Comments on: Hunt & Gather Brave New Music at Amie Street

By: Nik Simov

Nik Simov — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:58:55 +0000

Thanks for the tips, Adam. I like jazz big time and am heading right now to check out The Shillas

By: Adam Teece

Adam Teece — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:32:43 +0000

I’ve been using Amie Street for some time now and I am very glad that some of the bigger artists are starting to get on there. More obscure artists are moving there as well such as Jonathan Coulton and Tay Zonday.

When you go to sign up, you should also find out if you have any friends that already use it, because if you sign up with an invite you get $5 free to spend on the site. And the person that invited you gets $2.50. One band I highly recommend checking out is The Shillas. If you like Jazz, their song Faithful is amazing.

By: Nik Simov

Nik Simov — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:49:42 +0000

@Ben: Thanks for your support! If you check the free section at Amie Street often, you can download the new tracks you like while they still cost $0. In other words you have to be one of the first 15 people who download the track before it’s price increases.

Here’s more info on demand-based pricing from Wikipedia:

“Amie Street uses an algorithm to determine song prices based on demand. The price for a track starts at zero when a song is uploaded onto the site. It then rises according to the increased demand and purchase of the song. The maximum price any song will rise to is 98¢. A pricing calculator showed the simple model used to determine pricing, but it is no longer available. The price curve changes based on the overall volume of songs purchased on the site. As of August 5, 2007 15 buys yielded a price of 1¢, 25 buys yielded 15¢, 50 buys yielded 50¢, and 84 buys yielded 98¢.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amie_Street#Demand-based_pricing)

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:10:27 +0000

Sounds like a great site. I wonder what happens if it gets more popular? If it gets popular then more people will download the music, making it cost more. After that would people want to download music as frequently? Probably the upside to becoming popular is that there will be more and more indie artists jumping on the bandwagon, so that it would always be free.. I would hope at least.

Thanks for the blog!

By: Nik Simov

Nik Simov — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:44:37 +0000

@Renee: Can’t beat the price
@Aibek: Thanks! Glad to know there’s a fellow long-time fan around!

By: Aibek

Aibek — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:25:29 +0000

Nik, great post. I have been using AmieStreet almost from the very beginning. I totally agree, the site has plenty of high-quality tracks from independent artists. I am glad to seem them rising.

By: Renee

Renee — Sat, 03 May 2008 03:13:23 +0000

This looks interesting. I think I’ll give it a try.