The New Media Ark (under construction)

While a lot of the old heads stand in the raging rains waiting for it to pass, we have these new media sites which are becoming an ark. So when the water eventually passes over everybody's head, only those that focus on what's "now" and keep building on their ark will survive.

Everybody knows about declining record sales and feel as though their drowning in their past strategies. From several counts it can be to lack of good music- But with countless different genres and many variations with the lowest near 200,000 and top over 2 million on MySpace artists I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Some call it over saturation which could be the case. Could it be the overall quality?

Well in hindsight we see where we went wrong when we find the finished ark of our new media, but I don’t think there will ever be a finished ark. With media and software always changing, so should the ark. Those who stick to the old ways will fail and those who are late on what's new will just miss the ship (i.e. those who don’t use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace [which is quickly becoming old], Pandora Radio, and/or any other start-up sites that use a word of mouth approach to marketing).

Right now the best sales pitch is friend-to-friend, not billboard-to-billboard on the highway. A lot of new media is free. It's just a matter of standing out, which is why the ark will never be finished, just like in DC it’ll always be under construction. We must continuously be on the lookout for what's new and jump on the ship before its time to build another.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The New Media Ark (under construction)

The Price of Free Music (Part 2)

So why are we still utilizing services like Limewire and Morpheus? Because we feel entitled to. We want to take the music with us in our cars, on our iPods, and throughout every step of our lives without being confined to the chairs in front of our computers. But that's not fair. It's not fair to the artists either on major labels, who yes, have had many of their expenses taken care of, but will have to recomp the label for them once the money starts coming in, or on indie labels and self-releases, where they truly have put up their own hard earned money to do what they love and take the music as far as they can, to our own ears.

We like to say that technology has created so many opportunities for artists that would have never had them before, and in some cases, it's true. Studios are relatively cheaper to create and easier to use than ever before. With the advent of Myspace and Youtube, it has become easier to communicate with people around the world, to network, to be noticed. But with all of that has come a much easier, and sadly, socially acceptable way to take music without compensating the people who created it. We all make excuses: I'm a poor college student, I would have never actually spent money on this particular album so picking it up for free isn't that big of a deal, I just want to know if I like it before I spend money on it... but the truth is, those excuses are baseless.

You know? Someday, I hope to make money in this industry. There is nothing I love more than popular music. I love to sing it, play it, write it, and I'm learning to love the business side of all of it too. And how pretentious would it make me to expect to get the music I listen to for free and still expect others to pay me for mine?

Money has been tight for me lately, and I have had to add many, many albums to my wishlist rather than running right out to buy them like I'm used to doing. It's honestly painful, but I absolutely can't fathom stealing music anymore. It doesn't feel right to me.

It shouldn't feel right to you either.

Courtney

The Price of Free Music (Part 2)

The Price of Free Music (Part 1)

I honestly can't say I've met anyone of my particular generation who hasn't stolen music. Yeah, I admit, I've done it too. The problem is, as long as we're not picking up a physical CD at the nearest Target and walking out of the store without visiting the friendly cashiers first, we don't see it as stealing. It is. We need to convince people that not only is illegal downloading wrong, but the quality of music is eventually going to suffer for it.

I don't honestly understand what has led people to feel so entitled to music for free. What other services will expect not to pay for next? Should we visit a restaurant without tipping a server who did his or her job remarkably just because, hey, that's the job? Should we walk into an accountant's office and expect him or her to do our taxes for us, free of charge? How about seeking out a lawyer's service? Should he or she have gotten through years of expensive law school just to dispense free advice in all cases?

There are new services bringing entertainment into our homes for free-- and TV is the first thing I think of when I think of this. Services like Hulu.com and TheWB.com are offering full episodes of a variety of TV shows free of charge to the viewer--but they've found a way to do it legally, by obtaining licensing and including advertisements to make the funding possible. And when you think about it, watching TV this way isn't much different than watching it in the traditional way, because you're still paying for one main service (cable, satellite, or the internet), and the advertisements are still helping to fund the experience, so it's not really free.

Internet radio has made some of this possible in some cases for music: Pandora.com, iLike.com, and Last.fm all offer different ways to listen to the songs and artists you like, allowing you to create playlists, listen to stations based on a certain artist you love, or just search, song by song, artist by artist, and listening to what you please. The reason this works, though, is that those plays are all being recorded, and the artists, songwriters, and other associated with each song played are still earning their royalties. You're not paying, really, but they're still earning, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
To be continued....

Courtney

The Price of Free Music (Part 1)

Will Pandora Sacrifice Itself for Us?

Recently Pandora Radio announced that it is about to close the book on its Music Genome Project (See Article)


They have been struggling since March of 2007 with license fee increases imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) and backed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) that are between 300% and 1200%.

Started in 1999 and quietly launched in 2005, Pandora was a founding block to the next generation of music, personalization. The Internet radio station analyzes my own tastes through what is called a Genome Project of technical attributes and introduces me to other artists that fit my profile by using a DNA fingerprint of mystery musical processes.

I joined the service in 2006 after reading about an innovative digital music server called “Squeezebox”. The “Squeezebox” brought music from my computer right to my living room speakers. It came with a free trial subscription to Pandora Radio and that trial had me ditching my ten dollar a month satellite radio service in two minutes or less! Internet Radio is amazing, free and allows me to find music I would never be exposed to under traditional radio sources. Since then, they have adopted many different platforms to stream music on.

Since 2006, I have spent a small fortune on independent band’s music I wouldn’t have had the pleasure to grace my ears upon. The service gave me access to Amazon.com as well as iTunes to grab my newly found artists.

In May of 2007, unable to afford the necessary licenses, they were forced to block the folks outside of the USA which limited their growth as a company.


I had the pleasure of meeting founder, Tim Westergren in July of 2007 at the Cedar Cultural Center, as he was traveling the country to engage the audience and grow support for their legislation effort appropriately called, “SaveNetRadio”. Hearing Tim speak, finding out he grew up in Minneapolis and putting White Light Riot’s EP, “The Dark is Light Enough” into his hands was a priceless experience.

Looking through the lens, it seems that sacrifices may need to be made at the cost of Pandora and the demise of one company will lead the way for others to grow from. It seems his cutting edge process has been adopted by services such as Last.FM, Slacker, Imeem, and The Sixtyone. Some of these services are better, some worse and some just different.

Tim will go down in my book as a pioneer and a truly modern spirit. His entrepreneurial story was told in October, 2007’s www.Inc.com’s article titled, “Pandora's Long Strange Trip”.

The destination may be the end of a musical service that has made 1 million people’s daily life more enjoyable, but the legacy must live on!

Will Pandora Sacrifice Itself for Us?