Radiohead Needs a Lesson from Steve Jobs

Seth Godin blogs this morning about Radiohead's new album. He may have jumped the gun. While Radiohead is adopting a "new" marketing strategy with a "pay what you want" for the album download, it may be more a classic case of buyer beware.

As reported this week, many fans are disappointed with the quality of the .mp3 files. Apparently produced with low bitspeed, audiophiles are starting to report that they're feeling ripped off - that the quality of the art is suffering from it's digital production.

Cynics believe that is new marketing ploy is simply a way to get early adopters to buy the downloads, then be forced to purchase the higher quality physical CD at a later date - morphing a "pay what to want" campaign, to a "pay me twice" outcome.

If this is the case (fans would argue that this would be highly unusual for Radiohead to do), they had better take a lesson from Steve Jobs recent iPhone price slashing debacle, and figure out a way to make higher quality downloads available at no extra charge, or somehow generate an online coupon to allow download purchasers a shot at buying the physical CD at a discount.

One thing is for certain. In a Web 2.0 world, they had better address the issue quickly, because the word is out - everywhere.