Media
The Beauty About the Death of the Music Store
The evolution of music sales over the past 2 decades has been a clear one. As peer to peer software like Napster devastated destination music stores, our music purchases moved closer to home.
First on our computers, then phones, and soon you will be able to buy tracks the second you hear them in your car (this seems so obvious to me, the music industry should make it happen sooner).
The music industry has been fighting to keep their old model, but what they should be doing is fighting to create more impulsive music buying opportunity. If you let me buy my music where I first hear it, when I am most amazed by a new sound, you dramatically increase your conversion.
I grew up buying tapes at local music shops. When I was a teenager it was all CD’s from the national chain store in the mall. Napster spread my first year in college and my music taste exploded because of the wealth of options now available at my fingertips. How refreshing right? I didn’t have to rely on local radio or the kids from my home town to hear about new music.
I use iTunes for all my music today (making me an honest man again). But it was never about having the money to afford music. It is about accessibility. When I can watch an episode of House, use Shazam to figure out the closing credit song, and buy that song on my phone, the sales cycle get dramatically short and simple. It goes form weeks to seconds. Impulse.
The music shops of the past were destinations. It was pure point of sale music. You physically went somewhere to browse the music, to talk about the music, to buy the music.
Today even the point of sale music is more impulsive.
- You purchase album cards that you can use to download digital versions from Office Depot.
- You get free downloads included with your Xbox game, that then open you up to new artists.
- And occasionally you buy a CD, but probably from the counter at your local Starbucks.
If we hear music we like at a bar or coffee shop or on a commercial, we go get it online. The physical stores are marginalized. The digital product reigns. And our concept of consuming the media has completely evolved. We stream music more and more, owning becomes less important. We
- We often stream music instead of purchasing it
- We create more and more content featuring music (playlists, podcasts, videos)
- We buy ring tones and video game soundtracks
Much of the community and discussion around music lives largely online and consumers seem the happier for it.
In the long run this evolution and disruption of the music industry is good. Consumers get more out of it. They get to find more great music. And musicians, while getting the short end of the stick with Napster piracy, seem to be skipping the music oligarchies and claiming back their connection with fans through unique products, touring, and digital consumer relationships.
A few examples of how the music industry could accelerate the impulse music buying trend:
- Buy Shazam, improve it’s purchasing options, do deals to include it on all cell phones, iPads, TV’s, toasters, etc.
- Fully embrace users that want to incorporate music into videos and podcasts, work with Youtube et all to get buying links on any unlicensed works
- Work with OnStar or XM Radio or electronics makers to get easy music sales in every new car
- Email concert goers with links to buy the live show, while they are at the concert
I hope that I am just repeating what music executives already know and that all of this is in motion. I hope.
What do you think? Is the music industry better off? Will movies be immune to the same fate?
Original Image from Shutterstock.com
Who Made the Biggest Media Moves in 2009?
My take on some of the biggest splashes made by media companies in 2009. Take fair warning, this list is completely subjective and purely my take on a vast landscape of evolving media. The list is also not a “who made the most money” but more of a “who made a big impact or a big move”.
Answer the poll in the sidebar to let me know what media company you think made the biggest splash in 2009.
Facebook triples in size from 125 million users to 350 million. They took major steps toward becoming more open and “twitter-like“. The status stream became the focus of the site. Real-time is a major focus. They purchased FriendFeed. They took several steps throughout the year to improve their search ability, open themselves up to Google and Bing for search, and to encourage users to open up their profiles to search. While Twitter is currently the home of real time and social search, Facebook has to potential to take over that title if as little as 10% of their user base opens up their profiles.
Twitter decuples in size (10X) growing from 4 million users to 40 million users in 2009. How many of those accounts are real people using the service is another conversation, but it is hard to deny that Twitter has seen extreme growth in 2009, with hordes of celebrities, famous athletes, and businesses all investing in the platform. CNN and Ashton Kutcher battled for 1 million followers. Oprah and Ellen got on board. Dell made some cash. Twitter has gone from unknown internet geek town to a pop culture haven and breaking news winner.
Google – Google continues to grow the passive social network of the web by emphasizing their profiles in search results and integrating profiles with other Google services. Google Wave launches to much fanfare. While Wave has not even begin to make a big splash outside of it’s initial buzz, the possibilities are very cool. Google also made big plays with the Android mobile phone operating system, Chrome browser, and the Chromium operating system. And they made a massive play in GPS turn by turn directions by offering a free alternative to premium turn by turn direction services. Maps are increasing becoming a media platform because of Google, and of course an advertising platform.
