Video Post: Is Beta Better for Google?

Yesterday I briefly mentioned Google announcing their Google Music Beta streaming music player at the Google I/O developer conference. And although I wasn't able to give it much attention, Ashley dives into more of the details and speculates on its impact in today's Daily Axioms video post.

What Will Be the Big Trend in 2011?

Most social media minds like to wait until the end of the year to start predicting what the big trends will be the following year.

However, a bit of a pattern is starting to emerge and I'm going to throw out an early prediction for what will dominate social news headlines in 2011: music and music-based networking.

We're starting to see a huge social-musical push already, starting with hugely popular music-based apps like Shazam and Grooveshark. There's also a growing trend of music streaming sites expanding to other venues like Pandora's Facebook integration or MOG adding a music-related news hub.

Add in last week's launch of Apple's social media music service Ping, which drew 1 million subscribers in the first 48 hours, and it's safe to say that this musical integration is a legitimate evolution in the social media space.

But it doesn't stop there. The latest news from Google is that the search giant is hoping to get a music streaming service up and running late this year in an effort to compete with iTunes and hopefully knock the music download king off its throne.

I can't (or won't) say whether or not Google will be able to overtake iTunes, but I would not be surprised if we see a lot more music-based services, apps and networks next year. Of course with how fast the social media space changes, I could be singing a different tune come December.

Not Just A Flash In The Pan(dora)

On August 29th the music-streaming site Pandora will turn 5, which is quite the achievement in Internet years. It was launched when YouTube was only six months old, a year before Twitter even hit the market, and way before Facebook was anywhere near the online juggernaut it is today.

Pandora has been one of the quieter online success stories over the years. Despite little press coverage, the site has not only seen near-steady growth in 2010 but has become a cultural icon and one of the first things people think of when they think of online music.

Pandora's format hasn't really gone under any drastic changes over the years other than offering premium paid services. However, they recently announced the launch of genre-based stations that would focus on a wider range of music instead of a band or song.

Is this a game-changing innovation? Probably not, but with more and more music-streaming sites popping up, it's important that existing sites continue to innovate.

Facebook Music Coming?....

It looks like it (no, not because of the picture). Facebook has reportedly been in talks with several music services who are looking at a partnership with Facebook.

From the New York Post:

The surging social-networking giant is talking to a number of song-streaming services and music community sites, including Rhapsody.com, iMeem.com, iLike.com, and Lala.com, about an outsourcing deal that would more deeply integrate their music experience into Facebook, sources familiar with the situation said.

Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives also have been busy taking meetings with the major record companies about the strategy.

If Facebook can pull this off successfully, it will be a huge dig to MySpace. A major draw to MySpace is music. A major drawback is spam...and tons of it. Facebook doesn't have the problem of spam (it has some spam, but nowhere near MySpace volume).

iTunes Music Store To Shut Down

No, not really. I don't think anyone believes this one, but Apple is threatening to close the iTunes music store if music royalty rates increase. Tomorrow, the Copyright Royalty Board will be voting on a substantial increase in the royalty rate paid to record labels. Apple already pays $0.70 per song to the labels and since record labels don't want to cover the costs, an increase would most likely force them to raise the consumer's price, making the current $0.99 model an unprofitable one.

In a related story, Warner Music's CEO said that Guitar Hero and Rock Band should pay more money to labels to use their songs in the games. Activision's CEO quickly responded that it should be the other way around. Due to the immense popularity of the video games, labels are receiving free promotion, a new avenue to market the music, and as a result have seen huge jumps in album sales of their back catalog (many albums have jumped 200%, 300%, and even 1000% in sales after being featured in the games).

What I see in these two situations is the record labels scrambling around and loosing sight of the bigger picture. Instead of panicking about how to make money and trying to squeeze cash out of everyone, the labels need to understand that they have to start looking at their business model differently. How about instead of labels trying to get more money for their songs in Rock Band, they set up a system that would allow gamers to click on a song they are playing, enter a music store, download an album to their XBox, search similar artists, and alert their friends list what music they bought. Maybe gamers could be alerted when the artist they are rocking out to is coming to their town in concert? I came up with these ideas in 30 seconds, and I would really hope there are more creative minds than mine out there at the labels. The new world of marketing is all about social media and tapping into its potential. The point is this: Labels will die if they don't start innovating new ways to stay alive.

