May 23, 2024

Don’t @ Me, Bro: Why Your Email Opt-Out Page Sucks (and How to Fix It)

I continue to be amazed at the fact that large emailers (brands, retailers, etc..) will spend so much money and effort on their email marketing program but not be bothered to create a decent email preference center. Given that email continues to be one of the most important messaging channels brands have, you’d think this would be worth the relatively small investment of time and money.

I know I’m probably in the minority since I used to spend a lot of time actually building and customizing these types of pages, but the default, out-of-the-box solution provided by your email marketing platforms is just NOT a good look.

“But wait, those people are unsubscribing, so why not just let them leave? Why worry about them at that point?”

Because it’s your brand and reputation; you should provide a great experience no matter what the user is doing! And hey, maybe if you’re nice, unique or interesting enough, they’ll come back someday. On the flip side, if you treat them like “lowly, unsubscribing jerks” on their way off your list, then that’s one more reason they won’t ever come back.
Also, maybe they just want to reduce the amount of emails they get from you? This is what we call “opting down” and it’s more common than you think. Ask yourself this…how many brands do you buy something from and truly want to get an email from every single day? Not that many, right? Ok, so maybe give them another option somewhere between “EMAIL IN YOUR INBOX EVERY SINGLE DAY” and “NO SOUP (email) FOR YOU!”

Mmmm, “email soup.” That’s a fun term.

Ok, so if you’re liking where this “tough love” approach is going, then read on for some friendlier suggestions to provide a better email preference center experience:

First off, just have an actual email preference center (not only an optout page); it’s amazing to me how many larger brands just let people opt out without even trying to save them.
Take the time to brand the page and make it a bit different than the cookie-cutter option provided by your ESP. It does not need a ton of extra flair, but just slapping a logo on a page without any other changes is pretty lame.
Allow ways for your subscribers to “opt down” to a lesser frequency (e.g. “want to hear from us weekly instead of daily?”).
Incentivize users to stay subscribed in some way, but don’t make it a pain to opt out (I have seen any manner of tricks for obfuscating the opt out option; these attempts to make it harder to unsubscribe don’t actually stop people from unsubscribing but they do piss them off)
If you’re offering options to reduce frequency or make changes, it sort of goes without saying that those changes need to actually work and take affect in your mailings (I tried opting down for mailings from Section119.com — which uses Klaviyo — but they just never worked and I have had to unsubscribe entirely…sad!)
Nice-to-have: Include a confirmation message tailored to the user’s response; if they opt down, you can thank them for staying on the list in some way (note that this probably requires some conditional logic and scripting, but most ESPs should have options for this)
Nice-to-have: speaking of tailoring the messages to the user, if someone is opting out, the confirmation page might be a place to offer them an incentive to stick around?

There are a couple other options to consider, but I don’t think these are quite as straight-forward in terms of the direct benefits:

a) Including a survey to capture their reasons for opting out

This type of optout form became super common as it is the default Mailchimp optout page/format. I think this can be useful for some brands if they actually do anything with the info they gather (other than ignore it, which is what most senders do)

b) Sending users back to your website

Some ESPs offer the option to automatically send users back to the brand homepage after x number of seconds. I think this is better than doing nothing, but I’d probably prefer the option of showing them a way to opt back in or to make additional changes rather than sending them back to the website (that is, unless you’ve got some sophisticated way of re-engaging those users on the site)

Technical Stuff

Now, for smaller brands and newsletters that are on low-cost email services, there are cases where having a full-blown preference center may not really be an option or make sense.

But, for everyone else, you really don’t have an excuse. If your ESP does not allow for some decent customizations to your optout page in order to make it a preference center, then it’s probably time to fine a new provider!

If you’ve got similar experiences, pet peeves or better suggestions, please add your thoughts.

Otherwise, happy preference centering!

p.s. I am officially open to consulting work in this space, so if you’d like some assistance with optout or preferences pages (including design, coding, implementation, etc…), please reach out to me: greyandgreendigital <at> gmail

January 15, 2014

Food Blog: Testing Out the “Ready to Prep” Food Delivery Service Blue Apron

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I love to cook. I consider it one of my greatest passions in life, along with music and tech. Given my love of food and technology (and my gradually evolving web development skills), I’ve started following the burgeoning “food tech” startup scene a lot more closely over the last year. I’ve been paying particular attention to some of the new delivery services such as Blue Apron and Plated (though some other food & tech startups I find interesting include: Food52, Tasting Table, and Farmivore).

