First, a quick recap of Sellaband for those of you who might have missed it when they first made headlines a year and a half ago:

The site allows independent musicians to start accounts and then fund their recordings with presales of an album. By recruiting "believers" -- essentially fans willing to cough up $10 for a "share" of a new album -- they start building a support base. When they reach 5000 fans, the site gives them the $50000 so they can make an album with a serious budget.

When the album is done, everyone who bought shares gets a free copy and gets first dibs on buying additional copies. Sellaband CDs are limited edition, so the investors are getting a collector's item of sorts. As Trent showed us last week, this can fuel sales considerably.

In a way, this is similar to the new Monkeyclaus plan which lets you fund your recording sessions by selling MP3s through our store. One place where Sellaband has us beat, though, is with the support from Amazon -- the online retailer recently pledged to buy 100 shares of any band that can reach 3000 supporters.

Now, there are currently about 6000 artists registered with Sellaband, only 14 of whom have reached the $50,000 mark so far. Still, it's an interesting model, and the fact that it has gained significant traction with a major traditional retailer is encouraging.