MySpace officially announced the
creation of MySpace Music on Thursday, a new music service set to
launch this month as a joint venture between MySpace and three of the
four major record labels (excluding EMI, for now). MySpace Music will
offer ad-supported
streaming music, playlist building, DRM-free downloads,
ringtones, and ticket sales -- as well as a few hazy futures for some
others in the digital music industry.
Five People/Companies Who Should Be Worried
Apple: Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) is still commanding the digital
download space with iTunes and, as yet, has had no real viable threat to its throne. If
MySpace Music succeeds in selling DRM-free music -- something Apple gave up on a
long time ago -- it could emerge as a serious competitor.
Apple also announced
recently
that it may replace its pay-per-download model with a plan where users
would pay a premium on their devices or a monthly subscription for free
downloads -- a great prospect. But, according to The New York Times,
MySpace's CEO Chris DeWolfe says subscriptions, as well as ad-supported
downloads, are a consideration for MySpace as well. (So. Who knows...
This may be the thing to shake Apple to its core! HA! You see what I did there?)
Imeem: MySpace Music will incorporate ad-supported
streaming music and playlist building, a model currently deployed by imeem
-- a social, music-discovery site. Currently imeem allows users to
transplant their playlists to various social networking sites,
including MySpace and Facebook . But will MySpace users
stick around on imeem if the same services are being offered at home?
Facebook: Will this have any impact on Facebook's
popularity? Facebook has long been hinting about the idea of Facebook Music,
but nothing concrete has emerged. And, even if it did, particularly now,
and considering MySpace's presence in music from its own inception, could Facebook really compete? Probably not.
(That is... unless Facebook Music lets you fling virtual sheep -- or, better, virtual bras -- at your favorite artists... Obviously
that would be a huge selling point.)
I still have an unused Nano that I’ve been meaning to take
advantage of but, I haven’t made the conscious effort to take it out and set it
up.
However, when I do, I certainly wouldn’t be leaning towards
MySpace Music as a source for my songs.Perhaps,
I am giving them an unfair bias but, if it is anything like MySpace, I will
definitely stay away from it.
Aside from the unappealing graphical presentation of MySpace,
I was not too fond of the daily spam that I was receiving from the site.
Maybe, MySpace Music will be different but, for now, I will
definitely first venture to the iTunes store where simple characterizes the
site.
Keeping in view that music cds have been a diminishing trend what can be the alternative models of revenue for the musirc records companies.
Audio Advertisements can be one. A short audio advertisement can be appended to a song freely available.
I am not sure whether this would be a very profiting technique but one thing is for sure. New revenue models for music records companies is the need of the time
Back in the day (which was in 2002, by the way), I remembered thinking that the losers in the music download scene would not be musicians but, rather, retailers such as Best Buy and Borders, and sure enough, as iTunes has grown, those retailers have seen that cash cow part of their business dry up. I teach an MBA class and each semester, at some point, I ask the students how many of them have bought CDs in the previous six months(one or two hands at most) vs. downloading (virtually all of them).
So, I think retailers should be added to Nicole's "worry" list. In fact, soon enough, I think we will only see CDs sold at truck stops and convenience stores, replacing the $5.99 cassettes they still sell.
I also recently saw someone touting Amazon as a true competitor to iTunes and when I went to download the new R.E.M. album on Tuesday for $13.99 (funny how the price now is creeping up to retail levels without any packaging or distribution costs), I checked out Amazon and saw the price at $9.99. I thought that was a big enough reason to change until I saw that I would need to download additional software from Amazon to make this purchase, so I went back to iTunes. iTunes makes downloading so easy, and consumer behavior takes people there, so I really can't see MySpace making a dent unless there is a huge price advantage. Plus, a lot of bands and musicians already put their own music on MySpace. In the end, I just see the MySpace deal as a non-starter.
Oh, and to the point raised by Experiences about the music industry needing to keep users at the center of their business model, I think it's better to say "BEGIN putting users at the center of their business model." The whole music distribution industry just drifts along, and I don't think the music industry could have mis-managed this anymore than they have, beginning with treating the Internet as a passing fad when donloading began.
Why should a user have to be a member of a social network site to buy music ? Surely not because of friend's recommendations because people can be friends and have fairly different tastes in music.
Will a social network with its emphasis on so many features , provide a single unified music experience from music discovery, concerts, downloads for various media ? Current evidence does not seem to suggest that. There is quite a bit of spam-ware available. Explore the simplistic feel of Live Plasma for discovery
Availability of music online is limited to certain traditional markets such as US, Uk and some european regions. The rest of the regions really seem to have no services to talk of.
From a personal stand point, there are far too many sounds and songs that are not available to me. It does seem like opportunity lost for the music industry.
Mobile usage is certainly very exciting thus the platform of choice could be the mobile platform. Consider this
Handset Providers - Apple and Nokia have already got mobile versions of their music stores. I am not sure about Sony Ericsson though.
Telcos are interested , they have seen their revenues from music related VAS but how they manage partnerships and content would be worth watching. Some even have music related brands such as Virgin.
But overall, it still seems that the opportunity has not been leveraged by anyone.
The music industry has to identify its blue oceans by keeping the user at the center of their business model.
Music is an experience and yet the buying and exploring music bit is anything but a good experience.
We are sending music to other solar systems and galaxies but people on earth seem to struggle to find a way of playing the sound file they have just purchased or tried to purchase..
Give the customer the music they want, when they want and it should work on the multiple devices that the customer has.
Figuring out how and keeping it simple , is for the people who run the business .
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