I never really thought about using a service like Blue Apron because my wife tends to do most of our food shopping and I’m definitely one of those cooks that rarely follows a recipe unless I’m specifically trying something new or baking, which I don’t do that often. That’s mainly because I’ve been cooking since my late teens — my mother was a caterer — so I’ve spent most of my adult life cooking probably 80-90% of my meals each week. I love the process of creating a meal from scratch just about as much as I like eating the results.

However, I don’t really like the process of deciding what food to make, and I don’t particularly enjoy food shopping (I think I might find a crowded supermarket more stressful than having three burners and a grill going at the same time). So, having ready-to-prep meals delivered to my doorstep each week actually seemed like a good thing for me.

Well, as it happens, over the holidays a friend of ours sent us a nice little surprise: a one-time freebie from Blue Apron for a three-meal delivery. So, just like like that, we jumped into the ready-to-prep meal delivery startup scene to give it a try. Overall, I thought it was a good experience, but it definitely got me thinking about ways that it could be improved. As my brain kept churning, I conjured up enough thoughts that I decided I ought to write a blog post about it. So, I put on my chef’s hat and my Product Manager’s thinking cap and pieced together a few words…

THE FOOD:

Here’s a rundown of the recipes we made and a few comments on each one…

Cioppino-Inspired Pasta with Bay Scallops, Crusty Bread & Garlic Aioli

This one was tasty. The pasta sauce was bright and flavorful, the scallops were fresh, and I especially liked the use of fennel, which gave the sauce a nice texture and bite. My one question is why the bread with garlic aioli as a side? It was tasty, but I’d much rather have a salad or some kind of vegetable here.

Chopped Chicken, Bacon & Brussels Sprouts Salad with Blue Cheese, Currants & Sherry Vinaigrette

We liked this a lot. The mixture of ingredients brought out some great flavors, especially the sherry vinaigrette. One suggestion is that instead of escarole I think this might work better with spinach or mixed greens.

Roast Beef with Horseradish Sour Cream & Grilled Treviso

This looked great, but we actually decided to hold off on making this one because we’d already had so much roast beef during that week of holiday dinners with the fam. We ended up using most of the ingredients elsewhere, and the beef is in the freezer for another day.

Seared Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Roasted Carrot, Avocado & Orange Salad over Farro

This was probably our favorite of the bunch. The pork was tender and the spices were just right. The citrus/avocado salad was a really nice pairing for the pork. Great stuff!

Spicy Cod Puttanesca Pasta with Spaghettini & Pickled Cauliflower

This one was decent, but it lacked a little flavor (probably due to shorter cooking time for a red sauce and having cod as the “main event”). I also really didn’t understand the choice of pickled cauliflower as the side for a quick meal. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but it was a lot better the next day after some more pickling time. I’d have preferred a quick green salad or maybe even some more veggies in the sauce as an alternative.

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Hominy, Avocado & Queso Fresco

This one was also pretty solid. Without all the condiments, it didn’t really work, but with the avocado, tortillas and queso fresco, it perked up quite nicely. I’d have liked a better avocado and some more sides to compliment the leftovers, but this was still a decent selection.

~~~

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:

After two rounds of meals, here’s what I saw as some of the pros and cons…

THE PROS:

1) DELIVERY

(convenience #1) — In general, what I enjoyed most was having our ingredients delivered to us as ready-to-prep meals. That saved us a bunch of time shopping and spared me the pain of having to decide what to make each night.

2) READY-TO-PREP

(convenience #2) — even though I still needed to do the actual cooking, having everything set up for me in advance, in the correct portions, and with a well-written recipe/guide was all a bit of a mental time-saver. I didn’t have to stare at our fridge or fret about missing one or two key ingredients as I often do when I normally cook.

3) DISCOVERING NEW RECIPES, NEW INGREDIENTS AND NEW COMBINATIONS

(bonus) — I didn’t really think about this one beforehand, so this was a nice added value. There were a few true keepers, so I held onto those recipe cards and plan to make them again someday.

THE CONS:

1) LACK OF CHOICE

Blue Apron offers some basic choices/guidelines (e.g. vegetarian vs. carnivore), but overall, they pretty much dictate what you’ll be eating in a given week (of course, this is by design and is part of the model that allows them to scale up and serve lots of different customers and at decent prices).

2) STILL HAVE TO SHOP FOR THE IN-BETWEEN MEALS

While the deliveries certainly save time and provide convenience, the service doesn’t fully replace your other shopping if you want to cover lunch, breakfast, snacks, etc… I don’t think this is that big a deal, but it does diminish one of the key pros from above.

3) THE PACKAGING AND WASTE

There’s just so much packaging material for all this stuff. Sure, I can recycle some of it, but not all of it. This made me wish they’d offer pick-up as well as drop-off.

4) LACK OF VEGGIES AND SALADS

Per my comments above, I felt like the meals were often lacking in the “veg” category. I don’t want bread as a side (at least not over a salad), and while pickled cauliflower is interesting, I’d much rather have something green in a slightly more traditional approach.

~~~

THE PRODUCT

Some Future Iterations I’d like to See on the Blue Apron Product Roadmap

If I were running Product at Blue Apron, I’d love to see some of the following on their future roadmap (or at least in pre-dev stages to test out for potential product releases):

1) A WAY TO GIVE QUICK FEEDBACK

By far, my number one suggestion to Blue Apron is to create an app that prompts customers for immediate feedback for their meals and experience. They could allow users to give comments and suggestions for the following:

portions
ingredients
ease of prep
taste
anything else

While native mobile apps would be great for this, they could probably handle this well with a decent (but responsive) web app to hit on a few quick survey questions. I’d think it they prompted users via email or text approximately after they’ve finished their meal, they’d be likely to generate useful feedback on what works and what doesn’t (which could not only help their Dev, Product, and Operations teams but also the folks that select their recipes and ingredients).

2) RECYCLING

Obviously, this is a bit trickier, but I’d love to see them help users recycle all the packaging materials. Perhaps there might be a way to leave the boxes, coolers, and containers to be picked up for the next drop-off? This might even save them some money since they’d be able to re-use the ice packs and some of their other containers. And, there’s the obvious benefit of these items not ending up in the landfill or one of those NYC recycling bins that I’m convinced don’t actually get recycled.

3) FOOD CHOICE

Although I’m a big believer in keeping choices simple for consumers, food is an area where that “simple is best” model might need to allow for a bit more wiggle room. From a business model and operations standpoint, I certainly understand why they keep the menu choices limited. However, I’d personally like to have a bit more say about what food is coming my way each week. In that sense, it’s very possible I’m not the primary target customer for Blue Apron. But I could certainly be convinced, so they will need to decide if people like me are worth going after or not.

4) WINE

My wife and I drink wine with most of our dinners, so while we sat down to one of these meals, it struck me….why not pair a bottle of wine for each meal and allow it as an upgrade option? I think this could be an interesting development for startups like Blue Apron, at least further down the line as a longer-term product expansion. Given the serious mark-ups for wine at restaurants, I think this could be a decent money-maker. Obviously, the intricacies of local alcohol laws make this a bit trickier, so this would likely take a good amount of legwork and probably a larger mass of customers in a specific regions for it to work well.

But….WINE!

5) “ECONOMY” VS. “PREMIUM” OPTIONS

And that last point brings me to another thought on the longer-term approach for this type of service. I wonder if it might eventually make sense to split the approach into categories of consumers, sort of like high-end vs. low end options.

the “Economy” plan — could be for more budget-conscious customers that really just want someone to do their shopping “for the week” and provide a set of ingredients that could work for a few meals (the cost efficiencies could be found through repeating key ingredients, like using a whole chicken but for 2-3 different meals)
the “premium” plan — this could be a mixture of any upgrade-worthy items (like a bottle of wine with each meal, all-organic ingredients, higher-end meats/cheeses, exotic ingredients to interest the foodies, etc…)

Both of these iterations would probably work best as the service scales to a larger user-base, but I could see them being attractive to more consumers, given the different price points and menu options.

~~~

Overall, I am bullish on these types of approaches to the way we shop, cook, and eat our food. It will probably take a few years for startups like Blue Apron to really suss out the best business models and creative approaches, but I think this realm has a lot of runway ahead of it. So, hopefully my lowly little blog can provide a little “food for thought” as they try to improve their service and scale up to the masses.

