4 ms·

Being from Japan, I have a few thoughts in this area: * A significant percentage of music is still only available on CD, and not in digital media. Until recent

by kohsuke 12y ago

Being from Japan, I have a few thoughts in this area: * A significant percentage of music is still only available on CD, and not in digital media. Until recently, music from one company (say Sony) was only available from their digital music store, which had their own player app with their own DRM. These things create significant inconvenience to the consumers, hindering the adoption of digital music. * The music industry in Japan came up with a brilliant business model that enabled them to sell the same CD multiple times to the same consumer, basically by bundling a ticket to each CD. Sometimes a single ticket grants you one vote, sometimes you get one piece of (say 12) tickets randomly and you need to complete all 12 pieces to get something. This forces loyal fans to buy 10s and sometimes 100s of the same CD. It's not like people are carrying around portable CD players any more, so these factors obviously creates a rapidly diminishing music fan base. I still hope that eventually the decline in the CD business will force the industry to wholy embrace the digial music, but I'm not holding my breath.

josu 12y ago
>The music industry in Japan came up with a brilliant business model that enabled them to sell the same CD multiple times to the same consumer, basically by bundling a ticket to each CD. Sometimes a single ticket grants you one vote, sometimes you get one piece of (say 12) tickets randomly and you need to complete all 12 pieces to get something. This forces loyal fans to buy 10s and sometimes 100s of the same CD. I don't understand what you mean by tickets and votes. It sounds really interesting, and I'd be grateful if you could elaborate.
- treme 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48 Basically every "season", fans get to vote on their favorite member of huge roaster-pop group that J-pop has pioneered. "The group has publicized special events to choose the promotional and recording lineups for some of its singles.[191] In 2009, the concept of sōsenkyo (総選挙?, "general elections") was introduced.[19] To obtain a ballot, voters must purchase the group's latest "election single."[192] Members who receive the most votes will participate in the recording of AKB48's next single[19] and are heavily promoted,[5] with the top vote-getter the centerpiece of the group's live performances.[191][192] Votes in the 2011 election exceeded one million, and the single "Everyday, Katyusha" (which contained a ballot for the election) set a Japanese record for weekly sales of a CD single.[193] The 2012 election had nearly 1.4 million votes,[191] and the 2013 election had 2.6 million votes.[194] Fans have reportedly bought hundreds (or thousands) of copies of singles to vote for their favorite members."
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    What's interesting is that each physical copy of Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989, includes 1 of 5 possible sets of 13 polaroids[0], and it's set to have the biggest sales week (in the US, presumably) of any album since 2002[1]. I wonder if she didn't steal this idea from AKB48. 0: https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/526459191826079744 https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/526459191826079744 1: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6304336/taylor-swift-1989-biggest-sales-week-since-2002 http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6304336...
    - carussell 12y ago
      Seems even closer to what Pearl Jam did for their 1996 album. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Code#Packaging_and_title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Code#Packaging_and_title
- miahi 12y ago
  It's about idol groups (big groups of singers/dancers, usually girls), where fans can vote the singer that gets the most attention[1], who represents the group at different occasions or who will join next. Because the votes are usually tied to a CD, the logistics of crazy fans can be complex, as they buy cartloads[2]. [1] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/07/01/language/voting-for-idols-is-bigger-than-politics/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/07/01/language/voting-... [2] http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/22/akb48-fan-shows-his-love-the-only-way-he-knows-how-by-buying-300000-worth-of-cds/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/22/akb48-fan-shows-his-lo...
  - mturmon 12y ago
    Thanks for explaining. It's crazy, but on some level I have to admire it. They found a way to extract the hidden value of the long tail of super-fans. It's like the "whales" in gaming that spend huge amounts to buy various extras.
- slillibri 12y ago
  The voting is something unique (I think) to AKB48, where for the last 6 years they have an annual event where fans get to vote for which performers will be in the singles. I believe in the last election there were 200+ participants, including all the '48' family groups and training members. http://stage48.net/wiki/index.php/Senbatsu_Election http://stage48.net/wiki/index.php/Senbatsu_Election The tickets usually refer to hand-shake events where you can meet and shake hands with members of the group. Another hook is including different DVDs in each of several versions of a single, for example Making of videos, close up versions of the video, dance versions, etc. I have seen up to 6 different versions of the same single.
- minikomi 12y ago
  Looking at the number of votes - y axis - on this visualization I made might giv you some sense of how much the volumes involved in this tactic have changed. It's big business. http://poyo.co/d3stuff/akb/ http://poyo.co/d3stuff/akb/
hrktb 12y ago
Sony was the big elephant in the room when talking about digital music. Is it 3 or 4 years now since they cave in and started to distribute through iTunes as well ? The same phenomenon is going on for ebooks, where it's still heavily balkanised but it's clear the eventually most of the stores will go down and ignoring the biggest players (Amazon I guess ?) won't make sense. I think the bets are still off concerning DVD/BD distribution, as they are still used to balance the profits on TV series for instance. On this front it's funny to see a very small number of production companies tipping their toes in crowdfunding (and being pushed to use kickstarter for instance...) to see if it would work for them.
Pengwin 12y ago
As an avid listener to K-Pop and j-Pop, i regularly buy the CDs. The Japanese have this idea of "fan service" executed better than the western media outlets. A regular CD from most western music artists contains a jewel case, maybe a sleeve with a few copyrights, and the CD. The last J-pop album I bought contained a CD, DVD, 30 or so page picture book, and stickers. Often where i buy these cds from they also throw in posters. Its a far more fun experience.

