Music On GOOGLE!?

You might have already noticed this, but Google has recently added a feature to its search that allows people who search for a song or band to be able to stream and buy the music tracks. I tried to search Owl City, an artist that has had one of the best selling MP3s lately. At the top of the search results I got a list of four of his songs to with play buttons to stream them, a link to stream more from Lala.com, plus more links to listen to the song on Rhapsody, Pandora, and iMeem. After clicking on Fireflies, a popup player opened and streamed the whole song from Lala and included a link to purchase the MP3 for $0.89.

I’ve noticed that some songs are streamed from Lala and some are streamed from Myspace Music. I’ve also learned that it only streams the full song once per person per song so the next time I search for Owl City and play Fireflies, I will only get a 30 second clip of the song. Not bad though.

I decided to do some searches to find out if google would stream bands that aren’t the number one downloaded song on itunes. There was a band from my home state of South Dakota who released a few albums on an indie record label that was also based in South Dakota, but the band broke up a couple years ago. Their name was Sinking Steps… Rising Eyes and a google search brought up some of their songs!

Next, I thought of a band that I saw play at a small show in a youth center four years ago. They toured the US once or twice and released two albums, but they were not signed to a record label. In fact, they were known for giving away all their CDs for free to anyone that wanted one. I typed The Pax Cecilia into google, not expecting to see streaming links. I was wrong!

Google has done a great job with adding this feature to their search engine. They made a deal with these online music streaming services that does involve any money being paid to Google. It was done purely to improve their search engine and I believe that it will also improve the popularity of legal online streaming and MP3 sales. Thanks Google!

An Overview of Digital Distribution

As the music industry scrambles to come up with a source of income from recordings to replace the declining sales of CDs, a number of companies have popped up with their own ideas and interpretations of what the solution might be.

 

iTunes

Apple’s iTunes continues to be the most popular way for people to buy digital music recordings online.  The software was first used as the required method of putting music onto Apple’s popular mp3 player since its launch.  The iTunes Store opened later and became one of the first of its kind.  With music piracy such a common thing, it seemed as if iTunes had some of the same challenges as the people that started marketing bottled water.  Will people really pay for something if they can get away with not paying for it?  Over 8 BILLION songs later, it seems like they will!

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Rhapsody & Napster

After becoming the first major p2p file sharing software and playing a big part in the wave of internet piracy, Napster has since become a legit digital music distribution service.  Napster and Rhapsody both offer a type of music rental service.  They charge a monthly fee ($5-$13) in exchange for the ability to stream any of their millions of songs for free on demand.  Both of the services allow you to load music from their catalog onto certain specific mp3 players as long as you keep paying the monthly charge.

http://www.rhapsody.com

http://www.napster.com

Spotify, iMeem, etc.

Free music that’s legal? These companies are trying to do that by paying the licensing fees by showing ads along with their streaming services.  Although not yet available in the US, Spotify has exploded in popularity with millions of European users.  The only question is whether or not their business models will prove profitable in the long run.

http://www.spotify.com

http://www.imeem.com

 

What’s the verdict?

iTunes has positioned itself as the top dog in sales of MP3s above Amazon and other competitors, but with prices similar to the cost of buying a CD, some music fans are moving to other sources of music that don’t require them to purchase songs and albums.  Personally, I’d like to see streaming services like Spotify gain popularity.  I read an article here that includes a quote from a representative of the biggest record label in Sweden saying that they receive more of their income from Spotify than from iTunes.  However, Spotify also charges a monthly fee for an ad-free version of its service.  So far there hasn’t been much proof of the ability to generate enough income from ads alone to pay for streaming costs.  The shutting down of SpiralFrog earlier this year has been proof of that. They spent millions on marketing while only receiving thousands in revenue which can only work for so long.  The next couple of years will bring a lot of new changes and ideas for digital distribution, especially in the category of internet streaming.

Introduction

Well, I officially started my first blog.  I must admit that I don’t even read blogs very often, but I hope to make this blog successful and have readers that visit the blog regularly and comment on my posts.

There are a few reasons why I wanted to start a blog about the music business. One reason is that I believe that we are currently at a pivotal point in the way that music is sold and distributed and I really want to be a part of this revolution that’s taking place.  Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the millions of dollars required to start up a new form of digital distribution, nor do I have the experience and/or degree required to land a job at one of these companies.

Instead, I’ve decided to write this blog where I can point out news articles that have caught my interest, comment on them, and share my opinions. This process will help me to document my research on the evolving music industry and share it with others.