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The movement to mobile is incredible, isn’t it?

I have been reading up on data relating to the growth of mobile over the last couple of days so that I can deliver a reasonably coherent lecture on a number of issues relating to mobile to first year communication students at UoW.

At the same time I have been writing a strategy document on Wearable Bionics. So my brain is somewhat discombobulated, you’d think. But convergence is such an amazing thing that all roads lead to Rome – but particularly via Google!

At the same time that this is happening I have been doing some brainstorming with some people on what sort of app could be really useful for the music industry…

Of course when you start to think about the music industry, you really have to think in a different way now. And perhaps that is the crux of it.

Back in the dark ages of the 1980’s before the advent of CD‘s a few corporations and societies and agents were pretty much the music industry – a kind of solar system of stars, planets and aseteroids. Fast forward to now and what we have is a veritable universe – nebulae, supernova, and all of their sub-categories, and an infinite number of them.

In fact now anyone who touches music in their daily life in order to generate money is part of the music industry and at the centre is Apple. iTunes dominates all as the money maker that sits over all the major corporations and enables them to continue to book limos and go to expensive restaurants.

And at the artist end of the spectrum, there are the stars, like Lady Gaga and others that work the old system and the new. And then there are the experimenters – like Arcade Fire. Their new video, which I admit I have only just discovered is a really inventive use of the latest iteration of HTML. It asks you to insert the address of the place that you grew up, and then it integrates footage from Google Street View into the video, making a totally unique and personalized experience.

There are a lot of artists playing around with the concept of personalized mixes of tracks. Surely the next thing has to be an iPhone or Android app that enables you to create your own hit song. I have no idea how it will work. But I am pretty sure that the music industry now has to include every man woman and child who has a smart phone.

Imagine a game – like Angry Birds – but instead of it making noises of birds and monkey’s it makes noises like Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar, set against a bass and drum track that knocks your socks off!

As we began 2011 apps were generating more revenue than music in sales and predicted to become a billion dollar a year business.

So what does that have to do with wearable bionics, my other current project? Nike already has an app that combines shoe sensors and iPod and web to motivate runners. Some companies are pushing forward with an understanding that they have to be part of the present if they want to be part of the future.

The big idea here is that every one of us is actually a part of every industry. Smart phones are the cement that is making convergence an absolute requirement to understand whatever industry you are involved in.

Related articles

• SongTrust for Music Publishing (musicbusinessheretic.wordpress.com)
• License music plays a very important part (informationbible.com)
• China forms association of Internet music operators to combat piracy (thenextweb.com)
• There is a lot of competition in music industries (articlelinksdirectory.com)

This entry was posted on May 9, 2011 at 7:54 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey 1 Comment