MidemNet 2009 Liveblog: Visionaries panel
Time for the final panel session of MidemNet, the panel of visionaries, which includes Ted Cohen, Harvey Goldsmith, Bruce Houghton, Terry McBride and Ralph Simon, moderated by Music Ally's own Steve Mayall. Let's go!
In five years time, Rob Wells of UMG thinks the recorded music business is going to be bigger than it ever has been before. Is that "a load of crap?" Bruce Houghton says he doesn't know, but that if music becomes like water and is everywhere, "we'll consume more of it".
So, what's inspired the panel this MidemNet - what hot new companies have they seen who they think could change the business? Cohen says the presentation by Mike Masnick about Trent Reznor. "It shows the possibilities - if you let go and let your fans be part of your life, he's shown the way that you can have this really deep engagement and have loyalty, and you can earn revenue from it."
He's really keen on that direct contact, citing the Beastie Boys film where fans could upload camera phone footage as another example.
Now to Terry McBride. It'snot the models or the devices, it's the opportunity. "The outside developers are going to shape this industry like it's never been shaped, in the next six to nine months," he says. So it's technology companies making tools, and then developers taking those tools and creating amazing stuff.
"We're going to go wireless, all of this media is going to be in the cloud," he says. "And we're going to be able to track it, and monetise it."
And he talks about Nettwerk's work with K-OS (I think that's the spelling) - the rapper who's letting his fans remix his new album, and then also letting fans pay what they want for his gigs when they leave.
Harvey Goldsmith said lots of good stuff, just as my battery died. But the lack of high-quality music online was the key one – music doesn't sound good online, yet artists have spent lots of time making sure their recordings sound great. He thinks more startups need to focus on that.
Oh, and he's not impressed with the mobile companies. "None of them, not one, has a strategy," he says. "They don't have anything that is a 3-5 year strategy that is really sticking with their platform for music… I think they're losing out, they need to go back to the drawing board and work with the artists, with the record companies. But they have to find a strategy that works and stick with it. They keep going down this path of stop-start, stop-start, they pay through the nose for everything and then they get screwed, because they don't stick with anything."
"Ralph?" says Steve, with impeccable timing.
Simons replies, saying mobile firms aren't coming to this with a traditional music industry approach, but that they are hiring people from the music industry – he cites Nokia as one key example, and also Sony Ericsson.
He also enjoyed Denzyl Feigelson's presentation – focusing on artist development in the technology sphere. "This is an area which for artist development is going to be extremely important," he says. He also liked MySpace Music's Courtney Holt's presentation. "From the mobile perspective, it's going to be very interesting over the next few months to see if these plans to have all these music platforms… is going to connect."
Back to Goldsmith, who asks about quality again. Does it drop by the wayside? Cohen says not, citing digital photography as a model - it used to suck, but now exceeds the quality of traditional film photography (he says). And as digital music moves into the living room, lossless music will become much more of a factor. "I don't think we have to give up on quality," he says.
Houghton says "there's no reason why the iPod has to be as crappy-sounding as it is… It'll change."
Final question: there's a recession going on. Is the music industry better placed to ride this thing out? "I think it's really good for alcohol sales," notes McBride.
Cohen says the industry needs to change its advance structures - it can't be about "pay us a bunch of money, and if you go out of business it's your problem". It's got to be more of a partnership, even if advances have their place in establishing that you (as a music company) are dealing with a reputable company.
Goldsmith brings it back to the quality of songs and gigs. "If you have a great song, people will buy it. If you have a great show, they'll come back and see it again and again and again… The real talent's out there, and going through the process of building up fans. And when they do release something great, people will buy it."
But Cohen says discovery, personalisation and recommendation will be crucial to finding the good stuff.
Now Steve asks Goldsmith about RFID, and his plans for that technology in the new British Music Experence exhibition in the O2 later this year. "What it does is it reads your taste. As you go through that experience, if you see something you recognise, it can register it, and built up a tariff of information through that RFID card, which when you go out you can go to a reader." And then it tells you the songs you like, and you can go to a website to find out more about them, and buy them.
Okay, 30 seconds more. Which company - pick one each - which has the potential to be the most transformational. McBride says "I don't think they're here - the millions of developers who are gonna make those applications." Houghton agrees, but mentions Spotify. Cohen says "mobile combined with location based services combined with personalisation".
Goldsmith says UK retailer HMV's deal buying into venue owner MAMA. "I thought that was a very cool way of how a record chain can survive. For the first time they have a direct link to a venue, with customers, to sell their product… As a lateral move, it's a very clever move, and I hope it's a big success."
And finally Simons, who agrees with Cohen. "This whole new dimension of context is king, not content is king." So he likes location-based personalisation stuff too. "All the phone companies are looking at it, the web companies are looking at it…"
