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this is so freaking perfect for almost anybody on this board. except me. i would be a good client though.
Birth of an Industry: IPod Loading
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
IT sounds like a line from a spam e-mail: Work from home! Low risk! Flexible schedule! Earn hundreds of dollars each gig!
But an emerging group of resourceful entrepreneurs says there is no catch. The rising popularity of Apple's sleek iPod has created a new niche service: the professional iPod loader. There are housekeepers to tend homes and gardeners to tend landscaping. Why not iPod loaders to take care of music collections?
For $1 to $1.49 a CD, the professional loaders will embark on the time-consuming process of copying a music collection onto an iPod, often providing a digital backup copy as well.
"It's a booming aftermarket of the iPod economy," said Bill Palmer, a 27-year-old entrepreneur who has created a nationwide network of iPod loaders called Loadpod. Each loader picks up the iPod and CD's at the client's home, then returns a fully loaded iPod in a few days.
The loaders say they are finding growing demand, especially after the holiday season, which increased the number of iPods sold to 10 million. Consumers are realizing that the digital wonder that was supposed to unify and simplify their musical existence actually eats up time, lots of it. Converting enough CD's to fill a 40-gigabyte iPod can take 60 to 100 hours, depending on the computer's speed. "The prospect of spending all this time was daunting," said Nell Eckersley, a 35-year-old educator in Brooklyn, who was excited when she received an iPod for Christmas. Then she began converting her collection of 400 CD's. "I spent all day Sunday doing it, and said, `This is crazy,' " she said.
Hearing such frustration has inspired many would-be businessmen. College graduates, computer technicians and D.J.'s are setting up shop. The business is even attracting medical doctors.
"I'm deeply in debt because of medical education and other things — why not?" said Jay Parkinson, a 28-year-old pediatric resident at St. Vincent's Manhattan Hospital in New York who recently started loading iPods in his spare time. He says he sits at his home computer for at least two hours every night anyway, so changing CD's while he is sitting there is a minimal burden. "Why not just get paid to be sitting at home?" Dr. Parkinson said. `'It doesn't take much effort on my part."
Hyung J. Chun, a 30-year-old cardiologist at Stanford, has started his own iPod business. With two other doctors, Dr. Chun invested $1,000 to buy a 100-CD changer to start his business, Feedmypod.com. "Hopefully we can turn it into something that can generate revenue eventually," Dr. Chun said.
Some are starting full-fledged small enterprises — creating banks of computers, hiring hourly workers, and aggressively sending out direct- mail advertisements. Others are one-person shops, moonlighting in boxer shorts or multitasking with their laptops at their day jobs.
Loading iPods is appealing because it is low risk, requires relatively little overhead and can be done from home or work. The only thing that is required is a relatively up-to-date computer and some computer knowledge. Marketing can be done on the cheap: online through the site Craigslist.com and Google, offline through neighborhood fliers and word of mouth.
"The reason it's so good right now is you buy the computer up front and there is very little marginal cost," said Brian Stucki, a 24-year-old president of Las Vegas Technical Associates, who has six computers converting CD's day and night. For the overnight shift, he pays college students a quarter for each CD they load, and gives them an Xbox and a television for entertainment.
Mr. Stucki started his business with an aggressive marketing campaign, sending 5,000 postcards to every lawyer's and dentist's office, bank, real estate agency and gym he could find in Las Vegas.
An iPod loader can earn several hundred dollars for converting a large collection, but hour by hour, the money is modest. Transferring a single full-length CD takes five to nine minutes on a standard computer, which means that most computers can generate $6 to $12 an hour. Even a computer capable of transferring a CD in three minutes would generate no more than $20 an hour.
But from the perspective of many customers, it's a bargain, especially for highly paid lawyers or executives. "The guy makes $250 to $500 an hour and he spends the next three weeks just to get his stupid CD collection on his iPods," said Kris Shrey, who runs cds-dvds-wanted .com. Mr. Shrey says he makes his money on scale: he runs eight computers loading iPods. Among his clients is Ms. Eckersley of Brooklyn, who paid $213 to convert a portion of her collection.
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