~~~

February 6, 2013

New Web App: Best Ever Live Version (v1)

After some little battles with Amazon Web Services and Heroku, I’ve finally got a new Rails app up and running today. Here’s the description:

Best Ever Live Version

Best Ever Live Version is rails app I built for curating the best versions of live concert audio. Registered users can upload or link to their favorite live tracks by providing their own audio, or they can take advantage of a nifty search-and-add functionality that taps into the web’s largest archive of concert audio (the Live Music Archive). In the future, I’m hoping to add a few key features including: playlist and voting capabilities, basic track editing (for fade-in and fade-out), and a more robust set of sharing options.

(side note: in case you’re wondering about the name, it is a tongue-in-cheek play on the common post-show responses of overly-enthusiastic fans claiming that a specific version of a song was the “BEST EVER!”)

If you’re curious about other apps that I’ve built, check out my portfolio page or dig into the code on my github profile. Also, if you’ve got any suggestions or want to contribute, please don’t hesitate to contact me, or just go ahead and fork the project from Github.

January 30, 2013

new beginnings: a look back at my 2012 ‘code year’ and to what lies ahead in 2013

2012 was a fairly turbulent and momentous year for me, with more big-life events packed into a single year than I’ve probably experienced in at least half a decade (my last “big year” was 2007 when I started a new job, moved across the country, and got married all within a two-month time span). For those that know me, you already know that the biggest event of 2012 was the birth of my son, Reuben, who is utterly amazing and continues to rock my world on a daily basis. My wife and I couldn’t be luckier to have such a perfect, healthy child in our lives.

While Reuben’s entry into our world was definitely the most momentous event of 2012, I also had plenty of career stuff going on that made 2012 a bit more turbulent. After nearly two years as eMusic’s Marketing Ops Manager, I headed into a new role as Director of Sales and Biz Dev at a small outfit called Hear & There (part of the Relix Media Group and owned by well-known NYC concert promoter/entrepreneur, Pete Shapiro). The gig had its moments and certainly brought with it some great connections throughout the concert and music worlds. But after about three to four months, I started realizing that it wasn’t quite the right fit for me, and I didn’t feel like I was really learning anything new. My interest in the technology side of the business kept creeping back into my head, but I didn’t feel like I was able to scratch that itch in any meaningful way within the day-to-day constraints of the gig (since it was basically just me running the show).

Earlier in the year, I had written up a quick post about making 2012 the year I finally learned how to code. For a time, I was able to do some coding tutorials to start getting my feet wet. But once I had started the new job and Reuben entered our lives, finding time for coding lessons was extremely difficult, not to mention the fact that getting a full night’s sleep was no longer in the cards. Naturally, I stopped the coding tutorials to focus on other things. But I never totally forgot about my initial 2012 goal.

At some point in the beginning of fall, I started seeing emails and announcements about some longer-term dev bootcamp programs, including the newly-launched Flatiron School and a new long-form program that General Assembly was putting together called the Web Development Immersive.

Well, you can probably guess where this is going….Fast-forward to mid-October and I found myself quitting my job and officially signing up for GA’s long-form web development course to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, AJAX, and Ruby on Rails. Although it had taken me a good portion of the year to come around, I finally decided to make it happen. 2012 would officially become my own personal “Code Year.”

As you might imagine, the reaction from family and friends provided a wide swath of mixed reactions. While I was actually surprised by the overall positivity, many people were a bit taken aback that I’d make such a drastic move and wondered why. Why now? Why a full-time program? Why take the risk?

Well, here’s why….

• I wanted to be able to build things.
• I wanted the ability to build a prototype potential products and ideas by myself.
• I felt the need to significantly expand my skill set for my long-term career path, not just add incremental bits and pieces to my resume.
• I also wanted to do it for my son….no, seriously. I want to make sure he grows up truly understanding the technology behind technology. While I’m sure plenty of schools will begin to integrate programming into their curriculum, I believe it’s going to have to start with me (side note: while there are lots of videos related to this idea of teaching kids to code much earlier in their education, this recent TED talk inspired me).

Regarding the risk and timing of this move…I actually think it may be riskier over the long-term NOT to get with the times and learn more about web development, at least for someone that’s definitely staying in the industry in some capacity (web, ecommerce, etc..). Ultimately, I knew that I wanted to go in a more technical direction for the longer-term. Plus, I’d definitely have moved on from my last gig pretty quickly either way. I just felt strongly that I needed to take more drastic steps to get there faster and in a more professional way. In my gut, I knew that it was time to invest in myself and challenge myself to learn something new…so I went for it.

What now?

