The first decade of the noughties was one of unprecedented change in the way music is consumed online. The first legal file sharing site Wippit came & went but it was iTunes that really impacted the most on music & single handedly revolutionised the charts. Since then Myspace, Youtube came into the fray although with semi legal services. What does 2010 hold for music ?
We believe the freemium juggernaught will continue to make inroads with Spotify, We7 leading the audio way, however the biggest revolution will be made by the likes of Youtube (already the default place for seekers of music who don’t want to risk viruses).
You see the problem with Spotify & others is in the licensing. without a global licensing deal, they will make small dents into illegal filesharing. Semi legal sites like Youtube will continue to flourish. Myhotmusic suggests labels set up their own version using tools that are readily available. Sites such as Youtube, Blip.TV & Muzu.tv are now sharing revenue and labels stand to make a lot more if they use them. It makes a lot of sense for people to watch a video with buy links underneath it & if they want to get the audio they’ll just click through to your site and order it on CD or mp3 rather than put up with the incovenience of saving it and converting it.