I think that Moon is much important milestone than mars in the shorterm. The main reason is that Moonh is the huge resource of Helium-3, which should be a main energy resource of the next centuries. Who dominate the moon will also dominate the energy of the future. This is the main reason, why Chine, USA and Russia take a look more at the Moon than Mars.
Good point, I think that widget should be key part of the service. Maybee it will be better to completely get rid of the marketplace on our site.
You are right, that it could work for bands, who have decent user base. Indie bands will not be able to find enough followers bidding on the unique items.
The reason, why swoopo like auction could benefit band and their fans is, that at the Ebay, just the richest win. But there it is more like the lottery. Everybody has the same chance.
The biggest problem for me is to find bands with enough fans to try it.
I think that you ha ve a good point of view. But I think that it is normal for bands to sell their own stuff on the concerts, etc. http://mashable.com/2009/02/20/josh-freese-album-promotion took it step further and he is selling package for USD 75K. Do you see it too greedy? I think that fans are ok with it, but there is a problem, that similar package can be bought just by few guys.
Do you think that bands like Signals would like to auction their unique things (guitar, signed tshirt, special call ... like NIN drummer) to get some revenue?
I like the idea of everything connected to the web. Your car, fridge, evet the musical band poster with rfid chip or QR code. What do you think about the next frontier?
This is the real startup killer for our last startup. But it goes with other problems like get ramen profitable. Since you are not profitable and you need to eat, you will be very easy to be distracted..
Do you know, what are living expenses in SFO? There are about USD 500/month in Czech Republic :)