Radiohead's Permission to Market

Seth Godin's latest post The Truth about Radiohead touts the true value of the bands online foray.

Radiohead's recent endeavor selling their latest CD online and allowing the customer to set the price was a huge success for two reasons:

1) They sold 1.2 million albums at an average price of $8 an album(with no middleman) That’s damn near $10 million profit.

2) They have received 1.2 million permissions ripe for cultivating and monetizing.

As Godin notes,

"The fact that the group now has more than a million people they can go make music for is worth many times over what these people already paid. If they're smart, they'll continue to change the way they work. Paying for their mp3s should get you into a club, a club with continuing benefits."

That's the benefit of being first.

If you're not familiar with Seth Godin's work, you really should check him out.