YouTube: Music without the video

Just because it is on YouTube, doesn't necessarily mean that it is a video. Many people use YouTube as a simple hosting site for songs. As AP points out:
"Though YouTube is known as the Internet’s greatest video warehouse, it’s becoming known as the place to find new music, no video needed. Put in the name of your favorite artist and there’s chance that besides an assortment of their videos, you’ll find a song with perhaps just a picture or a montage of photos to accompany it — and it still gets thousands of views.

If anyone wants to hear Akon’s remake of Michael Jackson’s ‘‘Wanna Be Starting Something,’’ it’s there. Someone yearning for the new Guns N’ Roses track ‘‘Shackler’s Revenge’’ or T.I.’s new release ‘‘Live Your Life’’ featuring Rihanna, all it takes is a quick search of their name and song title. No problem. While some of the songs are posted directly by an artist’s camp, others are uploaded by fans eager to share and discuss new music by their favorite act."

I've noticed this is especially common for leaked tracks and singles, since videos usually aren't available right away.

Musicians always have the most creative marketing campaigns

Oasis have announced promotional plans for their new album.

From the article:
"The Manchester rockers announced they would unveil a handful of tracks from their forthcoming album by having street musicians perform them. The songs will be from their highly anticipated album Dig Out Your Soul, which is released in America on 7 October."

How great of an idea is that?

The Day That Never Comes

Metallica released their new single The Day That Never Comes today. It has made a big splash online with fans waiting to hear it and critics ready to tear it apart.

The search for the lyrics even made it to #1 on Google Trends. Impressive, but is the song?


You can stream the song on MySpace here.

Closing Pandora's Box

A sad day may be approaching for online music lovers. Pandora may soon be shutting down its website and music service due to increased royalty fees.

"The Copyright Royalty Board's decision raised a then-current 8/100 of a cent per song per listener to 19/100 of a cent under the same conditions in 2010."

This rate hike is a major blow to Pandora, which is currently losing money due to royalty fees. Of the $25 million of revenue that they bring in this year, 70% will go to royalty fees.

The death of my favorite App from the AppStore might be approaching soon. Will this further anger music fans? Of course. Pandora has over 1 million daily users, including me. I have spent at least $20 on music after hearing it first on Pandora. Hopefully, the CRB comes to its senses before it is too late...

Read the full article on Pandora here.

Ben Folds Fake

Ben Folds revealed this week that the copy of his new CD "Way To Normal" that has been floating around file sharing sites is actually fake. He recorded the 6 songs in a span of 8 hours and had friends release it online. He recorded and released the material in attempts to delay the actual leak of the CD.

Great idea and I'm sure it will build buzz for the actual release of the CD in September.


Rolling Stone has the full article here.

Free music...in China?!?

Google is launching a new music service called Music Onebox in China. People can actually download, not stream, tracks for free. The service is supported through ad revenue.

At this point, record labels really have no choice but to try a service like this in China, since 99% of people don't pay for music over there.

Mashable has a good summary of the service here.

Power of music publicity

If you have checked out the top ten songs on iTunes recently, you will notice "Paper Planes" by MIA in the #2 position. Didn't her cd Kala come out a year ago?

Thanks to heavy plays during the trailer of Pineapple Express, the song and album have resurfaced again. Although, I saw an advanced screening of Pineapple Express last week and Paper Planes was nowhere to be found in the movie. Interesting. It also helps that the song is probably the catchiest pop song of 2007.

This reminds me of several artists who have been given a boost thanks to commercials. If your song is in an Apple commercial you are pretty much guaranteed a spotlight. Yael Naim and The Ting Tings are probably the most recent artists launched by Apple (Coldplay doesn't count since they are already huge).