Nimbit, CD Baby, etc.

[msmeritt]

I just learned yesterday about Nimbit -- http://www.nimbit.com/

This seems like a really compelling place to work with for indie musicians putting out content, most notably because of:

1) Higher % of $ to artist for physicals CDs and downloads when compared to CD Baby

2) The "nimbitOMT," which is an incredible little widget that basically allow you -- or your fans, or anybody else -- to put your music up for sale pretty much anywhere online with a little HTML code snippet. This seems an incredible step in terms of viral marketing.

... among other interesting things as well which will be of more or less interesting depending on the artist/situation.

Does anybody have any experience with Nimbit or any notions of how one might take advantage of both Nimbit and CD Baby along with any other particular outlets for independent music distribution, coordinating for optimal advantage?

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Nimbit seems to be the best I've found so far and I'm signed up. The only issue I can see so far is that since it's DRM free (unprotected) and that they give the purchaser 30 days to download your music I guess people could share the links with their friends and download your music for free. What's your take on that?

[msmeritt]

I haven't actually signed up yet, since I don't have a CD quite ready yet, so I don't really know. But since it's no DRM, those people could just as easily share the files with their friends anyway, so I'm not sure there's necessarily any much more concern about sharing links leading to more pirating than would otherwise happen. An interesting point, though, who knows.

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

I haven't actually signed up yet, since I don't have a CD quite ready yet, so I don't really know. But since it's no DRM, those people could just as easily share the files with their friends anyway, so I'm not sure there's necessarily any much more concern about sharing links leading to more pirating than would otherwise happen. An interesting point, though, who knows.

Good point.

[johnnytucats]

Another option for digital distro is Tunecore, which has been up and running for a while.

I visited the Nimbit site and some of the pages were hanging on me. I hate that.

[msmeritt]

I'd heard of Tunecore, definitely interesting. 100% is great, too, just like Nimbit, though Nimbit seems to have fewer fees than Tunecore. Hanging pages are a bummer, but I wouldn't rule Nimbit out on that basis. I also like that DigStation is free for a year with Oasis manufacturing and then just $9/year after, and 100% goes to you there, too.

[msmeritt]

Gosh, things get more and more complicated. Talking to one of the marketing people at CD Baby, he mentioned that they are looking to develop their own widget, and in the meantime he pointed me to http://www.gydget.com/ and http://www.fizzkicks.com/ -- crazy just how many options there really are out there for distribution, downloads and widgets.

On one hand, I think it probably a good idea to distribute widely. However, when it comes to widgets, it seems like it's a good idea to back very few or ideally just one, because you're going to put something up and encourage fans to grab it and post it elsewhere, so it's going to generate traffic, and it may as well be generating it toward the outlet you really want. That's going to be a choice made, I'd imagine, based on optimizing net revenue and whatever other features seem useful, e.g., news feeds, mailing list signup, etc.

So difficult