The Washington Post's Josh du Lac has an article on MySpace phenom Tila Tequila, her refusal to sign with a major label and her development as a brand. I'm quoted in the article saying, more or less, MySpace friends are cheap but music sales are harder to come by. That will be the lesson in The Great Tila Tequila Experiment of 2007.

Let me put Tequila's DIY experiment thus far into perspective. The two versions (clean and explicit) of her "I Love You" digital single have sold a total of about 5,200 units in two weeks of release. (Her MySpace page, du Lac reported, has generated over 40 million track plays. The single is distributed by INgrooves.) That wasn't even good enough for the Top 200 digital track chart. Last week, the 200th best selling digital track was Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" with one week sales of 5,600. The death of Boston's singer propelled "More Than A Feeling" well past both Tequila and Queen.

Tequila and her manager, Simon Renshaw, are more concerned with her brand than just music sales. Said her manager, "I didn't get involved in helping Tila on the basis of thinking we've found this great new musical diamond; I think of Tila as a cultural phenomenon."

But here's where the balance of risk and reward comes into play. Majors surely wanted some of Tequila's merchandise business to offset the high level of risk. It's a revenue stream any MySpace star should want to protect. Tequila, probably more concerned about her brand than getting a hit single, and hopefully aware that music success is a long shot, needs her merchandise business.