Future of Business & Communications: FuturistGerd

(via Will Streaming Music Ever Be Profitable?)

Answer: not with the music industry killing every innovative company they can get their hands on:)

A VC: Nobody Is Crying For You When You Are Worth Billions

We, the tech/startup/VC world, are not doing ourselves any favors by bragging about the big valuations we are raising money at. We are in fact doing ourselves great harm. Because it makes us look like spoiled brats who are being fed with a silver spoon. Those inside these companies (Spotify, Airbnb, Square, Twitter, etc, etc) know that is not what is really going on. We know how hard it is to build something really new and different. It is a struggle and nothing comes easy. But it is important to realize how the broader world sees it. And they just see billions

Spotify - rewriting the music business ?

according to internal Spotify data, after an initial burst of interest that resembles the pattern for sales of music, a funny thing happens. Songs in the company’s catalog are played again and again, with no diminution in popularity. The reason is simple: people are building playlists. It’s as if an artist were paid every time one of their fans dropped a needle on their record…”

Gerd comments: I love Spotify and certainly hope they can indeed change the way the music industry work - all it will take is approximately $3 billion in VC money ;)

Among the bigger-name streaming services are Spotify, which uses a freemium ad-supported, desktop app-based model; Rdio, which takes a tiered, cloud-based approach; and Pandora, whose personalised streaming radio is also available on a freemium ad-supported model. There’s also Wimp, Rara, Napster, We7, Pure, Last.fm, Senzari, Grooveshark, Sony Music Unlimited, Songza, Mog, Samsung Music Hub, and Microsoft’s Xbox Music, to name a few. In total, more than 500 legal music services are operating across the world, together having registered over 13 million paying subscribers - a figure that jumped more than 65 per cent last year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) Digital Music Report 2012 ….

Too big to succeed: Is the music streaming market doomed to failure? | ITProPortal.com

It’s all about access, not ownership. And Freemium. The music business needs to get this, or fold.

itproportal.com

Check out this quite entertaining new video of a web-conference with Andrea from Digital Music Trends, on the topic of Internet Radio Acts, Pandora, Google’s Free matching & more (by Andrea Leonelli).

Fight Growing Over Online Royalties - NYTimes.com

Sirius, for example, pays 8 percent of its revenue to record companies and artists. Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a song is streamed, which last year amounted to about 54 percent of its revenue, or $149 million.
“The rate being too high dramatically depresses how much music gets played,” Mr. Westergren said in a recent interview. “It has really suffocated the industry.”

Gerd adds: the music industry loves to choke their golden geese. Pandora should pay a percentage of revenues just like any other radio service, IMHO.

derfuturist:

Future of Online Music, a set on Flickr.
A quick update on the future of digital music and the need for a new digital music license. Be sure to download (and read:) my Music 2.0 book, it’s free via http://www.mediafuturist.com/2011/01/freebooks.html

(via MediaFuturist: JWT’s Things to Watch: Music Edition… (futureof.biz)
futuristgerd: (via MediaFuturist: New video: Rebooting Media:… (thefuturesagency.com)

According to StageofLife.com, in August, 49% of teens and college-age consumers reported spending zero dollars per month on music. Rather than buying iTunes singles or CDs of even their favorite artists, this age group copies music from friends, downloads free songs from music websites and streams music online. (via With Streaming and Sharing, Teens Find Ways Around Paying for Music - eMarketer)

Gerd adds: the real revenue streams will NOT come from selling copies but providing ACCESS and then upselling from there. Time to wake up.

Read these free books incl. Music 2.0: http://gerd.fm/freepdfs

emarketer.com

Whereas Pandora, and many of its competitors, use a compulsory license to stream music to users, Apple is looking to forge direct deals with labels for more comprehensive and flexible licensing. In other words, Apple radio probably won’t ever tell you that you can’t skip a song. And unlike Pandora, if you want to listen to all Johnny Cash, all the time, Apple won’t fold in music that’s similar to Johnny Cash just to follow licensing requirements. In essence, it is expected to be the best internet radio ever. If real, of course.

Watch Out, Pandora: Apple’s Streaming Radio Service Could Launch In Early 2013 | TechCrunch

Gerd comments: Apple knows that very soon, listening IS THE SAME as downloading - there is no real difference between radio and ‘buying a song’, very soon. Stay tuned.

In Five Years, Most Africans Will Have Smartphones | TechCrunch (thefuturesagency.com)
The Future of Music & Media Gerd Leonhard at Plugg Conference 2009 (gerdleonhard.typepad.com)

TechCrunch

Can Music Streaming Ever Be Profitable? [INFOGRAPHIC] - hypebot

Told you so:)). Long time ago, here. And again, yesterday. The music business ecosystem is utterly dysfunctional - thanks to the IPFI, RIAA, most of the rights societies and widespread arrogance and egocentric obsession with control. Bummer, really. (Thanks to Fran van Horn for the Hypebot link btw).

With most other businesses, if a supplier makes unreasonable demands, a retailer can turn to other providers,” wrote Michael Robertson, CEO and founder of MP3tunes.com, about the problems with the industry . “Since copyright law gives record labels and publishers a government-granted monopoly, no such option is possible with music. Digital vendors have only two options: Accept the terms or not include those songs in their offering.

Why the online music industry is a mess - Fortune Tech

Great piece. What a mess. Glad I have departed this industry.