Well, now I can build things. I can make prototypes and build web apps. And while I still have a ton to learn, I’ve built a foundation of technical knowledge that will help me launch the next part of my career. Whether I end up as a full-time developer or in some kind of hybrid role as a Product Manager (or even something like a Growth Hacker), I know that this was a worthwhile effort, and I’m confident it will continue to pay dividends down the road for me, for the companies that employ me, and perhaps even for my son.

October 10, 2012

Going For It: Making 2012 My “Code Year” After All

Well, I’m finally going for it. After a slight detour of about half of the year, I’m now going back to my initial resolution for 2012: learning to code.

I have officially decided to dive head-first into a nine-week web dev program at NYC’s tech hub, General Assembly. For the next two and a half months, I’ll be digging into the depths of web development to learn html, css, javascript, jqeury, ajax, and ruby on rails. The program is called the Web Development Immersive and it officially kicks off next week.

I don’t know exactly what to expect on the tail end of this, but I know that I will come out with a very specific set of skills that I can apply as a full-time programmer or as a kick-ass product manager w/ some coding chops (which may be even more up my alley, given my past experience). Either way, I also know it’ll be fast-paced and challenging, and that I will learn a whole lot in just nine weeks.

Although I’m hoping I can document some of my progress on this here blog, I’m also thinking I may need all of my free time for coding purposes. As such I may not be able to do a lot of updates until the course is complete.

Lots more to follow….for now, wish me luck!

January 4, 2012

Learning to Code in 2012

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions, but the new year definitely provides a nice breaking point to officially make some changes.

This year will already be a big year for me, as my wife and I are expecting our first baby in May. That’s probably enough reason to think that any big resolution won’t happen, but I am feeling this one come on pretty strongly.

For nearly a year, I have been thinking about the fact that I don’t really know how to code and how, more and more, I am realizing that I really should know the basics. In my latest gig at eMusic, I was basically moving from a pure Marketing Ops role to more of a Product Marketing Manager, and I consistently kept managing projects where having some basic programming and coding skills would have helped me tremendously.

So when I saw this thing that Code Academy set up, called Code Year, it really hit my gut in the sweet spot, and I jumped on it. Now I don’t know if I’ll be able to learn enough on my own with just these online tutorials, or if I’ll even be able to pull off anything meaningful within the next 12 months, but overall I really think 2012 might finally be the year for me to stop talking about learning to code and start actually doing it.

June 23, 2011

Testing out ThingLink’s Image Tagging with Music

I finally just got around to testing out ThingLink.com, which is a cool app/plugin that allows you to add dynamic tags and information within images on the web. One of the niftiest features they’ve added to the service is an integration with Soundcloud, which allows you to directly embed a Soundcloud music player into any image.

Here’s an example using one of my favorite tracks off of White Denim‘s latest album. Hover over the image to get the black and white dots where the links are embedded:

Here’s another approach using a personal photo from my travels in Hawaii:

It’s tagged with a link to my twitter handle as well as one of my own random musical creations, dubbed “Desert Flyaway” (which was created in a single take on a Digitech loop pedal).

And here’s yet another example using an album image from Brothers Past‘s latest release, Everything Must Go, Volume 9:

With this version, we’ve got the following:
1) a Souncloud audio player for “Bitches and Candy” (the main track from the new release)
2) a link to where you can download that track
3) a live video of the same tune via YouTube
4) and a tag for the band’s official twitter handle

Overall, it’s a little packed, but I think it proves the point that there’s a lot you could do with this plugin, including some interesting ways that bands can put it to use (especially if they’re already using Soundcloud).

Fun.

February 27, 2010

Latest from LMB: Live Music Archive App | An Interview with the Developers

Earlier this week, I finished a longer post about a new iphone app that streams concert recordings from the Live Music Archive and included an interview I did with the app’s developers:

Music Archive App Streams Live Music Archive to Your iPhone | An Interview with the Developers

A couple weeks back, a new iPhone app called Music Archive was released on the iTunes App Store that streams concert recordings from the Live Music Archive. I was pretty excited to see this at that time, and I know that many of our readers will also be interested in this app if they haven’t already heard about it.

I’ve not yet posted about it because I decided that I wanted to dig a bit deeper into its development. One of the things that struck me was that the developers are offering it as a paid app, but what they’re tapping into is a database of non-commercial content offered by a non-profit organization (archive.org). Not only that, when I first checked it out, I noticed that they hadn’t directly addressed the issue on their website or in the iTunes store. As such, I not only wanted to get a bit more background on how the project came together, but I also wanted to explore some of the underlying issues related to using the LMA’s non-commercial content for a more commercial enterprise like an iTunes app.

