Indie Label Bridge 9 Launches Subscription Service
Few indie labels have a brand strong enough to attract their own community and leverage it to market their subscription music service. Bridge Nine Records, a Boston-area label, is giving it a shot. For 4$ a month or $30 a year fans gain access to over one hundred albums, create their own site URL on the community site, and create playlists for others to stream.
According to label owner Chris Wrenn, he's launching the subscription player because they want to evolve with the changing needs of their fans and give them an "inexpensive way to show their support." On theB9.com, the label's online community site, bonus features will be granted to subscribers as a sign of gratitude, as well as, access to exclusive albums and limited edition items.
TheB9.com started in 2002 and boasts over 80,000 members. Users can post messages, read news, check on tour dates, and buy or sell items.
Considering that for $5 a month users can gain access to millions of songs via Rdio and MOG, $4 isn't exactly a deal, but this isn't meant to replace them.
With the new subscription service, Bridge Nine may find a way to monetize their behavior while providing tools that will help deepen community engagement.
In the past, indie labels have placed their entire catalog up for download, among other things, but this is the first streaming music service that Hypebot has seen.
Strange… A label is adapting to their fans. #thenewmusicbusiness
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What innovative indie model have you seen lately?
I signed up for this, despite already paying $5 a month for Napster. Partly it was to show support for this immensely influential label in the punk/hardcore/indie scene and their continually smart and ahead-of-the-game ideas,and partly b/c the label has noted that the B9 message board costs over a $1000 a month in hosting alone. After using the service for a bit, I’m very much impressed with how simple the developer has made it to use, and the quality of the streaming is extremely high.
Well good job they are doing building community around the label’s music. Price could be lower but it’s interesting experiment. Hope they will let us know the results..