It’s easier to be first (and good) than to be better
“A Minnow on a Mission” - that’s a mighty odd title for a blog about the environment and vegetarian cooking, you’re probably thinking. Actually, the original intention was to blog about the online music community we’re starting, Flukebox. But as I have a habit of doing, I got distracted by all manner of other things.
That’s not to suggest that nothing’s been happening in Flukebox land. A little while back, Last.fm’s added two of our key features, downloads and concert listings, to their service. Then one of most enthusiastic and knowledgeable supporters, Andrew Dubber, wrote a blog post that wished our service a “swift and inexpensive failure” - with the smallest of get-out clauses in case I started crying. These, and a few developments from other competitors, made me increasingly worried that perhaps we risked being a small fish in an overcrowded pond. A quick look at some of the biggest Internet success stories in recent years (Amazon, eBay, Skype, etc.) shows that not only did they do something well, they also got established before anyone else had come up with something worth using. So, after a week of feeling decidedly moody and angrily throwing lots of ideas in the bin, I’ve emerged with a new plan.
Flukebox was always a reaction to two technologically-driven trends:
- the reducing cost of digital recording technologies are encouraging more people to record high-quality music
- the Internet is making it practically free to distribute music and is changing patterns and methods of consumption
Just like everybody else, we were focusing mainly on the latter trend and just accepting that the first would provide the raw material for our service. But why? Many musicians make music for the fun of it and don’t really care if anybody hears it or not. A bit like the way I write this blog as a way of getting my thoughts straight and keeping a diary, and am pleasantly surprised when I find somebody has actually read it.
A quick and informal survey reveals that people are mostly just using email and discussion forums to collaborate with other musicians online - if at all. Surely we can do better than that? Making music is different in several important ways - so why do we basically only have tools for doing it on a single computer? Why is there no proper online community for musicians?
Why indeed.
