telstra bigpond, page-23

The Valleyarm model as the way I understand it:

The no fills version
A musician signs up to Valleyarm for $169 first year. They send in their music (whether it be a single or an album).

Valleyarm then distributes this through all of its registered music channels (itunes, amazonmp3, emusic, nokia music store etc). The musician can then start marketing it themselves (ie friends/schools/family/labels etc). Remember the musician then keeps 100% of all of their music sales. (This is what makes it attractive for them to sign up in the first place).

I think they have structured the $169 fee around the Itunes pricing model. ie for the musician to break even only 100 purchases (or downloads) of 1 single ($1.69 x 100 = $169) OR 10 purchases of an album $16.99 x 10 = $169.90

Remembering it'll take a minimum of about 2/3 years for the musican to get noticed (they'll want to pay the reduced $100 annual fee each year after as well) ie ongoing revenue to Valleyarm. This will ensure the musicians songs stay distributed through Valleyarms partners.

Also "all Valleyarm distribution comes with a free direct to fan widget allowing Artists and Labels to sell directly to their fan base from their own web site that will provide an administrative and accounting solution to increase content owners margins and maximise revenues from their direct to fan database"

Add on features such as selling the musicians music as ring tones/merchandising/organising tours are paid extras.

As an example of the viral marketing potential, lets take 1 school anywhere in the world, and lets say there is one student that fancies themselves as a singer (regardless if they have talent or not). They pay the $169 fee to Valleyarm, send in the music. They then tell all their friends (via facebook/twitter/email) theyve got a song on itunes. The average school has 800 students. Lets say 200 students/friends buy it. The young musician has just made 200 x $1.69 = $338.

Now say three other students (that actually have talent) catch on to the idea, sign up and start their dreams careers as musicians. Viral she goes!

Given there are 100million schools in the world, 500million facebook users, 300million myspace users - the scaleability for Valleyarm is there and the possibilites are limitless imo.

On another front, Valleyarm could also be targeted towards established musicians with a larger fan base that are losing 50% of profit to managers/contracts etc. Once these contracts expire, Valleyarm could be an attractive model for them.

I see Silverchair/ Missy Higgins/ Kasey Chambers are already listed with Valleyarm.

The difference between TNC's Valleyarm and other digital co's ive invested in previously is that these guys have already successfully partnered up with the major distributors and very quickly too.

Cheers,
The Sparkler