This week I came across a presentation from New York marketing communications brand, JWT. Their October 2011 Things to Watch list is a special Music Edition, and covers a variety of trends in “accessing, discovering and sharing music”.

After a variety of research and specialist analysis, there seems to be a bit more clarity in this presentation than there has been in recent years. The digital age certainly flipped everything on it’s head, but the fact that the big digital guns have stepped into the arena means that they see a viable future. Independent artists are more common and more powerful, and the platforms available for them to communicate and reach out to consumers are much more of a regular way of life than previous years. The frustration of not knowing where to find the music you like, and then not knowing what the ‘legal’ options were seems to be vanishing, and whilst there is no one ‘savior’ of the industry, the combination of many new techniques and technologies has created the beginnings of a new enjoyable sharing experience for all music lovers and appreciators.

Says JWT director of trendspotting Ann Mack, “It’s all about the ability to listen to your own archives, and just about anything else, wherever you are. It’s a major change, and one that comes just as listening gets a lot more social, from Turntable’s DJ rooms to Facebook’s peeks into what friends are listening to.”

Some of the my favorite points include;

Access Over Ownership – in today’s music world, consumers are shifting to the convenience of simply having access to music (i.e. music for hire), as opposed to wanting to own a copy themselves.
The Celestial Jukebox – a dream come true! The advent of Spotify, Rdio and the like means that we seem to have near infinite music available at our fingertips.
Taking it to the Cloud – 2011 saw some major players offer cloud storage (Apple’s iCloud / Amazon’s Cloud Player and Google Music Beta), and with that remove the limitations of hardware storage and which devices have music on them.
The Death of the MP3 Player – we are moving away from both devices that store music, and also devices that have only one function. Being able to stream more music from a mobile device that has multiple uses is a big shift in trend.
The Facebook Effect – the world’s runaway leader in sharing and networking has recently unveiled real-time sharing of music listening habits, via third party apps such as Spotify, Vevo, Mixcloud, Rhapsody, Soundcloud and more.
Youtube IS MTV – albeit an on-demand version, with new licensed content, music documentaries, vintage live shows and much more, this offers something for every music fan to tune into.
Artists are Doing it for Themselves – services and platforms helping musicians manage, market and sell have come on leaps and bounds. It really is possible to be a self made superstar in the internet age.

by Lee Jarvis.

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I just received an announcement about the latest and greatest that Google has created – Magnifier, to go along with Music Beta.

Magnifier essentially, according to Google’s blog, is:

“a new music discovery site that will keep your collection growing. Magnifier will feature great music and the people who make it, including videos of live performances, interviews with artists, explorations of different musical genres and free songs that you can add to your Music Beta collection.”

Seems like a cool new way to keep your music filing cabinet full of everything you love, without having to go and search for all the different multi-media on your favorite artists.  I look forward to having the chance to play around with it.  I’ve requested my invitation, have you gotten yours yet?  Request yours now if you haven’t!

Photo by: Eric Crowley

Once you’re in Music Beta you’ll get access to Magnifier and all the cool features only Google could think of. Currently they’re giving away a couple of My Morning Jacket tracks, which one is an exclusive.  Why hasn’t my invitation been granted yet – argh Google!  Hurry before these tracks aren’t available any more.

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Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music both launched within a couple of weeks of each other. They join a number of well established and loved music streaming services such as Pandora, Rdio, Rhapsody, Last.FM and many more, with the supposed king of them all, Spotify (which is VERY good, by the way), still due “any day now”. So… what do the new kids on the cloud have to offer?

Amazon offers both a Cloud Drive and a Cloud Player. Cloud Drive is your hard drive, uploaded into the cloud (therefore backing up not just your mp3s, but other documents, also). The Cloud Player offers a place to store all new Amazon mp3 purchases, as well as access to your Cloud Drive. You can stream music on the go with the app for Android mobile phones or tablets. Cloud Drive offers all users 5Gb free storage, and, for a limited time, a free upgrade to 20 GB of Cloud Drive storage with an Amazon mp3 album purchase. Also, all new Amazon mp3 purchases saved to Cloud Drive do not count against your storage quota, essentially giving regular Amazon mp3 shoppers an ever-growing storage limit.

