With more than 1 billion mp3 downloads logged in 1999, clearly the Internet will be an important part of the music industry's future distribution plans. Though direct revenues from this revolution have as yet remained elusive, other, less direct revenue opportunities are easier to see. The virtual storefront is a completely different animal than traditional retail. In turn, virtual storefronts can offer these independent artists an important and unique means for increasing their online record sales. Online sales are even more attractive to artists because they can keep a much greater percentage of total revenues than through traditional retail outlets, and almost any artist can list their product in online catalogs like CDNow.
Unicycle is a hybrid online record label.
While this content generates revenue on its own for both Unicycle and the artists through sponsorships, custom CDs, compilations, and digital downloads, it also generates traffic to the Unicycle site. Unicycle's model, like many other virtual storefronts, must support individual scenes or communities, since these groups go a long way towards generating a large chunk of the site's traffic. Who knows how the whole game will shake out, but virtual storefronts so far are a fine thing for artists.