BURNLOUNGE (AND EVERYONE ELSE IN APPLE'S WAY) IS DEAD
I wrote yesterday about the important lessons Burnlounge is teaching the music industry. Today I discovered that while the music labels haven't been listening Steve Jobs has: Apple has launched an "affiliate program" in which YOU the customer can make money while helping Apple and the labels make money. Here's the rundown of the program from Apple itself:As an iTunes Affiliate, you can:
There you have it:
Steve Jobs = infinity
Competition = zilch
Bye-bye Burnlounge. I just signed with Apple.
posted by Shaun Groves @ 3/10/2006
17 comments
17 Comments:
C'mon apple! Don't you just love them. I wish I could live in a mac designed house, with mac furniture, and eat mac food. I wish they had catalogs, so I could have mac reading material!
Sean, you must not know how BurnLounge works.. Did you get bad info?
Here's the diff between BL and I-tunes.... you cant build your own store on i-tunes... and market your own store. Apple has an affiliate program.. big deal. Link to files.. whoopie!
As an arist, I can choose 10 albums and feature them on my own store. If I had 10 albums, they would all be mine (like Ted Nugent has).. If not.. I could have my album featured above say... U-2 or Coldplay.. or anyone else I select. Apple.. nope.. its just a link to a file. wow..
Plus.. BurnLounge is a multi-tier marketing. 6 layers deep. I can make income from sales off of people who sign up through me for 6 layers.
Apple.. nope.
I can also engage my fans and have them buy my music directly from my store and double dip.. making between 40-70 cents per song as an artist and a 5 cents for each single sold. Apple.. nope...
I can also have my fans sign up for their own store through my store and make a healthy commission for them signing up.. Apple.. no..
I can also sell movie tickets, ring tones, merchandise and more off of BurnLounge soon. Apple.. no.
I can make more income when my team does well. Its a team effort on BurnLounge. Apple.. nope.
Why make Steve Jobs richer when I have bills to pay?
http://www.indieburner.com
Hit the site, watch the commercial and GET IN. Be on my team!
shaun i hope u read this message, my email reply keeps failing for some reason!! yes, all systems go, give brian my email and october is looking good i reckon, talk you soon pal
indieheaven, are you an independent artist and can you get your music on burnlounge? What's your artist name?
I know how burnlounge works. I've done the homework, watched the video, read reviews, been spammed lots here and elsewhere about it. Not convinced. It's a great idea, and yes the profit margin is much much higher, but the traffic is not. I'm in music for influence not money. Influence requires, at times, traffic. How many hits does your burnlounge store get? I bet less than this blog.
Not picking a fight, just comparing traffic. What's yours?
SG
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
hey Sean.. not picking a fight either.. simply sharing info..
I work with hundreds of indie artists.. you know who I am:)
We're helping them get their music into BurnLounge because I believe its a great way for artists to engage their fans, and earn income which can help them in their music mission.
If I didnt think BurnLounge was a good thing, I wouldnt be honking it.
Its all good.
All of these sites are tools which are changing the industry.. the more we can help artists reach their fans the better.
We direct people from Indieheaven over to our IndieBurner Store to purchase singles for downloads since we do not offer that on Indieheaven.
We are seeing about 5 million hits and 30,000 unique visitors per month to Indieheaven..
To indieheaven or to indieheaven's burnlounge store? That's an impressive number.
I was clarifying that I wasn't picking a fight because tone isn't detectable in type and I realized my words alone could cause you to question the intent and attitude behind them. I do know you and I like what you guys do very much. It's tremendous service to indies. And thanks for sharing what you know about burnlounge. I'm just not convinced it's a great thing yet.
How do you get indie music into the burnlounge store? They mention nothing about that on their site - at least in what I read - but they hype having major label artists there while many many of the major labels artists I want to buy are absent. Odd. Very small selection compared to iTunes and Rhapsody and almost nothing in the "Inspirational" category. (And what's with requiring people to use IE??)