Comcast, which already serves a quarter of all U.S. households that pay for TV, would gain control of the NBC broadcast network, the Spanish-language Telemundo and about two dozen cable channels, including USA, Bravo and Syfy. It also would have regional sports networks, Universal Pictures and theme parks. They have already proven themselves as an innovator online with a strong social media presence and especially an early and consistent use of Twitter as a customer service tool. If Government allows things to move forward, the implications are interesting. Movies might move to cable, the internet, and cell phones more quickly.
Foursquare splashed onto the scene at SXSW as yet another of many location based social networks. Unless you were in one of the few cities Foursquare launched in, the buzz was pretty quiet for them until summer. A writeup about Why Yelp and All Retail Should Support Foursquare put the network on the map for many tech folks. Their funding round of $1.35 million dollars really allowed them to pick up the pace and they have since really streamlined the scaling process, growing from 10 cities in March to 100 cities today, and rumors that the next expansion could be everywhere. Reminds me of the early Facebook expansion. If nothing else, Foursquare feels like the first location based network with some real momentum.
Postrank (formerly AideRSS) refocused their company on their Postrank technology this year. For those that have not used is, Postrank, true to it’s name, measures a blog post’s social engagement, which includes blog comments and links, Internet bookmarks, clicks, page views, and activities from social network services such as Twitter, Digg, and FriendFeed. They assess all the activity around a blog and it’s individual posts, determining how much attention and interaction it generates. Later in the year they launched some pretty fancy analytics that is a pretty powerful tool set for anyone investing in blogging. Keep an eye on these guys.
Ning is one of the quieter social networks on the web since it is in fact a networks of smaller niche social networks. Wordpress is launching an open source solution to making your own social network, BuddyPress. But, Ning still remains the easiest, cheapest, and quickest way to launch a social network. This year they reached the milestone of 1 million social networks on the Ning platform and for good measure they also removed any “adult content” social networks. They remain a great resource, with a massive membership, and a built in monetization model of site upgrades and built in advertising.
Other notable media winners this year:
- Hulu – Became the second most popular video site, Added ABC, announced move to payment model
- Boxee – open source, Beta launch
- BreakingNews – becomes major breaking news source, sold to MSNBC
- CNN – buys @CNNbrk, Youtube debates, Holigrams, iReport
- Netflix – Integration into Xbox and Playstation, open API, moving toward online only distribution models
Who would you add to the list? What media companies impressed you in 2009?
What’s Next? WordPress
What is the next big thing in social media? No one know of course, but it has to be the most popular question I get when being interviewed. Here is my answer. Part 1.
This is also my 2nd venture into the vlog (video blog) world. I am learning. You should be too.
My First Vlog, Awwwww
The dreaded “intro” video for the launch of my little venture into vlogging (video blogging).
No firm goal right now, just playing in the space. Some videos will be informative, some will be silly. But all of it, will be me (big promises I know). Enjoy… or not.
Music: Waco Brothers, Do What I Say
Youtube Edges Closer to TV Numbers and TV Money with Wedding Dance
Google put up a blog post today about how they monetized the viral video hit Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz’s wedding party dance(below). This video was posted on July 16th and has generated over 12 million hits in 2 weeks.
TV Numbers
For some perspective, the highest rated American prime time TV show during that time was America’s Got Talent with 13.2 million viewers. TV has long been light years ahead of any online numbers. This example shows that the gap is closing. Truly remarkable content is beginning to reach large viewership numbers online in shorter and shorter time spans. And it is not always professionally produced.
And the gap is only going to narrow. The online audience will continue to grow larger. The information is moving faster and faster. And more and more people are becoming savvy content creators.
Who is Making the Money?
Google is, the content middle man, the distributor. The distributors hold a lot of the power moving forward. Think iTunes on the music front and Amazon on the book front. The “rights holders” to the song in the video, Forever by Chris Brown, were also able to easily monetize (I assume his label or manager). The song has shot up to the top 5 on both Amazon and iTunes.
A Workable System
This did not happen overnight. Youtube has been a battleground for some time now, with entertainment industry giants facing off against Google on profit sharing. Google has been working voraciously behind the scenes to make this process easy for the rights holders. Instead of deleting every piece of copyrighted material, the entertainment industry can overlay an amazon download link for the song and Google Adwords in the sidebar. Everyone is happy.
Of course it would also be nice if after a certain viewer threshhold the video creator got a peice of the action as well. No word on that from the Google blog as of yet.
