Music Industry and the Online Age

Technologies

Technologies in the music industry and the online age has changed and has gone from analog to digital.

What are the advantages of each technology over its predecessor??

• Capacity (hours//tracks)
• Sound quality
• Portability
• Durability of the recorded format
• Ability to copy
• Ease of sharing
• Speed of copying & Sharing

Technological Advancement

• Technological Convergence
• Coming together of 2 or more technologies
• iPhone and iPod touch
• Comsume music anywhere, have entire music collection in your pocket
• Impacted on institutions and audiences

The Big Changes Concentrate on:

• Music going DIGITAL
• BROADBAND
• CONVERGENCE

 How has the indroduction of Web 2.0 affected the Music Industry?

Web 1.0:

Web 1.0 was about the info being pushed onto us - it was mostly a space for browsing and reading. As technology has advanced Web 2.0 allows us to read, post and publish content without the need for specialist software.

This has positives and negatives for the Music Industry:

Positives of Web 2.0

• Unsigned acts - producee and distribute their own music without a label using Myspace music, Youtube etc...
• Indie Labels - Can operate solely online (production and distribution) keeping costs low hence they can focus more on the actual music - taking more risk
• Majors - can source bands who already have an established fanbase
• Advertise online - using info on individuals profiles to target them with music theyre seemingly interested in
• Wider audience can be reached
• Synergetic links with other companies eg x factor and songs can be downloaded instantly from itunes

Negatives of Web 2.0

• P2P sites such as napster which emerged in 1999 hits major companies in their core markets (western world) as previous pirate music came from the midele east as black market CDs.
• Impact on revenue streams - Weakened the divide between producers and consumers and foced a transformation in the circulation of media products
• Around the world in 2006 an estimated 5 billion songs were swapped on p2p websites (38,000 years of music) while 509 million were purchased online.
• That's 10 illegal downloads for every 1 legal download.

Terms to know


A digital native:

• Someone who has grown up in with 21st centuary technology
• A person born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies

A digital immigrant

• An individual whgo was born before the existance of Digital Technology and has adopted it to some extent later in their life

So does the music industry need the Internet?

Some would argue this, absolutely!!

The Midnight Beast are a young London band who are a Youtube sensation, they have millions of fans and have performed in numorous gigs. However they are not signed to a label. How has Digital Technology flamed their success???

Stages of production

• production
• distribution
• marketing
• exchance
• consumption