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

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?

This is also my 2nd venture into the vlog (video blog) world. I am learning. You should be too.

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

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.

It is no longer an elite few that chooses what media we consume. We all see that daily. The value of a compelling story can project it around the globe in seconds. These same tools that allow many us an amazing marketing channel can be even more powerful as the amplified voice of the  neglected.

The power of social media constantly surprises me. When it is adopted as the voice of a cause as powerful as finding a lost child or championing democracy, we should all take pause.

Is social media creating a better world? Yes, and giving a voice to those who deserve to be heard the most is a big piece of that story.

PCWorld – Iran Protests, Tech Tools at Work
CBCNews.ca – Twitter emerges as news source during Iran media crackdown
Tt=elegraph.co.uk – Iran protest news travels fast and far on Twitter

UPDATE (16:33 EST 6.16.09): Twitter’s Biz Stone reacts to allegations that Twitter delayed scheduled downtime, in support of the Iran protests, at the request of the US State Department. I though this quote from Biz was relevant “the open exchange of information is a positive force in the world.”

Struggling newspaper budgets continue to reach for as many new ideas as possible. Today an old idea was echoed, once again, by NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch…

Rupert Murdoch announced that he plans to fix the current newspaper business model by charging for access to News Corporation’s newspaper web sites (via RWW)

This got me thinking and I posed this question on Twitter: “If all the newspapers in the country got together and made a pact to start charging for online content, what would happen?”

Newspapers should explore this question carefully. The closer they consider who would thrive in the absence of all their free online content, the clearer picture they will have of their future.

What Would They See in This Future?

• Much more outside media being embedded on their websites (shocking I know)
  
• Brand Mascots thriving (see Colonel Tribune)
  
• The growing importance of a reporter’s personal brand (see Rick Sanchez at CNN)
  
• Content aggregation from the community (see Visit My Baltimore)
• Greater investment in hardware and software
  

What Say Twitter?

In the Beginning

For the uninformed, Gary Vaynerchuk’s story starts (for our purposes) as the co-owner of a wine store in New Jersey called Wine Library. Inspired by Andy Samberg’s Saturday Night Live video Lazy Sunday exploding on YouTube, he started video blogging about wine at Wine Library TV. He sent one of his employees out to get a video camera from Best Buy and, as he would say, started hustling. Now he makes major appearances on talk shows with regularity, is syndicated heavily on Hulu and iTunes, and takes in 5 figures for speaking at media and technology conferences.

Why He is Successful

Gary is high energy, extroverted, but most importantly he is passionate and genuine when he discusses a topic. With wine, he has created a small empire around Wine Library TV. As someone that recognizes the business and marketing power of the social web, he has become one of the most popular speakers at conferences on the subject. Whether wine or social media, Gary gets others excited about what he talks about and that holds a lot of value. He brings humor, honesty, and passion. And he frames it in an easily consumed and entertaining package. He has mastered the delivery.

Why He Will Become a Media Giant

Not keen on settling for the success he has seen so far, Gary commonly shares his desire tobuy the NY Jets one day. On his Facebook page he sums it up simply with “I am a Wine guy who wants to buy the NY JETS.” This represents piece of his hustle, his willingness to put in the work needed to become the best in his arena. Combine his drive to completely devour the projects he is involved in with his entertaining personality and Gary brings a lot of value to the table. He even has his own iPhone game, B1nary.

Actively seeking content partners to collaborate with on future projects, Gary’s first video effort outside of Wine Library was personality interview show Obsessed TV. The show is good and could grow into something pretty significant, especially with Gary’s support. However I view Obsessed TV as Gary’s practice swing.

Where Will Gary Go Next?

Gary’s next step is where things will get interesting. He has mentioned that many corporations and celebrities have approached him for advice. Who can blame them? Combine his growing access to large brands/celebrities with his expertise and drive to constantly do bigger things and some very cool things could happen. At SXSW, Gary let people know that he is starting a media company, Vayner Media, with his brother AJ. This is obviously the most telling clue of his coming Media Giant.

If Gary can grow his own personal brand to the extent that he has – from wine store co-owner in New Jersey, to wine and media celebrity/speaker/media channel – imagine what he could do with a brand or a celebrity that already has a massive audience and appeal?

Some have called Gary the Oprah of the web. While Gary and Oprah are opposites in many ways, one common link is their drive to build themselves into media empires. Oprah started with cable TV, Gary with video blogging.

Learning from Gary

• Be Genuine – Be true to yourself
• Hustle - Put in more work than the other guy
• Persue Your Passion – If you are not working on what you love, you won’t make it
• Delegate – Learn how to partner and connect with others to get it done
• Watch the Tools – ” always pay attention to the nerds, when the nerds talk I listen – the tech scene is the future”
• Be the Expert – Learn everything you can about your industry, know more than the other guy

photo credit