This is old news, but, Richard and Sandy Teraci, owners of a Clean Flicks-style DVD/VHS editing company, will soon launch a Web site offering downloads of music by LDS artists and hymn ring tones. Mac News World has the story (hat tip to LDS Review and LDS Today).
Richard Teraci is billing it as “iTunes for saints” and says he has signed “exclusive contracts” with several LDS artists. Downloads will be sold for $1.
In addition, the Teracis are launching http://www.safemp3.com. “The site will have lyric offensive-free music available for downloading,” Teraci explains in the Mac News World piece. “We will have thousands and thousands of songs and there won’t be any language or offensiveness in it.”
Although neither is to my taste (well, okay, so maybe an “If you could hie to Kolob” ring tone would be cool), they both seem like business ventures that are good for the LDS market.
However, this is yet another example of a Mormon-focused venture jumping the gun with its pr/marketing efforts. The site for http://www.safemp3.com doesn’t even exist yet. And check out the site for Latter Day Tunes. It’s basically a digital handbill. It’s a dead page — no links, no interactivty, not even any contact info.
If you are going after press coverage and don’t have at least some semblance of a Web site ready with a minimum of content to offer, then you’re putting the cart before the horse.
This is not to say that they should have had the whole site up and ready with their entire e-commerce system set up.
But at the very least, the site should have:
1. The option to add your e-mail to a list to receive notice when the site goes life as well as other news and offers.
2. Two or three free sample ringtone and mp3 downloads — or if they didn’t want to give anything away, at the very least a couple of streaming versions of their products.
3. A contact e-mail (and if they’re really serious a phone number) for consumers and LDS artists who want to reach the company.
4. Some mention on the artists they’ve lined up and hymns they’ve created ring tones for — not an exhaustive catalog but 4-8 examples of each.
5. Been copyedited.
It’s not too late to do all of these things — and they’d take less than eight hours to accomplish. And as always, A Motley Vision offers this up by way of instruction and for the benefit of all and not to criticize. Or to put it another way — I’m giving away marketing advice absolutely free. I don’t see all the lawyers in the Bloggernacle giving their expertise away for free (or at least not on practical matters — abstract, esoteric legal issues is another matter) [wink].
A Motley Vision 
I agree with your assessment. I was kinda excited about this venture when I read about it, then went to the site, and felt let down. I hope it works, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
I wish LDS artists would venture onto iTunes, since now basically anyone can get on through a simple application process.
Posted by Dallas Robbins
Am I the only one that thinks this is a little strange? Is there really enough of an LDS artist base to make something like this work? As far as I remember, there aren’t that many artists that are purely LDS, are they going to include more than just the standard stuff, and get bands that may be made up of LDS people, but not really singing about LDS topics? Maybe that way it would work.
I agree with you about the website though, it makes me wonder sometimes why people jump the gun on things like this.
Posted by Aimee Roo
Aimee:
Great question.
KZION, the LDS internet radio station, has something like 3,000 tracks in its database. It’s actually a fairly robust market.
My guess is that Latter Day Tunes is using the mp3s to attract customers but will make the most money selling the content it produces on its own — the ring tones, screensavers, etc.
I would also guess that Latter Day Tunes will help feed LDS customers to their “Clean Tunes” site — which will have a much larger catalog of songs.
Dallas:
RE ITunes — sure. But the advantage of Latter Day Tunes for an LDS artist is that your works is going to be marketed directly to the people that are most likely to buy your music.
Posted by William Morris
Okay, we deserve it! The harsh criticism for not having the site up yet.
I do apologize. As the owner of Latter Day Tunes, I have to agree the site should have been up before the press release.
We were interviewed a short time ago by several papers in Utah because of re-locating our main company Family Flix to Provo from Arizona. If your not familiar with http://www.familyflix.com, we are the premiere provider of movies that are edited for content. During our interview, we were discussing future projects and said we were getting close to launching Latter Day Tunes and another site for a broader audience (SafeMP3.com)
I guess an “Almost Ready” quote turned into “Already launched”!!
Unfortunately, site development for the ringtones has been a little difficult and we had to build a whole new platform to support it. We did have a homepage for visitors to sign up to be notified. For some reason it was taken down and should be placed back up by tomorrow.
So, that’s the scoop. if you have any other questions about the site, please feel free to post and I will get back to you. We hope to launch within a week or two.
Thanks,
Rich
Posted by Rich
Thanks, Rich.
The fact that you were willing to respond on this blog shows that you all understand public relations/marketing. I’m sure many LDS businesspeople wouldn’t even bother.
I appreciate the update. Good luck working out the technical issues.
~~Wm
Posted by William Morris
Great page! Excellent points! Hope I can get away from my free alltel ringtone long enough to come back again! Keep up the great work!
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