My Torrent Experiment - 2 Week Update (So Far Not Convinced)

As you may or may not of seen I have been experimenting with torrent files of my own music to see how effective they are at being used as a way of promoting your own music. Torrent files are seen by many in the Music Business as something to hate, I on the other hand have decided to embrace them and use them to my own advantage. So far my first torrent file has been on the net now for 2 weeks and I thought I should keep you updated and tell you what I have learnt so far.

From my estimation I believe the torrent may have been downloaded about 500 times in total. Most downloads happened on the first day that the torrent was uploaded to a site and the number of new leechers (downloaders) gradually decreased in number of over the week.

Statistic Increases?

As you may have remembered in the original post when I started out this experiment I gave some stats to see whether a increase in these stats has occured since the torrents went on.

• www.edwardcufaude.com has approx 1 visitor per day.
• www.rhythmcreation.com which I started last October now has approx 200 unique visitors per day mainly from people searching google for help with their own music, they are not searching for my music.
• I have 32 MySpace Friends, had 791 MySpace Profile views and 588 plays in the music player.
• I currently have 70 plays on my ReverbNation widget - on the right of this page and which is also on www.edwardcufaude.com.
• There are currently 2200 results when I Google my name.

After two weeks these stats are now currently at….

• www.edwardcufaude.com has approx 2 (+1) visitor per day.
• www.rhythmcreation.com visitors have no change to report.
• I have 33 (+1) MySpace Friends, had 1032 (+241) MySpace Profile views and 725 (+137) plays in the music player.
• I have 87 (+17) plays on my ReverbNation widget - on the right of this page and which is also on www.edwardcufaude.com.
• There are currently 3390 (+1190) results when I Google my name.

The big increase was on google search results mainly due to torrent indexing sites. The other changes were not that big and so could not be attributed to the torrents. I had 1 person contact me who wanted to use my tracks in his podcast during that time who discovered my music from the previous article not through a torrent site.

The First Two Weeks Conclusion?

At this point in time I am starting to think that when I see people say “I discover new music through downloading torrents” it is a completely false statement. I think that 99.9% of people discover music through magazines, radio and through recommendations from friends and then go to the torrent sites and download that music because they can get it for free. I am yet to be convinced that using torrents is a viable solution for an unknown musician as a way of promotion. I have also found out that most of the torrent sites are very musician unfriendly at the moment and are not geared towards helping unknown and independent musicians like they would like some people to think.

Note: You can download my first torrent from Here. (It is electronica breakbeat/big beat music, you can preview it on the right hand side of this page)

Article written for Rhythm Creation by Edward Cufaude