Mobiletribe » mobile music

SIME08 – Joi Ito missing the point but making one anyway

pfhagermark — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:44:08 +0000

It was with great excitement I was going to listen to Joi Ito live for the first time. Unfortunately his presentation did not do justice to his message about creative commons. It turned into a history lesson we did not need.

In the mobile world creative commons thinking is a huge driver for growth. Content contracts and costs are a huge barrier to growth. But unfortunately there is no active discussion at the moment aroudn applying creative commons licensing in business deals in mobile. The beneits would be huge. Especially in the music arena where full length tracks today are in many cases sold at a loss using the traditional models where a record label takes a large cut, the mobile carrier takes his unreasonably big cut for handling the transactions and offering a bit of distribution. Then the broadcasting rights have to be paid. Take away the VAT and there is not much left for the company operating the service.

If the general reasoning among the promoters of new business models for the music industry is right, how can mobile enhance that model? First the model – give the individual tracks away and make money on all other things such as limited edition special boxes (like the example Joi brought up – Nine Inch Nails), concert tickets (the most common example given I have a feeling of), t-shirts and even selling the master tracks for a song and let the listener become producer and remix the track like Ace of Base is doing it at their site. I understand and respect the fear for change and the leap of faith it is to let go of the traditional model. Here mobile maybe can offer yet another way to bridge the digital and physical (in this case as in hard core cash) worlds and make it less emotionally painful for the music industry as a group.

What if a free download over your mobile with a creative commons license also generated an SMS from the artist when they sell something real to you such as that limited edition box, a concert ticket etc? It can of course be done in more or less suttle ways. Maybe even charging for hooking you up to people who appear near you who have dowloaded songs from ths same artist/category? Here we are also talking social networking 3.0 I think. We are not 100% suited for one network. We fit many niche networks. Our individuality as a person is better matched with several niche networks than one mega-one-size-fits all. And best of all if they start to become automatic. That is when the conversation becomes everything as well as the driver for innovation. Use case: I am walking in to a cafe and get to know that there are 5 others who have downloaded the same track as I during the last week. I get an invitation to make myself known if I like to. Or not.

One of my key stand-points are that mobile often is the perfect “bridging device” from the digital to the real world simply because it is always on and always with us. Seen in this perspective I think mobile entertainment and services has seen nothing yet. It is mobile web 3.0 really. Do I know this for sure? No, but I am willing to bet the house on it and possible loose it all in the process. But that’s why I am an entrepreneur. Does this make sense at all?

Thanks Joi for the spark that ignited this riff!

Challenges to overcome in mobile music

pfhagermark — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:55:02 +0000

Much of the discussion around how to make mobile music work focus on the business model. “The record labels are too greedy” or “the mobile operators are too greedy” etc. But there is one huge obstacle in the storefront being on a mobile device. We do not have the same search, filtering and recommendation options as we do in a web storefront. A) The consumers are used to this, so why go for a worse interface and B) the ones who do try have to try pretty hard to find what they like and what other people have bought. In a recent post by Chris Anderson, author of the book the Long Tail, this is well pointed out and some numbers are put to it as well. In short a very small share of the total portfolio of songs sell in a mobile music store compared to on a computer. Read more here

Apples and pears

pfhagermark — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:18:00 +0000

Just had to let off some steam after yet another embarrassing statement from a so called industry expert.

An article about how full length music is overtaking ringtones. In it we read that.. “[w]ith some operators now offering full track downloads at a comparable price to iTunes, there is little justification for a ringtone retail price point that is in many cases two or even three times this level”. The person mentioning this is Windsor Holden at Juniper Research. I beg to differ and I welcome a comment from Windsor on this.

I think this is the most common mistake made by people who might need to take a step back and look at the industry they are analyzing once more. And this time from the point of view of the consumer.

I say it only once: A ringtone is not competing with a full length music track. A full length track song is not an enhanced ringtone. We buy ringtones and music tracks for different reasons. Ringtones are about expression. Music is about personal entertainment most often in a pair of stereo headphones not broadcast in public to our peers. Let’s stick to the facts ladies and gentlemen!

Anyway, most of you knew this already. I just don’t like the risk of if something erroneous being repeated enough times until will be classified as a truth.