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Digital Music Trends
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Xolvexs
IsraTrance Senior Member
Started Topics :
241
Posts :
2848
Posted : Oct 15, 2010 10:02:31
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Why did you decide to start DMT?
I started the podcast in April 2009. I’d had the idea for quite some time, actually, back at PopKomm in 2008. I had been following tech podcasts for years, and I thought about how there was nothing in the music tech industry equivalent to those shows. So although I realized it was quite a niche concept that may not appeal to a lot of people, I thought “whatever.” And because there’s nothing like it, I was very lucky in that I was able to get really great interviews with people that I didn’t really think I would have been able to get near to. But I aimed hight and things worked out.
You cover such a wide swath of the digital space – China, interactivity, the cloud, piracy – how do you get yourself acquainted with all of these fields? How do you prepare for these conversations?
By researching the different music tech fields and researching the guests you kind of start specializing in some areas that seem to recur more and more. For example I ended up doing loads of features on companies that work with interactive music applications, like MXP4 or Music Mine, and these were all companies that were working around the concept of remixing music that already exists, or working with samples of music so that users can create their own experience. You end up specializing by proxy, because you end up interviewing so many people that work in the same field. You get to the point where you have a good overview of the scene, but when you start it’s a little bit harder.
When you get into a field like piracy, for example, you do all the research and so forth and look at all the news pieces that have come out in the last 12 months or so, so you can understand what the situation is and try and keep ahead of the curve; it’s so easy to fall into the same stereotypes of companies suing people and things like that, but the situation is quite complex. It’s trying to be up to speed, but also get the guests to talk as much as possible about their experience, because at the end of the day, my job is to get the questions, and hopefully the guests will have interesting responses! [laughs] That’s the important thing.
A minute sampling of the companies Leonelli's discussed on DMT.
There’s been this huge proliferation of tools in the last couple years, and if they’re so inclined, artists can handle their promotions, distribution, social media presence and presentation, and even find collaborators and partners online. But there also seems to be this literacy gap between how most people use the Internet – basic e-mail, YouTube and Facebook, etc – and the rate at which this stuff is coming out and developing. Do you think it’s going to take a while for artists and their fans to get used to using these things regularly?
There are very many types of artists, there are digital-forward artists who maybe listen to my show to figure out what is a cool company to try and work with or an up-and-coming service they may want to try, but it is a complete jungle out there as far as services are concerned. If only you look at the number of companies who allow you to sell your music online, for example, or do digital distribution, or allow you to sell your merchandise, or book gigs, or help you run you band: there are countless applications and that’s kind of the main aim of the show. On the one side, most of my listeners come from the business side of things, have started or work for of start-ups, or are thinking about building a start-up and are interested in the field.
But there are also a lot of musicians who are trying to find their feet and understand what the latest trends are. If you don’t read publications every day and if you don’t keep up with what’s going on, it’s very easy to end up going with a company you heard of six or eight or twelve months ago, and it may be that now are not on the cutting edge anymore. So you’ll have gone with a company that’s already past its prime. Bands want to experiment with this kind of stuff, but it’s very hard to navigate these fields and a positive trend that we’re seeing at the moment with companies like Soundcloud, Songkick, and more – is the use of open APIs, meaning they actually want to collaborate with one another. Musicians who are not digitally versed can be confused by this situation where every single service has its own log-in, and a specific set of tools and you have to implement them correctly, and you have to keep following up to build and maintain the following that you’ve acquired through this one service. But I think that if we got to the stage where all of them could be operated from a single piece of software, for example, that the bands could manage more easily, that’s when the widespread adoption will take place. Because right now there’s way too much happening and bands just don’t have the time to implement all these digital tools and make music at the same time!
How long do you think it’ll be before that happens? Do you see a particular player or actor that might ascend to that level?
