Yawnies!

[swestrup]

I'm sooo tired. I think Imma gonna goa tobed earlie beefhore miy speling gows away. So, as a reminder for later, someone needs to post (or not) about:

* Business models for vinyl digitization.
* Business models for a free, open-source version of the Sims.
* Junkyard Code: A variant of Junkyard wars for C coders.

References to Juan Valdez' donkey are highly optional.

Comments

[sps.livejournal.com]

Nooooo! Not the donkey!!!!

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Relative of a friend made more than enough to pay off his high-end transcription turntable by doing conversions, so it is plausible...

[swestrup]

Do tell! I've been looking with avarice at this laser vinyl scanner for some time now, and would dearly love a business model that allows me to purchase it...

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Okay. So you're (of course) going to want the high-end model, which is 14300$ (all prices in USD for simplicity). Shipping is 400$. You'll want a professional soundcard, which is 200$. Keith Monks 'Archivist' record cleaning device is 4400$. 500$ for colour laser printer for cover art. 200$ for scanner to capture said art. Up to 1000$ in software by taste. Up to 2000$ for new computer (as if one needs an excuse to upgrade!) A high-end stereo system would of course be completely justified to monitor quality...

So, depending on how fancy you want to get, you're looking at between 11000$ and 23000$ initial investment.

Work involved per sale would vary considerably depending on services desired. At the low end, it would involve simply between putting in the record, hitting record, flipping the record, converting to mp3, and emailing to customer. At the high end, one could clean the record, scan , process, and reproduce album artwork in CD size, transcribe record, adjust equalization, split songs into tracks, run noisereduction, normalize, produce multiple cds with various processing options and custom labels, assemble CD cases and return record. Time investment could be between 5 minutes and 2 hours. Charge for your time accordingly.

A cursory googling reveals prices of 15$-80$ from minimal services in bulk to extreme high-end with processing and art. At 15$, you could make 10$ profit per, and pay off a minimal system in 1100 sales, or maximal in 2300. At 80$, you could make 50$ profit per, and pay off a minimal system in 220, or maximal in 460. Depreciation of most gear is fairly low, and it would be saleable at a significant portion of purchase price. I can't make a good guess at market, but most customers would have more than one album to convert, and may return with more batches, and advertise via wordofmouth.

So, it's entirely plausible if you decide to make a try at it.

[swestrup]

I'll have to give this some real thought. I'm NOT an audiophile and also do not have the training for doing sound engineering. On the other hand I know lots about user interfaces and system coding. As well, talented sound engineers are not hard to find in Montreal, and I could easily see myself partnering with one. I also want to do some research into merging multiple scans of different copies of a work (or indeed multiple scans at different groove depths) so as to make the noise cancel out and get better-than-thought-possible fidelity out of old records.

I have a few leads on possible contracts that would allow me to develop the software as well as a few leads on archivists who've bought this very same equipment for this purpose, so I can find out about gotchas in the equipment. I think I'll pursue them sometime this week.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

And since I'm stuck at work till 8am;

Give the engine away for free, but make money on the 'official' server from people who want to cut corners. The simulation must have limited resources to keep the economy functioning, but someone who doesn't want to work their character so hard can convert some realworld to simulation money. If it works out right, it could be enough to support the server and perhaps the core coders...

It might be interesting to see battlebots with standardized robots, the only difference being in the coding. Of course, if they had limited time to do the coding, and other, scarier robots occasionaly entered the coding chamber to harass the coders... TV!

[swestrup]

Rather than reply to this here, I put up a big huge post on it in my main journal. To simplify my argument tremendously: I would like there to be an option of no money in the game, while still making real money off of the game. That requires a greater separation of fake and real money than you propose, but I think I have a scheme that handles that.