Since reaching out the developers — Josh Bergen and Brett Erpel — they not only answered some of my questions but they also gave me a free demo copy of the app. I’ve had a few days to give it a test-run. Although it isn’t perfect, it nicely taps into the LMA’s database of available MP3s and puts them at your fingertips with a slick interface. It’s pretty damn cool to have so many concert recordings at your fingertips. I’m sure they’ll continue to make useful tweaks and nicely improve the app in future versions.

I’ve been really pleased with the reaction to the post so far, as it has generated some great commentary. What’s also interesting about this is that the app directly hits on what I was referring to in my recent post on music streaming services and their lack of live music tracks: Music from the Cloud? A Live Music Fan’s Take on the New Music Streaming Services . In this post, I touched on the fact that there are a plethora of free sources for live music on the web, but that there aren’t really any mainstream music streaming services making use of them or serving the live music fan in a direct way. The Music Archive app is just a start and a bit more limited than my original vision, but it’s still very cool to see such a well-timed example of where I was going with that post.

Of course, if this kind of live music geekery is of any interest, then please also check out my Univ. of Chicago Master’s Thesis, as it touches on a lot of similar topics: “When we’re finished with it, they can have it”: Jamband Tape-Trading Culture.

February 6, 2010

Music from the Cloud? A Live Music Fan’s Take on the New Music Streaming Services

Over the last three to six months, I’ve been reading a ton of blogs posts and articles about various new streaming music services and how music is steadily moving to the “cloud” and away from pure ownership and downloads. Among music tech geeks, there’s a healthy debate over whether or not we will ever fully move away from a downloads/ownership-based model (see below for a bunch of great sources on the topic).

We’ve been starting to see promising signs that “music in the cloud” is becoming more of a reality: Spotify seems to be getting the nod from some major labels in Europe, MOG recently rolled out its own streaming service, Grooveshark has been gradually on the rise, Apple just acquired LaLa, and I just saw a very promising demo of Thumbplay recently at the NYC Music Tech meet-up. All of this seems to suggest that music streaming is a feasible reality, perhaps even within the next five to ten years.

Overall, I’m really excited about this potential transformation and all the possible innovations that it could bring to the recording industry landscape. But I think we’re still a ways away from “music in the cloud” fully being realized and adopted as the new industry model for a couple key reasons. Problem number one is the sheer limit of “always-on” Internet service (even including some of the 3G networks). Although we’re seeing more and more options for broader connectivity (free city/airport hotspots), the limits are still considerable in many areas of the country — anyone who uses the New York subway knows of at least one big “wifi dead zone,” and one where a considerable amount of music listening goes on. The second major issue is the legal/licensing framework we’re still dealing with in terms of the labels and their high expectations for the payouts from music streaming services. The original label deals nearly killed off Imeem, and there’s a good reason that Spotify has still not made its highly-anticipated entry into the U.S. market. And, of course, another major issue is the larger problem of convincing the greater public to switch away from ownership to a streaming model.

And it’s this last issue that brings out something a bit more from my personal experience having tested out some of these newer music services. As a live music fanatic, I’ve got another obstacle that’s stopping me from hopping on to the cloud music bandwagon: it’s the lack of live music.

As a true live music geek, much of my music collection is made up of concert recordings (my rough estimate is about 50%). A large portion of that music is non-commercially traded music from online archives like the Live Music Archive and etree.org, and some of it includes officially-released soundboard recordings that I have purchased from a number of different sites like LiveDownloads.com. But barely any of these recordings would be available to me via streaming services like iMeem (now MySpace), MOG, Spotify, and Lala (which I am including even though it has a slightly different approach to streaming). These services tend to focus almost entirely on the standard studio output from artists and bands per the recording industry’s traditional focus. If it’s not an official release by the band, then you’re unlikely to get access to it with your subscription. Even one of the longest-standing subscription streaming services, Rhapsody, seems to only include the official releases in its catalog.

I recently took the time to check out LaLa and make use of their “Music Mover” app to upload my music collection and test out the streaming part of their service. While LaLa nicely handled the studio portion of my collection, it could not recognize a huge chunk of my personal library. As much as I respect Lala’s vision, that’s just not going to work for me. I’ve also tested out Grooveshark, and while they offer the ability for users to upload their personal music files, I’m not sure I could ever spend the large amount of time I would need to upload my entire live collection to their servers (nor am I sure their system could handle the load or if it would allow me to do so).

