The New Flatness

I read a lot of Bob’s posts but this one stood out to me.  I was just having a conversation with someone about this same exact subject the other night.  At the root of the this issue, of making available copyrighted material on streaming sites such as YouTube and MySpace, is how to monetize it.  It is really very simple.  When in doubt learn from your piers in the same market.  What is the simplest way to make money on the web?  Advertising.  Wrap up the content in pre or post roll ads.  This will accomplish two vital things.  One being that the majors will start seeing some income from all their material they have available and two, it will at the very least be a step forward instead a lateral step or no step at all.  The music industry in particular, hasn’t made big steps in experimenting with monetization schemes.  These are times of trial and error.  But they don’t have to be that risky if you look around and learn from other’s mistakes.  Fred has a good post on his ideas for monetizing YouTube.  YouTube will look at Google for inspiration on how to make money.  Other industries should do the same.  The music business needs to pay very close attention to what services like YouTube and MySpace are doing because these services are the future of their content distribution.  There is no question that this is how content will be served up in the coming years.  All of these issues make me want to form a consulting team that would walk with music labels and other content owners as they navigate how to make money in an “everything is available all the time” world because its not going to come from the inside.  I should do that.

picture originally uploaded by: me

This subject is getting so much talk lately but I have to say one more thing about it. What MySpace should have done that would really put them ahead of the pack would have been to pioneer the mobile distribution of music downloads. This would have been huge and it would have put them far far ahead of anyone else in this market, even Apple. Apple is going to come along and do mobile distribution better than anyone else and it will be difficult for anyone else to catch up. However, MySpace does cater to the “unsigned and independent” niche and that is what separates them from Apple. This could prove to be how MySpace will win music customer market share over Apple. The bottom line is that there are more unsigned and independent bands than there are signed bands; MySpace and Apple respectively. MySpace is deeper in search when compared to the Apple store and is user generated where the Apple Store’s content is distributed like old media. These are growth stages that we’re seeing right now. Step one was the iTunes store, step two is the MySpace store, step three will probably be by Apple in the form of extensive mobile distribution. The next nine months will be interesting to see who makes big strides in mobile.

photo credit: me

MySpace is going to start selling music via their site without and DRM.  The interesting thing to me is that Snocap is involved.  I have been following what they have been doing over the past year and wonder what their niche is going to be.

photo credit: oh_no_whoa

Universal backs Spiral Frog.

Some are disagreeing with this because of its DRM usage. DRM isn’t the way to go.  However, it will fade out over time.  Who knows how long it will take though.  Look how long it took a major label to get hip to ad based revenue.
We’re out of the age of the rock star.  We’re in the age of quality production by anyone who is smart enough to make it.  No longer does it take a lot of money…the technology is available to everyone to produce quality material.

Eric joins the club. Just because its apple I included this link.

This article from Business 2.0 got me thinking a bit about the future of advertising within consumer generated content. This is such a new way for advertisers to reach the most passionate people. The article brings up a good point that the audiences of blogs are the the “cream of the crop”. The reason being is that the audiences of blogs are there because they want to be there and usually are passionate about the blogs’ subject.
There are 50 million blogs out there now. How many of those are able to generate any revenue for advertisers and the bloggers? You gotta have a niche in the bogosphere; otherwise you don’t matter.

Although read what John Battelle said here.

The entire ad market is changing so much right now. Its an exciting time for the industry. There is so much room for different types of experimentation.

Sony Mylo.

User generated content sites drive web brands. This is important.

How to ask questions.

I asked why someone wasn’t doing this in a post I made on Aug. 6th.

Who is getting the most out of VoIP?

Cyworld coming to America.

I am in Japan working right now and this is very apparent.

Char has a post today about social networking that is right on. I believe his thoughts are really valid especially when you look at where we are right now. Social networking is such a buzz word right now and sites that encourage it are growing so quickly. There will be a time when the growth slows and the questions that Char is asking are going to be the same ones asked by many.

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.

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.

MySpace and Co. seem to have a vision as to where they want MySpace to be in the future.  Instead of just using the site as is, they are pushing the evolution of the social network.  Asking questions like what else can we do with this dense group of people besides just integrating paid search?  After only aquiring MySpace nine months ago it is good to see them making steps to continually evolve and change the service.

Thats what it is all about today.  Changing quickly and frequently.

Always look for the next space to push into.  FIM is doing just that with new ventures like Fox Atomic that I mentioned in my last post.
MySpace used music to create a user base and a social group that grows based initially on musical tastes.  That is what other purly music based services need to be concious of.  Music recomendation sites like Pandora, Mog and many others should think about something.

Why not use their users and join them to another service.

For instance; join GarageBand a music discovery service with a service like Dodgeball.

Push music discovery into an unlikely space.