Great point overall and answered a lot of questions I had about the Youtube/CDbaby synch process. And I'm glad you mentioned the fact that the Rumblefish catalog is Huge. I recently went through the rather lengthy processes of having an album added to the Pump Audio catalog. Don't know if it will pay off, but I'm glad it was a bit more selective.

Why top the charts or even rank on them at all? The real question is, why bother making money from music at all? Getting radio exposure = making more money. If you are cool with just being an "artist" and making music on the side, then sure, don't promote to radio, care about charts, etc.

Clark is completely right on. It's 2013 (not 2004) and your own website is still relevant. I hate it when I want to find out more about a band and have to piece together all the info from several sites such as facebook or bandcamp. Recently I saw a local band on a local tv show and they didn't have their own site with all their info. So guess what, I don't know where they are playing next so I won't be going to their shows anytime soon because none of that info is on their social sites.

Excellent post. Back in the day... we would flip through MMR to find an "indie band" to book at the local union hall. As you've pointed out, the term has a whole new meaning today. And when Skrillex invited about 20 people to the stage while accepting yet another Grammy this weekend - that proved right their that it takes a lot of people to reach mainstream success. Sure, not everyone is trying to hit the mainstream or trying to get on Clear Channel controlled radio - but for whatever reason, there seems to be this myth out there that you can really become the "Next Big Thing" via a YouTube and Facebook account, or whatever. Maybe this myth is being perpetuated by writers looking for a nice story or by people trying to hock music biz books. To get to my not so thought out point, the question I have is - Does it matter? Can we just cut the charade and recognize that no matter how much we hear that the Majors are hemorrhaging money, that they still run a majority of the show. And so what?

Personally over the years I've probably used Emusic the most over other services. But as a musician, I still get over twice as many sales from iTunes, with Amazon coming in second. As someone who really likes Emusic and has subscribed for years I think it would be great if this gives them a boost, but I think it could be a bit late as streaming takes hold. As was mentioned in a previous comment, if they don't add a streaming option they may not only lose potential new users, but their current base could move on.