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196 Part 1 Introduction

Real-world E-Business experiences The Econsultancy interview

Interview with Mike Clark of GD Worldwide, supplier to the social net-
work bands

Overview and main concepts covered
GD Worldwide is an online resource for independent bands originating in Australia. It is
intended to help establish an Internet presence and manage the distribution of their
material. It also allows bands to create a ‘backstage area’ via its Usync tool. It high-
lights the innovation made possible by digital technology and how one web start-up
business has taken advantage of them. We caught up with UK MD Mark Clark to
discuss plans and progress to date...

Q. When, how and why was the company formed?
Mike Clark, GD Worldwide: The company is called GD Worldwide, and was formed in
2001 by the Australian band Gabriel’s Day – a touring, working band. They’re relatively
small in the global scale of artists, but in Australia have got a core following and a
sustainable fan base.
The music business in Australia has, to an extent, been overlooked by the big record
labels, at least relative to other markets, so it has spawned more of an independent, self-
managed environment. The artists have much more of a sense of community about them.
So the idea behind GD Worldwide was to take the experiences of Gabriel’s Day and
give other artists the tools they need to create self-sustaining careers outside of the
traditional, major label system. It gives them an alternative route to market – they don’t
have to go through the existing model.
In that model, the creative group behind a band have to go through a series of gate-
keepers in order to reach their audience – the distribution, the rights organizations, the
retailers and so on.
There’s a whole load of people that get in between the artist and the audience and
are taking meat off the table. Those people aren’t really adding a tremendous amount
of value – they are normally taking it away – so the artists find it difficult to reach their
audience in a sustainable way.
The other side of it is that the gatekeeper model only represents what we estimate
to be 3% of the total music marketplace. It’s the short tail and the market is set up to
create and feed that, rather like the Hollywood star model. There is the other 97% of
the market – the long tail, and we are a company set up to operate there. We put the
artist at the centre of things and reorientate the resources around them.
The other thing is that it’s no secret that record sales are declining, and while the
music is predicting that there is huge growth to be had in the future, nobody seems to
know how to get their hands on it.

Q. What do you offer over the likes of Bebo and Myspace?
Mike Clark, GD Worldwide: In Myspace, there are up to 3m artists but very few have
worked out how to monetise their presence or commercialise the interest they
have created.
We think of our Usync product as the next step on from Myspace, where an artist
can interact, manage and learn from their audiences, as well as commercialising them.
Bands need a Myspace profile – it’s a great way to attract interest – but once you
have brought people into your space, how many of those are true fans? You want to
take the 20% of those that are, and bring them into the backstage area we create for
you, where they get treated to exclusive content and so on.