Access to music - i.e. a simple click-to-play, anywhere, anytime, anything - is replacing ownership. This trend will quickly accelerate due to the massive global build-up in cheap wireless broadband connectivity, leading us swiftly to the point where listening to a song will be exactly the same as downloading it (at least in practical terms, from the users' perspective). Some of us would argue that this is already the case, of course, but in terms of mass-scale user adoption I would say we are about 18 months away from the pivot point in the so-called developing countries.
The music industry needs to urgently get ready for this: sell access not (just) copies. Bundle. Package. Develop those new generatives. "When copies are free you need to sell things that can't be copied" (Kevin Kelly, The Technium).
Another important trend to embrace is the move to mobile devices that will pretty much replace the computer as primary access point to the Internet i.e. to all digital content. Mobile applications for smart-phones will take the place of sound-carriers; music will be sold as/in/via/with software. Read how Pandora is doing this, in the U.S.
Very soon, a majority of people around the world will no longer connect to the Internet via desktop computers tethered to cables, or notebooks 'tethered' to WLAN boxes. Instead they will use their mobile devices (fka 'phones'). These experiences will be personalized, custom-made, location-aware, timely, interdependent, social, contextual and most importantly, 100% under the users' control.
In many developing countries, the first browsing experiences will be via mobile applications or mobile browsers. This is a huge shift for marketers, brands, content owners and ecommerce companies. Check out my recent presentations on Mobile Marketing and Mobile Content (both were held @ CommunicAsia 2009)
This is part 2 of my presentations at CommunicAsia 2009 in Singapore: The Future of Mobile Content, TV & Entertainment
The content industries are seriously challenged by the Internet's
disruptive forces - it may have taken longer but is really hitting home
now. Many trusted business models are no longer working, copyright and
value traditions are being challenged, and content consumption is
drastically changing, everywhere. Now that Internet access is becoming
a default part of just about every mobile phone, even more drastic
changes are on the horizon. Who will pay for what kind of content on
mobile phones, when, why, where and how? Will mobile TV and mobile
music finally take off, and what will be the future business models?
Where the opportunities are and where are the minefields and myths that
need to be discarded....
While we pay attention to great, personalized, contextual and relevant content, brands want to reach us via that content, and via the CONVERSATION, the social context, around that content. This opportunity will drastically expand due to the explosive rise of the mobile Internet and the advent of ubiquitous smart phones, globally, but the quickest opportunities will be in Asia, no doubt (where many local cultures are already build around a much more mobile and always-on lifestyle than in Europe or the US). Content will be offered 'for free' in return for paying attention to brands, advertisers and sponsors, primarily via mobile applications (branded or in-app advertised) as well as via the browser. Stay tuned via www.twitter.com/gleonhard or Facebook
If you live in Singapore or happen to be there June 18-21 2009 please come by CommunicAsia for my speeches: June 18 speech & presentation on Mobile Marketing http://ow.ly/9iZo; June 19 Talk on Mobile Content http://tinyurl.com/qnetx8
Keynote Address June 19, 10 am The Future of Mobile Content, TV & Entertainment: The content industries are seriously challenged by the Internet's
disruptive forces - it may have taken longer but is really hitting home
now. Many trusted business models are no longer working, copyright and
value traditions are being challenged, and content consumption is
drastically changing, everywhere. Now that Internet access is becoming
a default part of just about every mobile phone, even more drastic
changes are on the horizon. Who will pay for what kind of content on
mobile phones, when, why, where and how? Will mobile TV and mobile
music finally take off, and what will be the future business models?
Where the opportunities are and where are the minefields and myths that
need to be discarded? Gerd will present the most crucial trends,
examples and future scenarios and preview some of the findings from his
upcoming book 'Broadband Culture'
The Google guys have just published a video with my talk at Authors@Google, in San Francisco, March 2, 2009 (see the details here Pdf: The End of Control Gerd Leonhard at Google SF PDF
*22MB). Due to some technical issues my fancy slides (i.e. the stuff on the screen) come across very nicely in this video while I am left a bit 'in the dark' - but if you use the HQ version on the Youtube site you can still get a much better idea of what my face actually looks like (I guess always wearing black is not ideal when the lights are bad;). Anyway, I do think this is one of my best talks, so... watch the entire 55 Mins 22 Secs. As far as the End of Control Book is concerned, I will have an announcement on my plans within the next 10 days...stay tuned.
