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’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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