Amie Street Interview with Joshua Boltuch

Written by Allen Stern - November 13, 2006

After ad:tech, I met up with Joshua Boltuch from Amie Street. Amie Street is the destination for independent music. We actually met at a cafe near NYU which claims to have the first ever cappucino machine, Cafe Reggio. Great atmosphere and when you listen to the audio you will hear some of it :). Joshua is very bright and seems to have all of the ducks in a row for Amie Street to be a great success.

Highlights of our discussion include:

Brief bio about Joshua
Background on Amie Street, motivation, factors for creating Amie Street
Insider information on where the name came from, it's a play on Wall St.
Competitor information
Detailed explanation of the Amie Street pricing model
Gaming the pricing system
Big name artists on Amie Street?
Finding music on Amie Street vs. iTunes
Quality of the bands on Amie Street
What does the artist make on Amie Street? (70/30 split, no upfront fees)
Copyright and DRM issues
Video?
Future of digital music
Hooking up bands with their loyals (Amie Street Showcases)
Marketing plan besides TechCrunch listing?
Feedback requests, they want user feedback
Referral marketing
Biggest mistake to-date with Amie Street (besides not hiring me as a consultant)
Funded / Unfunded
Overview of the recommendations system
Power user overview

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Click the start button below to begin the audio interview (18 minutes) (or download the mp3):

Joshua even recommended some artists to me: