<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, rcrd lbl]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, rcrd lbl]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/rcrdlbl http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/rcrdlbl <![CDATA[Ad network fad hits music blogs]]> MP3 blog like Peter Rojas's RCRD LBL attract "tastemakers who wield considerable influence over their peers" reports Fortune. Only they don't attract very many of them. For example, Thefader.com has 93,000 monthly uniques, RCRD LBL, 125,000 and Thetripwire.com about 15,000. So what are these small sites with attractive demographics to do? Hire crafty ad sales teams to sell limited, premium inventory to sponsors desperate to reach their "boutique" audience? No!

They're doing what everyone else is doing, throwing their inventory into a big pile and asking someone else to do the work in return for a large cut of the revenues. Jon Cohen and Rob Stone, principals of New York-based Cornerstone Promotion, have created an ad network for the very purpose. We're not surprised many follow this path. It's easy and allows publishers to focus on creating content — which is probably more fun than selling ads. We would be surprised if RCRD LBL's Rojas joins up. His blogfather, Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis, is a known proponent of going with internal ad sales teams over ad networks, which he describes as "short term and very damaging." Indeed, Fortune reports Rojas is rumored to be going the smart way: releasing a major artist's latest album, sponsored by a single advertiser.

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<![CDATA[Free from Jason Calacanis, Veronica Belmont is immortalized in song]]> Veronica Belmont is no longer a "Rojas-level" hire at Jason Calacanis's Mahalo Daily videoblog. But she's lending her name to former Calacanis partner Peter Rojas's music site RCRD LBL. Or, rather, music group the Carps is lending it for her. They've written a song titled "Veronica Belmont." Why? Because the song lyrics all about the Internet, on which Belmont obviously plays a crucial role. Along with something called Chocolate Rain and the word pwned. (Photo by Veronica Belmont)

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<![CDATA[Music wants to be something other than free]]> "After a certain point the free 'promotional' use of their music becomes a substitute for people actually buying their music.... The problem is that the labels think their music is worth and what the market thinks it's worth are very different things right now. That doesn't mean that music has no value — I certainly don't believe that, otherwise I wouldn't have started a music site — but that there isn't as much value in at as a retail object." — RCRD LBL founder Peter Rojas, responding to Ted Mico of Capitol Records on the problem of giving away music online as a form of marketing. [PSFK]

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<![CDATA[Jakob Lodwick disses Peter Rojas, just so we'll talk about him]]> Ousted Vimeo founder/CEO Jakob Lodwick has fallen into Tumblr-blogged obscurity. Without a scantily clad photo of Jakob and Julia every morning, why should we continue to care about his budding musical exploits? Lodwick must have gotten the memo, for he's taken on fellow nerd-hottie hipster entrepreneur Peter Rojas in an attempt to stay relevant. Lodwick (and everyone else) can't figure out what's so great about Rojas's Web-music thing, RCRD LBL. "They combined the worst way to discover music (genres) with the worst way to organize Web content (tag clouds)." Them's fighting words! At least he has one good point: the only people who think any of this crazy music 2.0 nonsense is a good idea are founders of music websites and their friends. (Photo of Jakob Lodwick by Jesse Winter) Update: Lodwick deleted the post. Luckily, we have a copy.

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<![CDATA[Blogfather explains why music is blog fodder]]>

Peter Rojas, the founder of gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo, explains the thinking behind the RCRD LBL project to trendspotting site PSFK — important things like why it's a blog. Now if he'd only explain why he chose such an annoying name.

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<![CDATA[Engadget founder and newly married uberhipster...]]> Engadget founder and newly married uberhipster Peter Rojas's Internet-only music label RCRD LBL will launch this November. Creative director Elliot Aronow parrots what little has been revealed of the venture: a network of ad-supported online music labels and blogs offering free, exclusive music from artist both famous and unknown. He should have thrown in "It's like a filtered YouTube" for good measure. [PSFK]

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