View Click Stats on Bitly or Goo.gl Short URLs

You may already know that you can view click stats on Bitly short URLs by adding + to the end of the URL, like this:

http://bitly.com/LH9pqK+

But did you know adding + also works for any other service that shortens their URLs through Bitly, like Amazon?

http://amzn.to/wZsYV5+

You can also view data on Google short URL clicks by inserting the shortened ID of a goo.gl URL into a longer Google URL like this (I find that I have to click this link twice to see the metrics):

http://goo.gl/#analytics/goo.gl/9bHF1/week

Resnikoff on DRM-Free

Resnikoff's Parting Shot: The Downer on DRM-Free

Paul Resnikoff of Digital Music News spends an amazing amount of time following the digital music business. Where does he get the time!?

In the post linked above, Paul discusses the lack of any sales bump from licensing non-DRM music to Amazon and others, and compares it to Apple's continued dominance, even though most Apple music remains locked up in Fairplay DRM. The complaint seems to be that non-DRM is not moving the needle.

I look at it the other way around: it was DRM that didn't move the needle.

This proves DRM was an unnecessary technology the music labels forced on distributors for years. DRM is inherently anti-consumer, and at the razor-thin margins the labels require (driven by Apple's refusal to budge on the 99 cent price point), no distributor can afford the customer support calls DRM creates.

Even after DRM has been proven a failure, the labels continue to make stupid mistakes even now with restrictive licensing rights and lack of margin to build a business.

MySpace Music

Why MySpace Music Is Likely to Fail

Here's a post by Om Malik on the coming-soon MySpace streaming music with upsell to Amazon MP3 downloads experiment. Om thinks it will be a failure. I hope he's wrong, but the key lines from his post are:

The record labels are still not facing the proverbial music and understanding that their business model is completely broken... They need to learn that they don't need to start a company, but instead encourage a thousand others

The music labels must get out of the way of distribution - both in terms of price and rights.

My usability opinion is that any web-based streaming service is bound to fail as the music stops playing when the web page it's playing on unloads. One way around that is to pop out a player that can be minimized to the task bar, but that defeats any display advertising. Online music will only succeed when it becomes custom radio, complete with local, regional, and national audio advertising and the occasional upsell to a favorite "now playing" song or album download.

Napster and Amazon

Here are two Fortune stories on CNN about digital music that show what's wrong with the music labels' expectations, and the only way to survive under the labels' regime.

The first is about Napster's problems as a digital music pure-play trying to survive on the razor-thin margins it makes on music. Napster has never been profitable.

The second is about Amazon's MP3 store and its (and Apple's) successful big box store strategy of using music as a loss leader to get customers through the door, hopefully encouraging shoppers to attach other, higher margin, items to their purchases.

Apple doesn't care that they're not making money on music purchases. They're making tons of money on their iPods, and some more on iPod users who are switching from Microsoft to Apple PCs. Yet, the labels continue to allow Apple to define the market prices for music downloads.

The major music labels insist their content has intrinsic value. Unfortunately, the digital market disagrees - and the customer is always right.