I think it’s going to be hard, because there are companies that are integrating various platforms, but there are parts or aspects of the functionality of these platforms that are being held back by the providers. This is because every service has got a premium, or an up-sell, most services and so although they want to collaborate with other companies, they also want to try and keep the most relevant parts of the service to themselves, so that people can access their materials from many places, but they still have to go to that specific page in order to change anything or muck around with it.
I’m not sure that there’s going to be one player that breaks out and brings all of these services together. It’s not as easy as it is, for example, with social media: there are loads of services allowing you to update your Facebook, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, Foursquare, all at the same time. And that’s tricky in itself, but it’s a lot easier to do because it doesn’t involve content, it doesn’t involve copyright, it doesn’t involve a number of things that are essential to music. And so for music I think the situation is going to be fragmented for quite a while, from the creators’ point of view. I just hope that, from the consumers’ point of view, these things are going to be available from one or two or three different platforms, but not 20, because otherwise the fan-base will end up being fragmented.
One final question: how has your view of the music industry changed since you started this podcast? Has it at all? Do you simply feel better educated? Or has it affected the way you view things?
Well, when I started, only a year and a half ago, the digital landscape, was very different. And a lot of players were just starting out – Soundcloud launched officially at the end of 2008, Spotify has been a pretty recent development – and the landscape has changed completely since I first started even thinking about the show. That’s been really fascinating for me, because I had a music industry background, but not a huge expertise in digital distribution or licensing or the way those things worked. And it’s been fascinating to see how the attitudes have changed from month to month, even at the record labels.
For example, I was completely astounded by the explosion of cloud services over the last six months. Because, you know, cloud music wasn’t something that was much of a big deal in the last year or so, but things like Lala, and Spotify and Pandora have taken off, and now cloud streaming has exploded. There are so many companies that are running a myriad of different business models that are all trying to grab a piece of this cloud cake. The funny thing is, apart from those streaming services that are well established now, no one is quite sure whether people want to either upload their entire music collections into the cloud or stream everything.
For example in the UK Carphone Warehouse just started a new subscription scheme. People pay £30 a year and the service – that has a big server in the cloud where they it holds millions of pre-licensed tracks - digitally cross-checks what’s on your library with what they have on their database and basically you can access the tracks from your library that they have in their database from wherever you are for that £30 fee. That’s quite an interesting idea for someone who’s geeky about digital music, but I’m not sure it’s quite as compelling for the general public. There’s no proof that there’s going to be a huge public uptake in something like that. People seem to want both the music that they love and the music that they don’t know about, so I’m not sure that people are going to be too excited about a music locker where you can only listen to what you already own.
Aside from cloud music, there have been so many developments, the piracy thing, the three strikes rule you mentioned, it’s been like a virus. It went from France to Canada, it brushed New Zealand and Australia, and seeing the development of all these things, week by week and month by month, is really interesting and a privilege. Because I need to be up to speed every week it made me realize the complexity of the digital landscape and appreciate the work that some start-ups do a lot more. Because it’s incredibly hard to get licenses, and you need to do so much to get permission from the labels, any company that can produce a platform that has legal, licensed music from majors or independent labels deserves a round of applause.
For a better sense of just how much has happened to the digital music space, check out the Digital Music Trends blog for in-depth recaps and transcripts of each podcast
http://weallmakemusic.com/behind-the-blogs-digital-music-trends/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weallmakemusic+%28We+All+Make+Music%29
  When death comes to your doorstep, make sure you are alive |
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Jacynth
Inactive User
Started Topics :
20
Posts :
451
Posted : Feb 17, 2011 21:42
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Baba, nobody answered this post 3 months, i found it sad.
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ROTTERDXM
Started Topics :
3
Posts :
104
Posted : Feb 18, 2011 16:44
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Jacynth
Inactive User
Started Topics :
20
Posts :
451
Posted : Feb 18, 2011 20:29
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sure baba, i think about you. listen, you should start your topic bicause i see 0 your topics. keepem coming baba! |
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