Art without Commerce is a Hobby

Art without commerce is a hobby.

Chef Joe Bastianich offered up this statement in the NY Times magazine as his motto a few weeks back, and it resonated with me.

I’ve been having lots of conversations lately with people who are trying to crack the business model code for art.  Benjamin Reece, Robert Fogarty, Ross Hinkle are all building businesses around beautiful artistic expression.  But they’re building businesses, so commerce is key.

Business model options might be:

  • Consumer pays to consume the content
  • Brands pay to commission and be integrated into content
  • Advertisers pay to post ads beside the content
  • Give away the art to generate service business

What other methods of monetization do you see? What do you think works best?

Platforms like Kickstarter are today’s version of art patronage with a crowd-funded model, but they just fund the creation of art, not revenue generation from the art.  Ben pointed me to this post by Mark Cuban about the exhaustion facing content creators.  The bottom line is the independent artistic content production business is incredibly difficult to monetize.

We stand at an inflection point in the creation of content.  The cost of the tools to produce professional quality content have fallen dramatically, and more people than ever before are creating art as “prosumers.”  Yet the ability to capture value from content is has not yet been disintermediated, the traditional payment gateways are still firmly in place, and new models have yet to emerge.

Most content creation businesses remain controlled by the traditional gatekeepers to the content.  People pay monthly cable bills, buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and concert tickets yet have been trained not to pay for these services on the web.

As internet content consumption moves away from the computer towards other devices, it seems important to build these monetization schemes into the platforms that control access to the content.   Apple has trained people to pay for apps by making it easy and affordable.  What will happen with the emergence of set-up boxes?

Its crucial that people creating art can make a living doing it.  Let’s find the commerce for art.

LaunchPad @ Voodoo Welcomes Deltree

I’m thrilled to announce that Benjamin Reece’s company, Deltree will be moving into the LaunchPad @ Voodoo starting tomorrow!

Ben and Tung Bach Ly were over here at the offices yesterday, and they are already designing the editing studio environment and making themselves comfortable. They are going to be a fantastic addition to the creative, collaborative workspace we are building.

Deltree is rapidly becoming one of the preeminent film and creative studios in New Orleans. The runaway viral hit, 50 People 1 Question has generated buzz all over the internet and led to immediate expansion opportunities for Deltree including work for 504ward, Canary, Trumpet, Crush & Lovely, and a music video for Lucky Dog Audio.

In addition to moving into the LaunchPad @ Voodoo, I’m pleased to announce that Deltree submitted the winnning logo to the Launch Pad logo design content. We’ll be showcasing the logo as well as updates on the progress of the Launch Pad in an upcoming post.

In the meantime, on behalf of Voodoo Ventures, Tanguis Development, Zydego… Welcome, Deltree!