Quote:
But why are only the hardcore indie listeners going to these sites (and I'm not really convinced those people are really going)?

As a non-hardcore indie listener, I don't go to these sites for two reasons:

1) I haven't heard of most of them. You can't promote a nobody band if you can't even promote your website well. By "well", I don't mean "first page of listings on Google".

2) Scouring those websites is too much effort. I like music, but I don't like it so much that I'm going to spend hours of my day looking for new stuff. I might be willing to spend an hour or two a month to queue up a ton of downloads, but otherwise? Forget it.

Essentially, it boils down to this: I already have a pretty large selection of music at my fingertips that I like. If getting new music is any more difficult than turning on a radio, or hitting go on a long streaming playlist, then I'm just going to listen to what I already have. Forget about 30 second samples and single song downloads, those are only useful if something comes highly recommended from a friend, or otherwise piques my interest/curiosity.

For an example of the latter, a few weeks ago, I was reading a +5 post from a guy on slashdot, discussing promoting something when you're not already famous. He had a link to "a major mp3 blog" (mp3 blogs? didn't even know they existed) where he had a sample track with more downloads than a track from bjork. That made me curious, so I followed his link just to see what the fuss was about. (Incidentally, I really dug it.)

We're so accustomed to having music pushed at us, that to have to go looking for new music will nearly forever remain the domain of the hardcore listener. The less hardcore will content themselves with getting music they already know, and there's so much of that there's no need to go looking for stuff one doesn't know.

IMHO.

PS... I also won't use it unless I can access it on Linux, on non-x86 hardware. That means none of this proprietary application crap. It's either java, web-based (sans-Flash), or open-source so I can compile it myself.

PPS... yes, I know... people like me make up approximately 0% of the market.

PPPS... yes, I know there's no need to use a PS when I have the ability to make incessant edits.