to sell 99% of the product; on the web, you can give 99% away as free samples to sell 1%.

When it comes to music, the idea is that a band can gain popularity by giving music away, which creates new fans who will then tell their friends, buy merchandise or attend concerts.

Anderson’s last book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, argued that it’s possible to thrive by appealing to niche markets. His next will argue that the future of economics is inevitably free:

In every industry where the product can be made into a digital file, somebody is, or is going to be, offering you that product for free because the marginal cost of doing so online is heading towards zero. Divorce papers? Free. Books? Music? Free.

He doesn’t see this as negative. Things have changed, as they always have. Money will continue to flow, but now the barriers to being heard and noticed are so much lower, and that has to be a positive environment for creativity.

Check out the full article by Stuart Jeffries at guardian.co.uk.

After releasing a new track - Echoplex - on Facebook yesterday, Trent Reznor made a lot of people very happy today when he made the new NiN album available for free download. High-quality formats such as FLAC, M4A and WAVE are being distributed by torrent.

Reznor announced the release of the slip by thanking his fans: “thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me”. And of course “all files are 100% DRM-free”. I wonder how soon it will be before that statement will seem anachronistic. It’s still hard to believe that people are paying for files with DRM.

The whole download process is efficient and painless. They’ve really been paying attention to how they and others have done this before, learning from mistakes and making it as easy as possible for their fans to start listening.

Oh, and the album is great, too

It’s as though Reznor and NiN are providing a blueprint for how it should be done…

We’re delighted to welcome progressive independent label Fly Agaric! to Karmafan. Fly Agaric! has been producing really great music since 1996 and had 97,000 downloads in 2007.

Proudly independent, Fly Agaric! has embraced the idea of patronage for labels and artists who choose to remain diverse and have made many tracks available free online - check out KU and Alhambra on their catalogue and please make sure to support them using Karmafan!

Kevin Kelly has given some good answers to comments on his 1000 True Fans piece.