Google Music is still invite-only at the moment, but is essentially a similar idea – uploading of your current music files, and a place to easily add new purchases, that are then accessible from any Flash-equipped web browser, along with Android phones and tablets. Very similar indeed. The one big difference? You still need to purchase new music, and this will mainly point music consumers back to digital retail stores run by Amazon and/or Apple. The supposed reason for this hitch? Everyone’s favorite villains; the major labels. Wanting to much money up front apparently hindered Google’s ability to create a one-stop-shop, and has meant that the streaming launch is more of a stutter.

Worth noting is that both of these new players are iTunes friendly. They are not aggressively attacking the third big cheese, Apple, but instead recognize that millions of music fans already have playlists and organized folder based on 10 years of iTunes usage. To ignore this fact would be a foolish move, and making it easy and convenient for them to sync, swap, and move their music around is definitely the first step in taking a slice of the Apple pie (pun intended? Possibly.)

by Lee Jarvis.

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In the modern era of job search, there are many ways to improve your chances of finding that dream career. Whether you are a singer or a DJ looking for a big break, an engineer wanting to broadcast your expertise, or even a teacher looking for more students or a full-time position, here are several ideas using video that you can implement to aid your job search.

Uploading videos of yourself may seem pointless or egotistical at first, but for performing and recording artists, online video has become a huge tool in promotion. Whether you use Youtube, Vimeo, Google Video or any other number of websites, you can gain important exposure and raise awareness of your talents. It is also great to have so much interactive content built into your resume – think of it as your greatest hits in showreel.

Recording a video resume for other music careers can also add depth and character, and increase your appeal next to simply a printed list.

If looking to prove your knowledge or share your service in a certain field of music, it is important to not record one long commercial for yourself – adding interesting and topical content will help reach out to new people looking for genuine advice and expertise. For example, if you are looking to move into music equipment sales, share your reviews on any products or software that you or your friends may have.

If you’re not keen on your face on camera, but still want to chase that dream music job researching and developing new software, you can use screen capturing tools and record your knowledge and experience.

You don’t have to be an editing genius or have expensive equipment to dive into video either; if you can’t record the piece in one take, the iMovie software bundle into every Macbook is a great free tool, and you’ll probably find that an inexpensive, out of the box digital camera that you already own can capture video good enough to share online.

Even right here at Music Jobs, we offer a place to upload video content of yourself on your profile, be that a resume, performance, or any kind of variation of the above. For example, I have uploaded video to my DJ resume of a recent gig in Chicago…

I also recently started recording interviews with artists and independent music professionals, to help share advice on various blogs….

There are many ways to use online video to help in your job search. Get creative, and get sharing!

by Lee Jarvis.

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I’ve always liked Apple. They may not have invented digital music, or the portable digital player, but they fine-tuned them and distributed them to mass markets to perfection. More music is being heard by more people in more places than ever before, and for that, we should be grateful. (Figuring out how to strategize and monetize these new markets is a different matter.)

It seems that iTunes has ruled the mp3 generation, but times and trends are moving ever faster, and there’s now a whole new generation of consumers that may never even own an mp3. Streaming is big business these days. Enter Lala, one of several successful (read: popular but not entirely profitable (yet?)) online music streaming services that has established itself with the non-owning and mobile music markets. Being able to listen to music through a web browser is something that gives music fans greater freedom, and access to their collection from any computer, smart phone or other mobile device, and is something that Apple lacks within iTunes.

Apple may well be looking at using the Lala team and functionality to enter into the streaming market, and with the way they have revolutionized similar parts of the music industry, who knows what may be in store.

One thing I hope Apple does figure out, is if they are paying $17m or $80m+ for Lala assets. Either way, it is a lot of money for a service that has et to find a profitable business model. Moving from CD-swapping to a (comparative to Pandora and Spotify) complicated streaming system has proved difficult, and investor Warner Music wrote down $11 million of the original $20 million it put down.

Lala had recently struck deals with both Google and Facebook, hoping to widen it’s user base with new search traffic and gift options. Apparently Google was also looking at acquiring Lala, and having narrowly missed out they may try and pursue other deals in the near future. Finding a way to tie it’s music search division in with either a download or freemium/ ad-funded streaming service seems inevitable, and well within Google’s scope. In fact, there have been several similar deals in recent months. Imeem was bought by Myspace, whom also previously acquired iLike.

Although Apple’s future movements may not be yet announced, I am certain they will continue to push the digital music industry forward (and outwards) with their services and reach new listeners across the globe.

Lee Jarvis.

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