Pay me, I'm cool

It’s always paid to be cool – everyone likes you, you’re popular, people want to be like you and be with you. Now it really pays to be cool with the launch of Popcuts, a new music downloads site that actually rewards users the more cool they are. 

Popcuts charges users just under a (U.S.) dollar per track, but the cool bit is when other people then purchase the same track(s) as you. Once you have purchased a track and others purchase it afterwards (following you lead if you will) you get rewarded for it like some kind of cool barometer. 

In addition, the sooner you buy the track, the greater the reward you get. Essentially, Popcuts gets around 10-20 per cent of the profit with the artists getting to nominate their cut and the rest is then shared out between the fans that buy the tracks with the top-trendsetters taking the lions share. 

MyTake – Reports so far show that users have been more likely to get on to the site to search for new artists and music in search of greater rewards, so it’s clearly working. I think that this kind of an idea can help shift more music fans from illegal downloads to legal downloads. Sure, the quality issue is a big factor, but it’s not enough for some. By adding this value-add, or rewards system (and one that clearly taps into the ego of most music fans), purchasing music becomes a cool factor and more interestingly, a social ranking tool.