The New Flatness

Apple has created some deals with American and foreign car companies to allow for full connectivity of iPods in the cars and trucks. I read about what Bob Lefsetz thinks about how this will affect the satellite radio industry.

I lean towards agreeing with him.

Bob mentions in his post that he thinks all music that people have on their iPods is not from the iTunes store but ripped CDs. This is probably true but someone needs to hack together an app that can monitor anonymously what percentage of iTunes purchased music people have on their iPods. It would be interesting to see what the real numbers are since its impossible to estimate that number.

Bob also brings up the point that satellite radio is about music discovery where the iPod is not. What does it take to make the iPod a discovery device? …connectivity.

Google has made a deal with XM to provide targeted advertising over the XM radio network by using Google’s dMarc platform.

Where would Google be if it weren’t for advertising.  Google is in such an amazing place right now that is unique to them for the most part.  Having the opportunity to make incredible amounts of cash from advertising and using that cash to develop new technologies couldn’t be a better position to be in.

How long can this last?  Can Google keep selling ads forever?  They are going to have to continue to make AdWords better and better to overcome click fraud which is beginning to become an issue with Google.

UMG usually seems more ahead than any of the other majors labels when it comes to pressing forward into using using new technology…not to mention they’re ahead of the pack in revenue.

Universal stands out when compared to the other major labels.  They are the only major that is making steps like this and its such a good thing.

AnySong is a new mobile music search and discovery service being introduced in Holland.  Universal partnered with Targetize to provide the technology solution.  And, it seems like part of the revenue stream is going to come from advertising sales on the service.  This is the right direction for mobile content providers.
This is the beginning of what will be common place in a few years.  What needs to happen in the states is a mobile search service for MySpace, TagWorld and the other big social networks that use music as part of their service.  Helio is trying to do this…but Helio is closed system.  You have to use their devices.

The search and discovery service for something like MySpace needs to be an open service that can be accessed by any device.