Don’t get me wrong, there certainly are work-arounds for my predicament, but that’s precisely the point, they are work-arounds rather than existing features. I already have a work-around…it’s based on downloading and ownership. Overall, if I’m going to move away from owning my music collection and relying on the “cloud,” it’s got to be easy, efficient, and super-inclusive of the music I want to hear.

Now I completely understand why focusing on official releases makes sense for these services, because it serves the more traditional music fans that make up the majority of the market. But while I realize that I’m in a minority, I certainly know that I am not alone. Plus, live music fans like myself are some of the most obsessive music fans in world, fans that consume excessive amounts of music, not to mention all the related products and services (tickets, merch, etc..). It just might help a company to tap into fans like us. We’re a vocal bunch.

Overall, there’s a whole realm of music that exists beyond major label catalogs, and it’s a key source of musical enjoyment for hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of music fans throughout the world. One only needs to check out the Live Music Archive or bt.etree.org or Livedownloads.com to see a myriad of digital reasons why I won’t be able to fully commit to “music in the cloud” until these streaming services find a way to be more inclusive.

Of course, the MySpaces, Spotifys, MOGs and LaLas of the world certainly could try to change this. Sources like the Live Music Archive and etree.org are open and available for all to share. The key issue for these sources of audio is that the majority are available for stream/download because they are non-commercial. As such, I can certainly see the argument that this is free/non-commercial music, so companies should not be able to sell access to it. But doesn’t iTunes make use of non-commercial podcasts? And couldn’t these services find a suitable arrangement to make this work? The reason so many concert recordings are available is because bands specifically approve of tapers recording their shows because they view it as a promotional tool to help spread the music to a wider audience and encourage more fans to come to shows. So, by providing access to these tracks, wouldn’t music services simply be offering a valuable community service to bands and fans alike?

Ultimately, music fans just want the music, and more and more, bands simply want to get their music in front of anyone that is interested. And this plays into a larger trend in the music world towards using the music as promotion for the tour and for other ancillary revenue like merchandise, sponsorships, etc… As bands continue to try to thrive in the new music world we live in, live music will only continue to play an important role in that equation, especially in helping to freely expose artists to new audiences and to feed obsessive music fans who want it all. Why not find a way to expand streaming services so that they tap an even larger database of live music?

At some point, I might be convinced to switch to a more hybrid model, buying access to some streaming service (like MOG or Thumbplay) alongside downloads of concert recordings per my norm (which is basically Paul Resnikoff’s “coexistence” model/prediction – see below). But for now, the live music junkie in me says that I should stick to a the current downloads-based ownership model and make use of cool apps like Simpify Media to stream my own personal collection. Who knows, maybe the rumors that Apple has this same “personal-streaming” model in the works will turn out to be true. That’d be even more killer, but it certainly wouldn’t stop me from needing to go the download route to build up my own personal music collection. It works.

Quick Update:
As I’ve been putting the finishing touches on this post, I discovered a new iPhone app that taps into the Live Music Archive and streams concert recordings to your phone. It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but of course, it’s not the all-encompassing solution I’d eventually like to see (and pay for). Interestingly enough, it appears that they’ve not address the issue of non-commercial vs. commercial, but I should have more info on this over at Live Music Blog once I hear back from the developers.

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Articles/Resources:
Jason Feinberg (via PBS MediaShift): Rent vs. Own: The Streaming Music Debate Continues

Cory Doctorow (via Hypebot): Why Music Streaming Will Fail

Ian Rogers: Why I’m Excited About Apple Buying Lala

Hypebot: Ian Rogers Is Excited Apple Bought Lala, But I’m Not

Digital Music News: Resnikoff’s Parting Shot: The Case for Coexistence

Michael Robertson (via TechCrunch): Apple’s Secret Cloud Strategy And Why Lala Is Critical

Hypebot: Is iTunes Transitioning To The Cloud?

Bob Lefsetz: How To Try Spotify Immediately, No Matter Where You Live

Telegraph: Spotify now makes record labels money

Wired Epicenter: Spotify Hits 250K Paid Subscribers; U.S. Rollout Still Unknown

Billboard: Pessimistic About Spotify? You’re Not Alone

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