Expose Your Music. Expand Your Music Business.
December 26th, 2006 by Lior ShamirOnline music will arguably be the fastest moving and consistently evolving industries in 2007. Previously undiscovered artists will come to the fore via high-traffic tastemaker blogs such as Stereogum, innovative retail platforms such as Amie St. and the ease and availability of content distribution. The traditionally reluctant giants of music, such as Universal and EMI, have already embraced the idea of becoming more than a ‘record company’ by providing their large catalogues to a variety of digital platforms and, I expect, will re-brand themselves as leading digital purveyors rather than the illegal file-sharing ‘arm of the law’.
With the much anticipated advertising-driven download services such as SpiralFrog, Napster and eMusic lending themselves to mobile networks such as Cingular and TicketMaster’s $13.5m investment in iLike (founders of Garageband), the music space will become, quite literally, universal. More artists are likely to show up on the radar due to, say, an unexpected public vote on a music community such as PureVolume or a great show at a festival sponsored by the renowned artist service, Sonicbids. By the end of the year, I believe that the increase of independent music communities and number of online artist profiles will pave the way to greater choice, more accurate recommendations to consumers and more alternatives to expose previously unheard-of music.
And while all of these multi-million dollar start-ups promise more exposure and business for unsigned artists and a better experience for music lovers, as musicians, we can still depend on good ‘ol fashioned live venues – another sector on the up & up. T-shirt anyone?