Get Vertical: The Future of Music
It’s hard to believe that it’s 2010 and on demand digital music streaming still hasn’t been figured out.
Granted other major forms of entertainment continue to struggle with the transitional to digital. Amazon’s direct deals with agencies portends a fractious eBook market and the movie industry’s efforts to keep Netflix from fulfilling its namesake are particularly irksome.
But nothing approaches the level of myopia and resistance of the music industry.
AOL and Yahoo both tried streaming and both abandoned the model for radio.
Last.FM is, well, I’m not entirely sure where they are in the conversation after the CBS acquisition.
Pandora is awesome but it’s “FM Radio 2.0″ not on demand streaming.
Rhapsody has gotten better since its split from Real but remains behind the innovation curve.
Zune is slick but will be stuck in the neutral as long as Microsoft keeps it as a single platform player. Great Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 integration may keep MS in the ring.
Spotify, much like Roman Polanski, has become persona non grata in the U.S. as labels would rather see it disappear than to show up here.
Lala was awesome but still soon disappear behind Apple’s walled garden.
The lack of dominance opens the door to a confrontation that is becoming increasingly common in the tech world.
Apple vs. Google.
On the back of Google’s purchase of Simplify Media, Google Music is expected to launch this year with a possible expansion of their partnership with Amazon Music or something else entirely unknown. YouTube is already one of the largest music streaming sites.
I’m also looking forward to what Apple lets users who aren’t iPhone or iPad owners do with iTunes in the cloud. Will they absorb streaming costs for people who aren’t part of their hardware ecosystem?
It’s going to take a company with the cultural cache and broad focus of Apple or Google’s to make the idea of paying a monthly fee for unlimited access to a wide library of music palpable to the masses the way Netflix has done for movies. These new music services need to show value beyond being a large library in the sky in order to breakdown the barrier to the subscription music model and the preference for individual music purchases.
Running 15 different apps to meet all the different requirements a music service should have is not feasible. A modern music service should be able to do complete all the pieces of the puzzle that are left to individual players.
1) Take my local music collection to the cloud and make all streaming music available for offline playback.
2) Make valid recs/stations based on my library, listening habits, artists, genres etc.
3) Out-Shazam Shazam.
Shazam is amazing and is one of those things that just make me step back and appreciate technology but so much more can be done in this space. Don’t just give me artist and title of a random song. Give me some context and analyze the music I already have. Let’s use all this metadata to make music nerds out of all of us. I know those in the Pitchfork crowd would pay for something like this, even if it was a premier feature of a service.
Who produced this track? What else have they done?
What is this sample? Can I hear the original?
Who is playing bass on this track? What the hell instrument is that anyway?
What are they saying? Why are lyrics so hard to get?
4) Get social.
Why is it to hard to share a mixtape? The reason Muxtape (remember Muxtape?) made such a huge splash was because there was not and still isn’t an easy way to for people to share music / show off their tastes.
The joy of browsing someone’s CD, DVD, book collection and then marking them and friend or enemy needs a digital equivalent.
Let me share my playlists with members and non-members alike. Run pre-rolls on the media player, an overlay, whatever. Just make it happen.
5) Get local.
When are the artists in my library or people like them coming to town? Many services do this, but how many are being used?
6) Strong editorial and artist presence.
Curated playlists, recs, and by staff as well as artists.
Arcade Fire is releasing a new album and wants to share influences, playlists, photos, or anything. Let them. The artist should be able to customize their presence and engage with their audience.
It’s exciting to see people still try to make a splash in the music in the space. The recent launches of Mog, Rdio, show that people still see an opportunity in music despite the onerous cost structure of streaming and that passionate music fans know there is a better way to consumer music in the 21st century.
That way is up. It’s time for the big players to create a top to bottom music experience for consumers. It’ll be better for everyone.
Source: http://hussainrahim.blogspot.com/2010/07/get-vertical-future-of-music.html