by kohsuke 12y ago

josu 12y ago

>The music industry in Japan came up with a brilliant business model that enabled them to sell the same CD multiple times to the same consumer, basically by bundling a ticket to each CD. Sometimes a single ticket grants you one vote, sometimes you get one piece of (say 12) tickets randomly and you need to complete all 12 pieces to get something. This forces loyal fans to buy 10s and sometimes 100s of the same CD. I don't understand what you mean by tickets and votes. It sounds really interesting, and I'd be grateful if you could elaborate.

treme 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48 Basically every "season", fans get to vote on their favorite member of huge roaster-pop group that J-pop has pioneered. "The group has publicized special events to choose the promotional and recording lineups for some of its singles.[191] In 2009, the concept of sōsenkyo (総選挙?, "general elections") was introduced.[19] To obtain a ballot, voters must purchase the group's latest "election single."[192] Members who receive the most votes will participate in the recording of AKB48's next single[19] and are heavily promoted,[5] with the top vote-getter the centerpiece of the group's live performances.[191][192] Votes in the 2011 election exceeded one million, and the single "Everyday, Katyusha" (which contained a ballot for the election) set a Japanese record for weekly sales of a CD single.[193] The 2012 election had nearly 1.4 million votes,[191] and the 2013 election had 2.6 million votes.[194] Fans have reportedly bought hundreds (or thousands) of copies of singles to vote for their favorite members."
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  What's interesting is that each physical copy of Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989, includes 1 of 5 possible sets of 13 polaroids[0], and it's set to have the biggest sales week (in the US, presumably) of any album since 2002[1]. I wonder if she didn't steal this idea from AKB48. 0: https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/526459191826079744 https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/526459191826079744 1: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6304336/taylor-swift-1989-biggest-sales-week-since-2002 http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6304336...
  - carussell 12y ago
    Seems even closer to what Pearl Jam did for their 1996 album. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Code#Packaging_and_title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Code#Packaging_and_title
miahi 12y ago
It's about idol groups (big groups of singers/dancers, usually girls), where fans can vote the singer that gets the most attention[1], who represents the group at different occasions or who will join next. Because the votes are usually tied to a CD, the logistics of crazy fans can be complex, as they buy cartloads[2]. [1] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/07/01/language/voting-for-idols-is-bigger-than-politics/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/07/01/language/voting-... [2] http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/22/akb48-fan-shows-his-love-the-only-way-he-knows-how-by-buying-300000-worth-of-cds/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/05/22/akb48-fan-shows-his-lo...
- mturmon 12y ago
  Thanks for explaining. It's crazy, but on some level I have to admire it. They found a way to extract the hidden value of the long tail of super-fans. It's like the "whales" in gaming that spend huge amounts to buy various extras.
slillibri 12y ago
The voting is something unique (I think) to AKB48, where for the last 6 years they have an annual event where fans get to vote for which performers will be in the singles. I believe in the last election there were 200+ participants, including all the '48' family groups and training members. http://stage48.net/wiki/index.php/Senbatsu_Election http://stage48.net/wiki/index.php/Senbatsu_Election The tickets usually refer to hand-shake events where you can meet and shake hands with members of the group. Another hook is including different DVDs in each of several versions of a single, for example Making of videos, close up versions of the video, dance versions, etc. I have seen up to 6 different versions of the same single.
minikomi 12y ago
Looking at the number of votes - y axis - on this visualization I made might giv you some sense of how much the volumes involved in this tactic have changed. It's big business. http://poyo.co/d3stuff/akb/ http://poyo.co/d3stuff/akb/

hrktb 12y ago

Sony was the big elephant in the room when talking about digital music. Is it 3 or 4 years now since they cave in and started to distribute through iTunes as well ? The same phenomenon is going on for ebooks, where it's still heavily balkanised but it's clear the eventually most of the stores will go down and ignoring the biggest players (Amazon I guess ?) won't make sense. I think the bets are still off concerning DVD/BD distribution, as they are still used to balance the profits on TV series for instance. On this front it's funny to see a very small number of production companies tipping their toes in crowdfunding (and being pushed to use kickstarter for instance...) to see if it would work for them.

Pengwin 12y ago

As an avid listener to K-Pop and j-Pop, i regularly buy the CDs. The Japanese have this idea of "fan service" executed better than the western media outlets. A regular CD from most western music artists contains a jewel case, maybe a sleeve with a few copyrights, and the CD. The last J-pop album I bought contained a CD, DVD, 30 or so page picture book, and stickers. Often where i buy these cds from they also throw in posters. Its a far more fun experience.