Back-end digital ROI with Avril Lavingne

Chris Anderson wrote about it in an amazing and forward looking article in Wired magazine that talked about the economy of free, specifically "freekonomics", where you provide some part or component of your brand or media to the consumer for free, hoping that they will purchase a premium part for a fee.

Avril Lavingne is one artist who says that she has received upwards of 2 million in revenue (her cut would of been much less after songwriters, composers, etc...), which shows that artists of all kinds have an opportunity to be entrepreneurial and increase revenue by in some ways incorporating the basis of what Chris Anderson was talking about. Provide something for free and sell on the back-end, a premise that goes back to Gillette amongst others.

This model shows promise for many musical artists or publishers that their is revenue potential after a huge drop in recored sales, and the record industries major reluctance to not embrace Napster/P2P as a new way to distribute music.

This shows that a "free" model works for music with the right partners, but it also shows that people are willing to pay for something that they want if some part of it is for free.

4 out 5 aint bad!

Showcasing what many people have looked at and said for many years, peole are willing to sit through ads for videos that they like. What has been known for awhile in terms of peoples willingness to sit through ads to watch premium TV or film content, but this survey goes one step further and looks at if people are willing to sit through UGC content for ads as well, and only 4 out of 10 people say yes, compared with 8 out of 10 for premium. Shows that diversification is the key to maintaining and growing sites like YouTube.