Musicians Selling Music on USB Flash Drives
Do you remember the days when cassette tapes were all the rage? Listening to your favorite music from your favorite band all day for a week strait was pretty normal back then. Then came along CDs which held more songs, did not have to be rewound, and came in jewel cases for protection. Soon people were putting down their boom boxes and picking up CD players. Within a few short years, cassette tapes were obsolete and the only place you could buy them was at an antique store. Well it seems that the trend of one technology taking the market share away from another is about to happen once gain, but this time in the form of a USB Flash Drives taking over for CDs.
Flash drives have been on the market for quite some time, but only until recently with the drops in price and the increase in capacity, has it started really being a viable option for musicians. With USB prices coming down, the music industry itself has started noticing the benefits of flash drives as well as their musicians. Big artists such as Matchbox Twenty and Willie Nelson have all already released albums on USB flash drives. Even companies such as Sony released Michael Jackson’s Thriller 25 year Anniversary album on USB thumb drives.
Its not surprising to see the big name companies and music artists making the switch from CDs to custom USB drives. After all custom flash drives give all the same benefits as CDs with none of the downsides. Unlike CDs, scratches, smudges, or smears cannot harm personalized USB drives. USB drives are more convenient and better suited for transporting or transferring music than CDs as well. With all the technological advances in portable music devices such as iPods these days, customers want more versatile ways to take their music with them. A CD is pretty limiting, but with custom USBs, musicians can make their songs MP3 format and allow their fans to transfer songs to their portable media devices.
USBs also provide musicians with more customization options than traditional media. Not only can you customize the USB drive to a particular theme, but you can even get really creative and create custom shaped USB drives! With custom shaped USB drives, you can create drives in almost any shape and size. Some popular forms for musicians are in the shapes of guitars, drums, or even their band symbol.
USB drives are becoming more marketable as well. A single USB drive can contain all the musicians’ songs, artwork, and even promotional material all from a single little device. USB drives also tend to last longer than CDs in the hands of customers as well. An average CD will usually last no longer than 10 years from normal use and even shorter through above average use. USB drives due to their solid construction, can survive years longer than CDs and give customers the added benefit of being able to use the custom flash drive for their own personal benefit. Even if the customer deletes the songs from the USB drive, assuming the drive hasn’t been Data Locked, the USB drive still acts as a marketing tool because every single time the customer uses the flash drive, they will see the musicians band or name.
Overall, musicians and record studios are starting to see the benefits of using USB drives over CDs. USBs are more versatile, last longer, hold more information, and provide much more customization options than their CD counterparts. At Premium USB it would not surprise us to learn that in the coming future more musicians and record companies start adopting USB flash drives as the primary way in which they distribute albums.
Comments
I find it really cool that usbs are now a platform for music marketing. Usbs are so much smaller, easier to transport, and hold more information than a conventional CD. I would so buy a usb drives from my favorite bands, if they would only be smart enough to release their new songs on flash drives.
Well, it is like wearing the band’s T-shirt or a poster on your wall…wearing a musician’s name is like support even on a USB, great promotional marketing since most people won’t throw away their USB drive when they are tired of the band.
To sell more discs, a band must now invest in non-typical packaging to create a buzz about buying a physical copy vs. a downloaded one. The more creative you get, the more sells you will get and more money will be spent on getting your disc out there. Instead, invest the extra dough on a reusable USB stick where you can store more content and have a cool design that will catch the eye of other consumers, who in turn will want to have your drive!
Leave a Comment