Comments on: Music Consumption in a 180°—Terry McBride Interviews.

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By: ryanve

ryanve — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:26:14 +0000

Great points Jason—there's no doubt that artists still have a business. It makes sense about everyone in the US/Canada having smartphones within two years because of the way phone contracts renew every two years. The sound quality is important to to a degree but not as much as accessibility—YouTube is the perfect example of that. One definite advantage streaming is that it doesn't take up disk space like downloads do. I still download hi-res mp3 torrents but I've been doing that much less as of late. The recommendation engine features of Pandora and Last.fm are killer. Thanks for commenting. Rock on!

By: ryanve

ryanve — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:26:14 +0000

By: Jason Kadlec

Jason Kadlec — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:08:24 +0000

Terry McBride is correct that the future of music for the mainstream consumer will be access and not download. For example, even today anyone with a YouTube app on their phone can pretty much listen to just about any song on demand.

Also, the sound quality of the Pandora App for the iPhone is pretty surprising. No it won't sound better than cd quality on a good system but for most consumers I think it sounds good enough.

However, for at least the next year (or 2 or 3?) I think downloads and portability will still be important for most consumers of music. Perhaps not the youngest generation out there now who are after Avril Lavingne, but I think that the demo that listens to bands on KRCW's morning becomes eclectic, for example will still want the download.

Even when internet access is ubiquitous and any song - or better yet your library or playlist is available via your phone/mobile device, artists still have a business selling tangible goods to their most ardent fans.

And while it is good to look out for the future - especially for large indies like Nettwerk, for any artists watching that and planning for 2010 - the download is far from dead.

Even once the applications that will deliver the ultimate experience to make you not download anything anymore are released, they'll still take time to fully gain traction and awareness in the market.

Watching the numbers of music files shared on P2P will be an indicator of the migration to music on demand via downloaded. I'll be watching...but I'll also be continuing to watch downloads sell in the near term.