SG
No problemo Shaun, and thanks for the kind words about Indieheaven. We do our best to serve the artists who believe in our organization.
Those numbers are to our Indieheaven site.. But we have a small banner on each artist page directing surfers over to our BurnLounge store if they want to purchase singles from artists we have on Indieheaven and who have taken time to submit ther music to burnlounge. Not all artists on Indieheaven have their music on BurnLounge.. It's taking some time for them to ingest all the music submitted. Its not as bad as getting your music into i-tunes from what I hear.
Its easy to submit your music. I have a few docs for you and others to preview.
Info on their indie artist program
http://www.indieburner.com/docs/artistinfo.pdf
Form for submitting indie music.
http://www.indieburner.com/docs/artist_license.pdf
Glad to be of assistance to you.
Concerning numbers of songs and artists.. BurnLounge is still in Beta.. they are still building their library..Im sure when i-tunes ramped up it took some time to get to where they are.
Concerning requiring Internet Explorer.. I use Firefox and it works fine. Keep in mind, the vast majority of computer users use IE. Safari.. not many.. Firefox.. gaining ground but still nowhere near as many.
We'll see what happens as they work towards an official launch.. I compare BL to Google.. Sure wish I would have invest in Google early on.. But everyone thought.. there's no way in hades they would be bigger than Yahoo.
Jobs and i-tunes is king today.. but I have a feeling when the labels renegotiate their licenses there may be some who do not renew. Who knows? All I do know is that the next 12-24 months will be a great time to be an independent artist, especially if you work it hard.
i side with iTunes as well... if for no other reason, but that iTunes markets itself much more aggressively and effictively than i'd EVER be able to market "my own personal" store, burnlounge or otherwise...
Plus, if i wanted to take the time out and do it, i could easily create a storefront using iTunes links to albums that i'd like to highlight, album covers, the whole nine yards... and i could market that as a gateway to iTunes... and the name iTunes weighs much heavier to the consumer than burnlounge does...
peace... love... bdg...
The iTunes affiliate program has actually been available through LinkShare (a company that offers affiliate programs with a ton of different companies) for quite a while.
I love Apple and Itunes, but I have to be honest, their affiliate program is not comparable to what BURNLOUNGE is offering the people.
Burnlounge has alot up their sleeve that people may not be aware of. People who make their ignorant comments against Burnlounge have not done their research.
Right now, Burnlounge may not be comparable to Itunes because it is only in BETA form - they are updating their content everyday. They will have all the same content that Itunes has and more. Itunes rejected content in Asia, South America and other parts of the world - Burnlounge isn't.
They are also allowing independent artist to upload their content FOR FREE and make $5-7 an album, which is the first time in music history that an artist can profit this greatly without a record deal. They can send their fans to THEIR store and not only profit from their album sales, but also from the sales of other artists. Itunes can't even come close to matching that.
Burnlounge knows that there is a fan base for everything and they will have the LARGEST MUSIC CATALOG in the world. They will also have movies, ringtones, concert tickets, merchandise, TV shows, music videos - it will be a complete multi-media store. Remember, Burnlounge hasn't even launched yet!
Another thing people may not understand, is the big profit is not in your store's sales, but rather in building distribution - Building teams, that build teams and profiting from their sales as well your own. It's a team effort.
Think of it like franchising a 7 Eleven - getting paid to help entrepreneurs open stores on every street corner, and then getting paid royalties off your store's sales, as well as your team's sales. Itunes is not giving this opportunity to the people.
Rather than spending millions on advertising, like Itunes, Burnlounge is paying the people to "spread the word". Why feed the pockets of Itunes, when you can feed the pocket's of your friends and family? It's all about creating loyalty with your customers through relationships.
Every heard of MYSPACE.com??? This site never spent a dollar on commercials and advertising - they build a network of 67 million people through word of mouth. Burnlounge is using the same approach.
I love what the company is doing for the entrepreneurs, the artists and the fans. Everyone benefits from Burnlounge and I support it completely, even though I am an Apple user.
