From Twelve Inch To Zero Inch
Based in Vienna, with an outpost in Berlin, Zero-Inch (or is it zero”) is the newest kid on the block in the somewhat crowded world of download stores specialising in Electronic Music. Launching in the first quarter, the site is currently in beta testing stage while they add new features and content. I’ve logged on to give you a sneak preview.The first question that sprang to mind is ‘what’s their unique selling point’? How are they going to topple Beatport’s dominance in the electronic & dance download market? Here’s a quick analysis of some of the key sales points in their rather slick looking PDF brochure.
1) CONTEXT OF LOCATION - They’re going to be listing labels and artists by city encouraging customers to explore the local music scene’s and styles of different locations. As a unique selling point I find this a little underwhelming.
Firstly, I’m not sure how much value it adds to a customers browsing experience. So what if a label is based in Tokyo, their artists might be based in Melbourne, Helsinki or London. It might be they are simply licensing tracks from the US. The dance music world in particular has become a lot more globalised in the last decade with producers sending tracks over AIM or Yousendit to labels at all hours.
Secondly, the logistical part of my brain wonders if the effort in compiling this data outweighs the benefit. A few of the digital distributors will be able to provide the country of each label but I can’t see anyway they will be able to provide the country and city of every single artist that gets listed on the store.
2) FREEDOM TO LISTEN - One thing that zero” does very well is its sample soundclips. On clicking the Listen button a waveform of the track pops up on your screen and almost instantly starts playing. Users listen in high quality to any section of the track by simply clicking on the waveform. Although this does seem to come at the expense of more advanced cueing and playlisting features that you get when listening on a site like TrackItDown or DJDownload the sacrifice does seem worth it and the sytem neatly gets round the issue of how long a soundclip a store is allowed to play (in general, stores are only allow to give 30 second previews due to licensing issues).
3) THE ADVANTAGE OF ACCURACY - zero” claim that they will be focusing tightly on the accuracy of their discographies and verifying every single release before importing it to ensure an accurate product display. Whilst this is a noble gesture, is the problem of inaccurate data really that bad on the digital stores that it worsens the customers experience? Admittedly it is a problem for services such as Last.fm and MusicBrainz who are going to great lengths to collect sound data. But for digital retailers the metadata that they receive from labels should be gospel and it’s the labels’ job to make sure they are providing accurate data. In my opinion the successful digital retailers of tomorrow will be those with the leanest and most efficent ingestion routines to provide as little friction from label to store as possible.
4) STATE OF THE ART INTERFACE - being a late player to the game zero” have the advantage of being able to utilise the modern, but universal web standards of today. Their use of AJAX allows the customer to download every track and every release without ever leaving the page they are on.
I still wasn’t blow away by the design but it did look a lot smarter than some of the other download stores did at their own launch. Hopefully we’ll see some more features before the full launch.
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Thanks for the update on this site: when is it due to go live?
I have to agree with you that unless they have some unique selling points then they wont be able to break the dominance of the download oligopoly. Now that distribution has settled and we find that most sites have the same content: if users are comfortable with their current provider then I dont think they will change (unless there was financial motivation or the site offers a greatly improved user experience). I really dont see anyone being able to compete with Beatport though - they have all the labels and distros in their pockets and those guys cant afford not to treat Beatport as the market leader. Plus, there is a perhaps an increase in store fatigue and people are not that interested in promises of brand new stores as they have heard it all before - unless they are an innovation on a tired model they wont establish the market share they need to keep going (unless they have weighty backing)
So Zero’s usp hmmm:
CONTEXT OF LOCATION:On the basis of your description I dont see this as something that will make people adopt this store: as a customer this doesnt appeal to me. I frankly dont care. The music scene is global. Like you said - I run a Brighton based label but my artists come from all over the world, so to list all of them and then link them back to my label would be a pretty pointless process as the “local” scene would in reality be on a “global” scale. I’m pretty sure that Wasabeat do this system already as well (certainly by label). Seems like a gimmick rather than anything that adds value to the user experience - would like to see what take on it they have though (will reserve judgment).
FREEDOM TO LISTEN - anything that reduces the barrier to purchase is a good thing. The liscensing laws for streaming previews are prohibitive and take away one of the most enjoyable parts of the record shopping experience: not being able to listen to all the track is a pain and sometimes it doesn’t do the track justice. When I vinyl shop I love the fact that I can preview the whole track on my terms and then make my purchasing decision. And from a labels point of view: I don’t like having to rely on some music store’s processing gimp (or a preordained system) to choose which minute of my track is presented as the snippet to potential customers - this is risky and can make or break a track, especially in the dance market where many tracks aren’t given an accurate insight into their overall sound by just 1 minute of preview. If Zero are making this system more user friendly then that may give them an opportunity to poach customers: however, I guess they will still be limited by length of snippet (which perhaps doesn’t defeat the major fault in the online preview system).
THE ADVANTAGE OF ACCURACY: I dont see the major benefit of this. As you say, labels provide the information and it is up to them to be as accurate as possible. Where will Zero get the missing info from (apart from the labels)? How will the customer benefit? I cant think of any major benefits or any added motivation to purchase from having extremely accurate information (more than what download stores already provide). It isnt a usp that will get the downloaders salivating.
STATE OF THE ART INTERFACE: This is where they can make a difference, but I will need to have a play with the site to see whether it suits my particular browsing and shopping tastes. Screenshots dave?
All in all - nothing here that makes me think that this new market entrant is going to be any different to any other existing site. Plus, when my “economy of free” prediction comes true - all these USPs will be made obsolete
Meat