CDBaby Relaunch Debate

Forum at Mandolin Cafe

2009-12-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

iTunes LP editions at CD Baby

2009-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

Above's the newest thread at CDBaby.org.

Some fellow named Carl claimed in a post that the company is for sale again, but Chris of CD Baby immediately squelched that rumor.

Online Music Distribution at IndieGuide.Com

2009-12-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

Click the link above. . .I got this from Adrian over at Richy's blog. As Adrian points out, there's some good info here. Thank you for posting it!

Censorship at CDBaby.org?

2009-12-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

Has censorship been quietly implemented at the CD Baby forums? It appears that any post of the "bitching and moaning" variety as well as any inquiries about individual problems and issues will be deleted by the front office staffers. (This is what the staffers have been saying for several weeks now.) But we've heard nothing from Brian Felsen in about two months, so the executive suite must feel that things are back to "normal."

Meanwhile, the "Google thread" has seen no action of late--almost as if "bitching and moaning" about the bungled relaunch is tacitly no longer permitted. Has anyone reading here tried to post anything over there only to see it deleted? Please comment here!

Audio Refugees: "CD Baby website redesign carnage"

2009-11-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

Here's yet another blog linked above with more comment on the "relaunch."

Google Thread@CDBaby.Org

2009-11-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

I've re-posted Chris's thread of Oct 29 since it has become the de facto current complaint line at cdbaby.org.

With no update from Brian Felsen in more than a month, this is the place to go if you still require frontline help@cdbaby.com

Rockin' with Joe Bear

2009-11-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon this fellow (linked above) while surfing through the CD Baby cyberspace trail. Some of you may find it of interest.

Is Hostbaby a Rip-off?

2009-11-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

Let me just preempt Derek and his apologists by pointing out that this is a 3 1/2 year old criticism of Hostbaby, so possibly it's not relevant to today's relaunch debates, but I'm linking to this because I'm curious and want to know more:

1.) Did Derek sell Hostbaby to Discmakers as part of his sale of CDBaby.com?

2.) Is Hostbaby a subsidiary of CDBaby or is it a completely separate entity?

3.) Compared to other web hosting services, is Hostbaby--at $20 per month or $200 per year--a rip-off?

Leave your questions & comments here. . .

Discussion at Cubase.net

2009-11-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Click the link above to see comments including some apparently from Derek. . .

Are Things Back to "Normal" at CD Baby?

2009-11-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

With no updates from Brian Felsen since way back on October 13, and with a highly notable decline in complaints and posts at cdbaby.org (around 250 in almost three weeks), have things finally got back to "normal", however we might define that, nearly four months into this bug-plagued website relaunch?

Most of us would hope so! There are definite signs that DD sales are back on track, and I've heard rumors that CD Baby has resumed email notification of artist payments. Can anyone reading here confirm this?

While the frontline staff seems to have addressed the hundreds of individual glitches of complaining artists in a satisfactory manner, I can personally attest that, since Derek sold the company to Discmakers in 2008, sales of physical discs have flattened or plummeted. Is this because the new search functionalities are apparently useless to us? Is it more difficult for the casual browsing customer to find, and therefore buy, our music? Based upon no scientific evidence but plenty of anecdotal comment, my guess to that is yes.

If CD Baby is now back to "normal" for most or all of us, then I'm happy for the company and its couple hundred thousand artists. But now I am faced with the problem I had back in July: mustering up the energy & will to visit my account and relearn to navigate its confusing myriad of virtual hallways and rooms. I didn't like what was offered in July, and I doubt that I will like it much better today. As I have often stated before, it's tons easier (and more fun!) to administer this blog than it is to visit my artist account. Before July 2009 I visited CD Baby everyday for just a few minutes. Now I visit this blog every day, again just for a few minutes.

Given the choice, I'd still rather be visiting CD Baby than running this blog. But the pessimist in me suggests that it's far too soon to expect that this will be the case. Any thoughts on this? Leave your comments here. . .

Chris@CDBaby on Redesigned Hits Counter

2009-10-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest nugget from Chris at CDBaby.org which caught my eye:

". . .Derek programmed the old hits counter to tally bot hits from search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.). . ." (The old hits counter) "also credited spam bots as actual valid hits."

Furthermore, Chris wrote: ". . .when our IT team redesigned the hits counter they made sure it only tallied up valid hits from real actual people."

This, Chris explains, is the reason many artists are seeing fewer hits on their counters since the function was recently restored by popular demand.

Just thought I'd pass that along. . .

Derek's New Venture

2009-10-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

Years in the drawing board stages, Derek Sivers's new baby is being slowly unveiled. Check out the link above for more info.

Can we get Brian & Tony to hire an EMT Team Google and/or Derek & Muckwork to join the overworked and underfed CD Baby techs and frontofficers as consultants?

The irony of it kills me--I'm falling out of my chair: Derek cashes out (good for him!) to Discmakers which runs the Baby into the ground. CorinthianCap, now desperate to get a return on its investment, hires Derek to come back and make things better.

I'm dreaming, I know. . .

Why Did Sivers Sell Out? Here's A Clue

2009-10-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

This is kind of interesting, so check it out if you haven't already.

Thanks to the fellow over at cdbaby.org who posted it.

Felsen Reports "DD News"

2009-10-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

Brian's latest from a couple days ago is hyperlinked above. . .

New Poll Revised--Vote Now!

2009-10-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

By request I've re-tooled the new poll to account for "longer term" commitment in the wait for "CD Baby to get its act together," so please feel free to vote (or re-vote, as the case may be).

