Grasmayer outlines a set of steps to success. In the first step, “a band, group, artist, label, has to differentiate themselves […] their music has to be very good, but it also needs an element which defines it.” The second step is “to give fans a message that spreads […] you have to be a story, as an artist or a label, be remarkable and be worth mentioning.” Then, “when this story starts spreading, that’s when you start building your ecosystem.” The fourth and final step is to use this ecosystem: “once the ecosystem is in place, one should start listening very closely to […] see what it wants. This is a paradigm-shift in marketing communications, because it has traditionally been about finding a consumer for your product, but this is about finding a product (business opportunity) for your consumers.” Everything he writes makes sense, of course. It may be initially jarring to read about “consumers”, “products”, and “business opportunities” in the context of music (especially because music, as Grasmayer points out elsewhere, is always also more than just a product 5 ). But it’s true: fans are consumers, an album is a product of sorts, and if it’s profit (or even just self-sufficiency) they’re after, bands need to look for business opportunities. And, as Grasmayer writes, “the power of an ecosystem in a digital world” is potentially liberating:With a strong ecosystem, one also doesn’t need to worry about gatekeepers that one traditionally would need, such as the people who decide what to play on MTV…the ecosystem should be like the cool party happening down the street.…Soon enough, the party will be attracting people from all over the area…the fun of the party depends on its own existence and therefore the party protects its continued existence. Now imagine that party without geographical limitations.