Apart from an online presence, is there a consideration for physical products as well?
Physical products are important as long as there is a division between online and offline spheres of activity. That division is growing increasingly thin with every passing year but it still presents a barrier to the direct exchange of cultural goods. What do we do online? We send links. In the real world we pass on (or sell) physical goods. When you try to perform one of these acts in the wrong domain it doesn’t work very well–people don’t pay attention or don’t remember. Now, things are moving very quickly in our society. We probably aren’t far from a day where we all carry personal media devices (like the iPhone, for instance) that allow for streamlined and effortless file sharing, but we’re not quite there yet. Until that happens physical media will still serve a purpose. Well, assuming people still use CDs–many don’t. Ektoplazm is unusual in that we sell CD versions of every release we do. This is accomplished through an on-demand manufacturing service that prints as many copies a
