You know, when Disc Makers took over the helm at CD Baby, I have to admit I was somewhat nervous about the change. CD Baby was such a fantastic "little" independent music store, and there was a sense that, in a way, CD Baby belonged to the musicians who sold their music there.
I feared that Disc Makers takeover would change all that. That CD Baby would transform into something more "corporate"-ish. That it would lose the sense of belonging to the artists. That it would be "used" as a prop by Disc Makers for the purpose of soliciting more manufacturing business from independent artists.
I am happy to say I was wrong.
One of the first things Disc Makers did was change the look and feel of the CD Baby web site. I never really felt it needed changed, but once it happened, I realized how static the old look had seemed. The new look is stylish, current and happening. There is a definitely "cool factor" with the new design that surpassed what was there before. The new design, to me, made it vastly more appealing to just browse and discover new music.
So even with just the design change, Disc Makers had begun to win me over.
And then I received an email from CD Baby today talking about all the new changes in the works. I am excited. Really excited.
CD Baby is reinventing itself, and doing so in a major way to the benefit of its artists.
Here's an excerpt from the email that came from CD Baby today...
"...We've made progress, and there's a lot of work left to do. We intend to introduce new features for artists to make it easier to work with CD Baby, like an uploader so you can just upload your new music instead of having to send in a CD. We also want to introduce single song downloads, merch, and download cards. And we plan to add some exciting features to the album pages to create a more rewarding shopping experience for our customers. Many of these improvements involve significant programming, and will be rolled out around mid-2009. They're all geared to helping you sell more music, and making sure you get more value from your CD Baby membership."
The ability to sell merch? single downloads? Fantastic!
I am pleased, very pleased, because it seems that CD Baby development is moving again, and quickly too. CD Baby feels "alive" again. I never realized how static it had become until now.
Thank you, Disc Makers. You have taken something already great and made it even better. I can't wait to see what you do in 2009 and 2010.
David Nevue
http://www.musicbizacademy.com
http://www.twitter.com/davidnevue
http://www.davidnevue.com
Thursday, January 15, 2009
CD Baby: Coming to Life Again...
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5 comments:
Excellent post as usual David. But Disc Makers and other companies like them will probably be obsolete in a few years unless they change.
And it looks like Disc Makers is doing just that. It will soon be ALL digital.
I am glad to hear that things may be turning around at CD Baby.
The transition was not an easy one.
David,
They are also making it easier on smaller artist-driven networking sites to incorporate CDs being sold as an upsell. I am currently doing this for participating artists on my Web site, AvenueHiFi.com. I'm just basically pulling the artist's CD from CDBaby.com and doing a little formatting magic. I've been able to create a master list as well as integrate each artist's CDs into their profile.
You can check it out here » http://www.avenuehifi.com/cdbaby.cfm
nice post thanks for haring with us
SORRY to say Awful - cheap - lousy- dishonest- I used to think the world of cdbaby but after the change I left only to find out that after 6 months of being gone my albums show up via cdbaby outlets. Come on how much money does it take to get something right not to mention people who cant write concise english. I am sorry it is like Forrest Gump.
I cant handle it when my vendors screw up so bad sorry.
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