Primarily I'm wondering how patient we are now (after two months plus of relaunch), while looking ahead to the next six months or so & beyond.

Thank you for your suggestions on how to make this site better for all. . .

Velvet Rope: "CD Baby--stick a fork in it?"

2009-10-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Comment on yet another forum is linked above. . .

Harmony Central: CD Baby "is incomprehensibly f****d up"

2009-10-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

Heated comment on another forum, linked above. . .

Felsen: Improved Accounting & August iTunes

2009-10-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Brian Felsen's "weekly" update finally arrived this morning. Click it above. . .

I almost missed it while stumbling upon another Felsen post "Share Your Holiday Promotional Ideas!" At first I thought the "holiday" post was his only contribution in two weeks, so I was about to write a sarcastic piece about all the fluffy stuff we've been seeing over there:

"FiXT Launches New Remix Community & Celldweller"

"2009 International Songwriting Competition"

"Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit--CD Baby Artist Discount" and

"Be on a Tribute Album w/members of Twisted Sister, Cinderella, Quiet Riot + more"

Almost without exception, these threads have drawn only derisive comments from CD Baby artists. One of the above threads was beginning to turn into an all-out flame war.

But is it really any wonder that people are inflamed these days? Though it's been about 10 weeks since relaunch, on the world wide web 10 weeks is an eternity. It certainly "seems" like it's been more like six months or a year of this disaster (brought to us by CD Baby) than only two months or so. And that's why it "feels" somewhat ridiculous to have to wait for another 10 weeks (or a half a year, or more) for the Baby to get its pathetic act together.

Nevertheless, thanks, Brian, for the fortnightly update, even if it hasn't much reduced rampant speculation on the forum and elsewhere--speculation which is a direct result of your apparently deliberate policy of allowing only the driest trickle of information to emanate from your office.

81% Here Say Sales Are Down

2009-10-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

As you can see, my latest mini-poll indicates that most voters' sales are down at CD Baby since "re-launch."

Lately, cdbaby.org has been heating up with lots of opinionating on this mess. In fact we're seeing a lot more vigorous debate than usual over there, for the first time in a while, with Chris of CD Baby fielding things remarkably well.

Sure, the tanking economy of 2008-09 has something to do with plummeting sales, but as Adrian has pointed out here and there, CD Baby hasn't helped things for us by disabling the search and "sounds like" functions, and--even worse--destroying our own links to our own CD Baby pages!

And WTF is up with iTunes anyway? For many, maybe most, of us, this was our prime income stream from CD Baby. You would think that this major DD company would be totally unaffected by the Baby's troubles, but apparently not. On this issue Chris's and others' explanations are becoming tiresome--they sound more and more like some sort of "party line." No wonder people are fuming.

Luc Sez: "Time to Pony Up!"

2009-09-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

I love this guy! He has a good way with words.

Do I sense the pressure's on (CD Baby) in the blogosphere?

CDBaby@Wikipedia

2009-09-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

This updated entry at Wikipedia has good info about the technical side of the relaunch . . .

Moses Muses on State of CD Baby

2009-09-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Check out this piece from Sept 2008 for musings on Derek's sale to Discmakers and his relations with Tony van Veen. . .

Luc weighs in on CD Baby's mess

2009-09-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Check it out. . .

Pony's Back?!

2009-09-25T08:52:00.001-07:00

But what does it mean? I think he's obviously a loyal CD Baby employee who, even if the executive suite doesn't have a clue, is still committed to the "core values" of the old CD Baby which he referred to here a couple months back. His may be a voice in the wilderness, however.

That Pony is meeting with the bigshots at Discmakers is perhaps encouraging--possibly the dupe giant crunched some numbers and noticed "consequences" to its bottom line? After all, one of the recently unveiled "new" services since the bungled launch is an instant duplication service. Certainly I would be hesitant to use anything associated with the new Baby until we can see where the chips fall. So with CD sales absolutely flat since Derek sold out ("bought in"?) in 2008, who would want to stock the Portland warehouse with more?

It's very difficult in this era to remain uncynical about the bigger fish in the capitalist pond. Maybe I'm better off investing in shares of Corinthian Capital because I sense that CD Baby eventually will turn around and start making big bucks again--by screwing its massive artist base!

So until we see results of the kind Pony has urged us to continue waiting for, realistically I don't feel all that encouraged.

Eight weeks ago I dropped a comment at cdbaby.org pointing out that for a technophobe like me, it was a helluva lot easier to build this blog than it was to navigate around the "improved" CD Baby website. I appealed to executives to hire someone to read Jeff Jarvis's book What Would Google Do? (check out his blog BuzzMachine.Com, linked here under "other resources"). Or, failing that, call Google and ask them to send an EMT unit to Portland immediately!

I still feel the same way because this new website is so unfriendly and unnavigable as to be virtually useless to me. CD Baby needs to take some lessons from Google. And I think heads need to roll as well. Whether it's a totally new management team or a new tech team supervised by consultants from Google, how 'bout hiring some new faces upstairs and show us that you're serious about relaunching this awful relaunch?

Felsen: Hits Counter Returns!

2009-09-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Check out yesterday's update. Don't know about you, but I can't get excited about "Hits Counter Returns!" Why did they have to drop it in the first place?

It's all too typical of these Web 2.0 "renovations." Ditch perfectly good features, then claim that you're giving us a new and "improved" version. Arrgghhhhhh. . . .

Please stop doing things that way!