Sat 16 Feb 2008
its my first music podcast, kinda bad, I really should’ve redone it…
1. Jinx Titanic - I Will Destroy You - Will you still love me tomorrow
2. Dave Costello - Right By You
3. Feels Like Friday - The Rain
4. Red Runs Deep - Desperately Yours
5. Farryl Purkiss - Better Days
6. Kelly’s Lot - Nobody
7. Every Avenue - A story to tell your friends
All of these artists and more can be found at Music.podshow.com. You can also find other podcasts including at podshow.com. Check em out.
Sun 30 Dec 2007
Warner Music is going to allow Amazon.com to sell Their music DRM free. Great news. More great music downloads thats truely yours. However, Apple Will be the loser here. According to the New York Times Online on Friday, December 28, 2007,
“Now, some music executives are privately backing the idea of dropping the software from music sold through virtually every service except iTunes, in order to strengthen Apple’s rivals and potentially diminish Mr. Jobs’s advantage. The major labels have been upset with Apple’s inflexibility on music pricing, among other issues.”
Meaning that Since Steve Jobs will not be flexible on price, selling New hot releases Higher then Older music thats been off any top 40 station for a long time, They do not want to be flexible with Steve Jobs.
If this continues, Apple’s download music division will be hurting and eventually the consumers will too. As long st Apple continues the 99 cent download, that will be the price tier for music. Everyone will have to sell at or below 99 cents to compete. However, If Apple ends up losing this one, Expect higher prices on new hot released songs, and the same 99 cents on older hits that get no time on the radio anymore.
Sat 22 Dec 2007
The music industry, as we all, know is in a lot of financial troubles. How do these problems get solved? I believe its time for a major overhaul.
First record companies need to start listening to the the consumers again. One thing the consumers want is more diversity. 5 bands that sound nearly identical gets kind of old. How many times do you listen to the radio thinking one band sings a song but yet, it turns out to be one of the other four? Get 5 bands with 5 Distinct sounds and lets see how CD sales take off again.
Another way to increase music sales, Have quality music. If you have 15 memorable songs People will not only buy the album but be playing it more and more. This will then lead to more tickets sold to concerts which equals more money to both the labels and artists. Also in the age of the download, it is even more important to have quality songs. People can pick and choose all they want, entire albums are purchasable by the singles. The more quality songs you have, the more singles you can sell the more money in everyones pockets.
They need to get back to their roots of promoters of music not sellers of music. By promoting you’ll end up selling. Some ways to get back to promoting are:
1: quite overplaying things on the radio. Rather then play one song from an album over and over and over and over again on the radio, play several songs from the album. Get people excited about the whole album, not just one or two songs.
2: Realize the internet can be your friend. Rather then be afraid of technology, embrace it. In the last few years this has been getting better with itunes, rhypsody, emusic and amazon and getting rid of DRM a few months back but still I think more can be done. One thing that would help is get your songs in as many places people visit as possible. Embrace Internet radio. Millions of people are listening to it and millions more will start tuning in in the next several years. Rather then try to kill it with high rates, Let it live and don’t control it, let the markets decide who succeeds and who fail. Find ways to get podcaster to review music, or even incorporate it into the podcast maybe as an intro.
3. It maybe too late to do this, but do some research on Peer 2 Peer sharing. It very well could have been an excellent promotional source. There were the bad apples, but what if people really did buy more music with it after discovering it. Lets learn from this and next time something similar happens, lets go into it with an open mind and see if its helping or hurting without assuming that its hurting. The same songs that people were downloading are now available on myspace to preview.
4. Have a simple database were people can go and a few whole songs off an album. There needs to be more then 30 seconds. There could be a rocking part of a song then the rest be crap, which part would you share? Let people truly decide if they like song before buying it. If the whole song isn’t possible, lets get a good portion, at least half.
5. Become people friendly. Realize that people don’t have deep pockets. Learn the true financials of the companies you’re dealing with. Shed the Freudian theory that people are evil and realize that people are not lying to payless, but instead are telling the truth so they are not hurt financially. Learn to sit down and negotiate new royalty rates and use your heads.
It is time for the music industry to renew its business plan. It can take years to move an industry around, but maybe its time to innovate a little more and get people excited about buying music again, particularly albums. It’s time to promote the music and sell the albums. Hopefully they will achieve this. When you have a bunch of people boycotting your music, maybe its time to listen.
Thu 27 Sep 2007
It was reported on thestreet.com that Amazon.com is allowed to start selling over 2 million mp3 music files DRM free. The price they are selling them at is 89-99 cents. less then Apple Itunes 1.29 for DRM free songs. The music industry has realized that DRM-free songs sell more bringing in more profits.
Hopefully Apple will be allowed the same and we will have price wars leading to cheaper music. The street’s article stating that 25 cents would be a great goal assuming the record labels can be talked into lowering their price to amazon and apple.
The downside to this is its not an overnight happening. There is no comment on how long it will take for this to be up and running, however, I would think it would be running before the holiday season.
There is also no news from amazon.com about this yet.
