Digital Media Wire posts this interesting article about Coldplay and the music industry’s ongoing struggle with digital music.

The Hitwise graphs provide some good data, and it’s not a surprise that traffic to the Coldplay site spiked as much as it did. After all, free music is going to bring in the fans.

What would really be interesting to know is how much actual commerce was generated as a result of the additional traffic. Did sales of Coldplay music spike on iTunes? Were more addresses added to the email list? Did sales of T-shirts and such in the Coldplay online store spike in conjunction with the Web traffic?

I’d be surprised if the answer wasn’t a resounding “yes” to all three questions. Free music is the MacGuffin in the marketing story; once the crowd is assembled, the commerce will follow.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing Stuff.