Rick Dees, Carson Daily, Microsoft and American Express would not get involved with Burnlounge unless they saw the potential. This company already has 17,000 retailers in 20 weeks. It's spreading virally. By next year, there will be a million retailers and Burnlounge will be a houselhold name - WATCH - You'll see!
If you want to learn more about the Burnlounge business opportunity, go www.rememberitoldyouso.com
So I have been reading alot on both sides of the issue...and I have not seen much mentioned about Burnlounge downloads not being able to be played on an ipod.
see their FAQ:
Before transferring your BurnLounge™ music to your portable audio device, make sure that your device is approved for Windows media. To view a list of approved devices, please visit www.playsforsure.com or check the packaging of the device.
this seems like a fatal flaw to me, to exclue ipods. also, the pitch to open a burnlounge store is that you get commission on sales. Well, the more that this happens, the pool of buyers starts to get watered down. Eventually, if this catches on, you will be propositioned by several people to buy from THEIR site. Just seems to me that, like all multi-level-marketing, unless you get in on top, the chances of making any money are slim. Can anyone shed some light on these issues? I am only a few hours into reading as much as I can on the issue.
I was contacted yesterday
about Burn Lounge on Deemed Useless's myspace account. It all looked like a pyramid scheme at first.... Now I'm not sure
~Bob~
The whole thing makes me laugh... Everybody says "I want only ground floor opportunities". Well... every last ground floor opportunity has growing pains, bugs and hurdles to jump! After it is perfected (or close to), after it is known worldwide as a respected source or project, it is no longer ground floor... period. Nobody knew or wanted a piece of Bill Gates at one point, same with Google, the Pet Rock and the Pop-top. Yes Apple has 3.8% of the market, sorry... I'm putting my money on the 87% market that use PC. Even Mr. Gates is attempting to own 15% of BurnLounge, and in the same breathe "Vista" and the new office group has been delayed again... Hmmmm wonder if there is going to be a connection?
Marketing for traffic? You are absolutely right, your BurnLounge store has to be marketed elsewhere on a big fashion linking to your BL store. Another thought... when Opra and the like open their mouth on TV and say the word "BurnLounge" for the first time, you better have your marketing game in play online. With most Network Marketing, if someone drops out it creates a void... not with BurnLounge, it compresses up... This is a no-brainer, but "Ground Floor" means you go through the trials and tribulations with them! In closing... where can you find a state of the art website like BurnLounge for $445, and if you know of a CPA or office manager I can hire for only $14.95 per month, please let me know. Craig
BurnLounge IS the next itunes. When itunes/ipod came out why would anybody want that? You mean if i download music from itunes, I can only listen to it on an ipod? That's terrible...but they marketed and they blew up.. With BurnLounge, you can listen to your music on any mp3 player, including an ipod (which requires an additional step). The reality is that people are always looking for the next new device..the new ipod or whatever. BurnLounge will have BurnPods and all kinds of marketing...people will want in..go to www.myspace.com/digitaljim to find out more about the business..or burnlounge.com/digitaljim
Seems a lot of people are confused about just how Everyone on a team, Yes Team can make monies by having a Burnlounge Store. Word of mouth is the way its going right now because of it being in the Beta Phase. This will be over as of early June and they will be totally live.
I found the Greatest web site for telling the whole story and just how the program works.
Visit
mjkmediagroup.com
I know all your questions about where Burnlounge is going will be answered.
Of course if you want to visit MY STORE its
http://www.burnlounge.com/fillysmusic
Got to tell you folks, BurnLounge is Most Certainly the next HUGE thing in digital media! Launch party going on right now in Atlanta for BL2!!! BurnPages rule!
BL2 Rules! BL2 will be released on Monday 04.16.2007
iTunes? Without the iPod, itunes is just another boring application that locks you into the Apple Death Claws.
Seriously, if you have not seen the new BL2 application...check it out on Monday!
Support The Artists!
BurnLoungeCity
http://www.myspace.com/burnloungecity
http://www.myspace.com/burnloungecity
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