Tip of the week - Trade your tunes for tips

This is a bit of a new idea for us at the Cafe but we thought, "Hey, we stare at computer screens almost all day every day and constantly find sweet tools that could really help indie artists. Maybe we should pass on the sweetest of our finds". So here's the first...

NOISETRADE: Trading your tunes for an email or a tip.

Remember the caveman days when people traded stuff like a hammer for some bread? Well, that whole trading thing is picking up momentum these days among indie artists. With the rise of BitTorrent sites and MP3 stealing a lot of artists have decided not to fight this but go along with it by giving their music away in exchange for an email and/or a tip. Allow myself to introduce Noisetrade.com.

I found this site a couple of years ago but at the time it would cost an artist 300 bucks (or something) to join. Now it’s FREE (ding ding ding).

Some of you may have caught Andrew and Zachari Smith playing at the Streaming Cafe before. Well, they're just releasing a new album but are using Noisetrade to give away their title track "Travelling" which has got some killer tones, slide work, and all around great vibe BTW. (see below for a live example of it in action)

Um, did I mention that it’s free to use? Noisetrade works based on a revenue share system which is pretty unique - here's the process:

• Step 1: Artist uploads their life-changing album up to Noisetrade

• Step 2: Artist embeds the player (widget) on their site / Myspace / Facebook etc.

• Step 3: The superfan is able to listen to the tracks, types in their email address and zip/postal code, and an email is sent with instructions on how to download the album.
  

• Step 4: The superfan is encouraged (not forced) to share about this album/artist on Facebook or Twitter.

• Step 5: The superfan is then prompted (not forced) to leave the artist a tip (min. of $1 but max of $100). This is all done through Paypal and then Noisetrade keeps 20% of this tip.

Golden. And the real magic is that ANYONE can embed this into their own site / blog / Myspace etc. like we just did so it's really helping artists get the word out about their muzak.

If you have any of your own sweet finds, we’d love to hear about 'em. (Leave your tips in the comments)

Keep yer stick on the ice,
Nico & the Streaming Cafe tribe