profiting from your 15 minutes of infamy

As a follow-up to Mike's post about the media's usage of social networking sites, ArsTechnica has an article about how Ashley Alexandra Dupré is using those social networking sites to advance her music career.

After the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke, Ms. Dupré added a link in her profile to her music on Amie Street, an online music store. Amie Street is interesting in itself for dynamically pricing it's songs depending on their popularity. This page describes Amie Street in more detail.

"All songs start free and can rise in price up to 98 cents. The price of a song depends on how many times it's been bought - if a member buys a song for free, he or she probably got a deal for getting to the song first. If the song is at 98 cents, then it's a given that a lot of people on Amie Street think it's a great song."

Currently, Ashley Alexandra Dupré's songs are hitting the $0.98 maximum. According to Reuters, an estimated 1 million copies of her songs have been downloaded. That translates into more than $680,000! I guess she may as well profit for her "15 minutes of infamy".