hi! i have had this as a working draft in my iphone notes app for the last week or so and i finally think it’s too unwieldy and i just need to share it lol, so here goes:
resonate ideas //
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leveraging the ideas behind Community Credentials and this post by @nphilmasiakowski, artists should be granted the ability to generate free or near-free download codes for selected works. specifically to to rival bandcamp’s current stranglehold on this. this would get listeners redeeming downloads on resonate (they OWN their DLs once redeeming. some ppl might take them and abandon the platform, but surely a % will stay and resonate the co-op and resonate the platform will grow and benefit from this over time). obviously this would need to be approved and initiated by an artist on the platform. currently, on Bandcamp, download codes cost money or credits which you earn 1,000 of for every $500 in sales you do (so for higher volume selling accounts that do a lot of sales, credits usually can cover the expense). but otherwise, they are—i believe—2¢ a code (i need to fact check this). regardless, there is a cost. if possible: make it so there’s no cost on resonate so that artists will create them here. for listeners, a redeemed download code == listening to a track on resonate on their 10th listen (that is to say, free, they own it). for artists, that’s a new follower and advocate of their music on a platform that pays them fairly. based on what i’ve seen with Community Credentials implementation so far, this is also a new follower on the platform that the artist can then engage with and vice versa. eventually, it’d be cool to maybe give more control over the look of these DL codes and create pdf printable codes that look awesome so artists will be encouraged to customize and print them for use in vinyl records, cassettes, or even as standalone merch items themselves. this could potentially get download cards into the hands of thousands of listeners for even just a single artist. the label i run—topshelfrecords.com, for example—creates hundreds of thousands of Bandcamp download codes a year in this way for us and our artist roster. if resonate created a way for me to generate and use codes that worked in a similar manner, i would absolutely consider switching and i think i’m not alone in that sentiment.
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public API. but specifically something offering endpoints to allow a third party (read: me and other developers in the topshelf discord server that are interested in helping) to build an app that can assist artists and labels that have substantial catalog to bulk ingest their titles on to resonate (if you can divulge, i’d love to hear more specifics about the music uploader y’all are working on now—it’d be great to know what you’ll be wanting/needing from artists/labels for ingesting, and also, i think it’d be cool to consider artist/label input on that as well fwiw). Making it easy to add existing catalog—to BULK add catalog would be a huge win for growing the platform and artists, and definitely labels to join.
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adopt a metadata standard. COALA IP? Forgive me if y’all already have this sorted, I couldn’t find anything—I’m curious what the standard is currently though!
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i think this is happening to some degree, but i think there’s room to lean into it more: challenge current systems more by presenting resonate as a viable—THE—viable alternative! draw attention to artists on your platform on socials. lean into successes. lean into off-platform successes artists using resonate are having (like i know Lorraine James is on here and has had some p4k love for example, that kinda stuff can be echo’d while also mentioning/linking to their work on resonate). if you are sharing these sorts of things on socials adeptly, artists will want to echo your sentiments and share as well. Bandcamp Friday is a thing for a reason. People really are trying to support and connect directly with artists! We should be rallying people to take the altruism that they approach BC Fridays with and apply that to all the time, like, as the standard. the standard they can mutually share in and take part in and shape. people do not know this is what resonate is about and they need to hear why resonate is different—especially if that comes from artists and labels. we need to get people excited in the idea that by investing our collective attention in co-ops, web3 dapps, and community-driven protocols/platforms that embrace this new paradigm, that we can build a better model for music and countless other niches. We need to be letting people know the alternatives exist ALL THE TIME NOW, not ~the far off future~, not just the first Friday of the month, and not at a fixed .00X per stream (now with ~payola!). It’s here now if we make it!! People want to support musicians in sustainable ways now more than ever, but the experience to do so needs to be viable and frictionless, and the incentive to do so compelling enough to leave what already “works” for them. I feel like resonate isn’t quite there but is knocking loudly at the door and that has me really excited!! this leads me to my next points which center on incentivizing fans, artists (or, let’s also more broadly say “master recording rights holders”) to show up, stay, and keep coming back:
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down the line (maybe sooner than later though?): give listeners the tools to create user-created playlists with minimal friction. these can be automated to start, even (“liked” tracks, purchased/owned tracks). highlight and feature user curation where possible within player / resonate site. a bonus would be if they were embeddable, but wouldn’t play a song more than 1x unless you had an account and were logged in. allow people to follow each other. the homepage can then be a mixed feed of resonate-curated content, but also content from artists / labels / curators / peers that a listener also follows. i mean tbh, this was the myspace secret sauce lol—people routinely came back to the watering hole. i think this would make for a more compelling homepage experience and would personally have me returning to see what’s new from the entities I have specifically chosen to follow (this is important imo) along with thoughtful curation from resonate staff. this should be the logged in home experience imo! for me, this logically goes to:
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should curators be incentivized with credits or some other reward mechanism for how much they bring success to an artist? to incentivize people sharing music? howevvvvverrr, see also: COULD THIS BE ABUSED? Could this create an undesirable outcome or unforeseen and unintended financial component to listening on resonate? but if so, does that even matter since if the co-op identifies this as bad, shouldn’t they vote appropriately to dismantle/augment/deter it? idk! i think it’s a cool idea, but needs more thought. but i think it could be a great way to incentivize people to join because, “hey, while you’re over there paying $12.99/mo to rent music, over here we’re listening to own music and earning alongside artists when we take part in their successes”. that’s a message that would turn heads (and ~resonate~ with people, even).
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down the line: editorial component? need to be mindful of maintaining credibility and not exposing the platform and writers to conflicts of interest/bias/etc.
that’s it for now lol. i’m sorry if i come across as just barging in here on my second post lol! i promise i have thoughtfully read/lurked a ton of the posts in here before i decided to jump into the discussion myself. this is coming from a place of excitement and hopefully reading in a way that comes across as building upon existing ideas and discourse that have thoughtfully taken place already here.
tl;dr: i have some ideas and want to help advocate for resonate!! i genuinely think every independent artist and label that’s currently clamoring to sing the praises of Bandcamp while simultaneously running the spotify and Apple Music rat race to the bottom needs to be kicking the tires on resonate (pls note: not to take anything away from BC, i love them and think they’re a fantastic company—but still a commmmmmpannnnnnnyyyyy~). i would like to use the modest platform and standing i have been afforded with my label to rally music peers and followers to join. a big part of that would be giving artists and labels the tools to make adding their music (audio/art/metadata) to resonate as frictionless as possible.
thanks for reading and for any dialogue that comes from this!! <3