Here is the official Google Talks description:The End of Control & The Future of Content: The tough
issue of control emerges, again and again, as the key contention point
within TV companies, publishers, record labels, and broadcasters: How
can a commercial venture that is based on so-called intellectual
property thrive and prosper in an environment that seems to
continuously and progressively remove control from the
creators/owners/providers of content, and hands it over to the people
formerly known as consumers (aka the users), effectively making them
more powerful every single day? But the reality is that every
click inadvertently makes another case for the consumers
ever-increasing rise in importance. Within all the conversations I have
had about things like commercial content versus shared content, about
the read-only or the read-write web, and about copyright versus Fair
Use, the crucial question always seems to boil down to WHERE IS THE
CONTROL HERE, i.e., questions such as Who will control this new media
universe and How much control do I need to run a revenue-generating
business?
This is clearly a very cool idea, and something I have been looking at for quite some time: in the dawning age of rapidly exploding mobile app stores, on 5+ platforms, and with something like 2 Billion always-on smart phone users, we can now start selling music as software packages, i.e. in any UI/UX, multimedia, online/offline format that fits the artists' specific users and locations. Bands and artists, their managers, agents or labels and even publishers can select any combination of audio, video, pictures, texts, news feeds, games, twitter updates and social media 'rivers' to update the bands fans at any time, anywhere in the world.
My hunch is that most artists will probably have basic free versions available, at first, followed by premium apps that offer considerably more value and will cost from a few extra dollars all the way up to even $50 per user - and most importantly, lots ofup-selling will be fueled through these apps. Think live concerts webcasts and downloads, premium video footage, remote backstage access, preferred access at concerts, merchandising etc - once I am hooked on the band, using this app, I make the perfect case for pitching something else to me.
I have said this a few 1000 times in the past, but here it is again: Music as a service (i.e. get / buy / bundle access first, and only then buy products), and now, Music as mobile software packages may well be the next format after the CD.
Take it a step further and think of how advertisers, brands and other partners could (and will) sponsor or co-present these apps, and therefore align with artists that make a good match with their branding strategy (see Groove Armada & Bacardi, Sting & Jaguar), and pretty soon most mobile music apps will be free or as I like to say, Feels like Free, for the users. Of course, downloading i.e. the ability to keep music must be part of it, as well - especially in the developing countries where easily available wifi/wlan is not that far along quite yet. I would expect that this will be part of many premium mobile music apps very soon. Stay tuned - this is a major trend, for sure.
Andreessen is amazing, and so is Charlie Rose. This is a great summary on what's happening in Mobile Technology today, and what's coming in 2009. Great stuff.
IBM's Institute for Business Value has published a brilliant new study entitled A future in content(ion): Can telecom providers win a share of the digital content market? A lot of what they are saying in this study is amazingly close to what I have been trying to tell the telcos for the past 2 years: you MUST get involved with content and media, no 2 ways about it. Read this study! The 3 biggest eye-openers:
“In 2009, mobile phone users are expected to download more than 10bn applications to their mobile phones – the majority from sites managed by mobile device manufacturers, consumer electronics firms and software houses.”
"After years of disappointment and false starts, mobile data and the
“mobile internet” it enables, finally seems to be taking off. “Global
sales of mobile broadband ‘dongles’ [plug-in gadgets that control
wireless signals] exceeded 4m a month during 2008 and are expected more
than to double in 2009,” says Deloitte. “The resulting stress on
networks, particularly backhaul connections, could be significant..."
“We do expect to see a proliferation of music, video and gaming applications being consumed on mobile devices...In
all of these cases, next-generation services utilise the broadband
networks from the mobile operators, but importantly bring together the
capabilities of the communications network and the web to create
next-generation experiences"
Marty Beard: “We
will see voice over the internet (VoIP), video messaging, streaming,
cross-operator presence and other new and innovative services. The
expansion towards an all-IP mobile economy has begun.”
Over the course of the next 5-6 years, the importance of getting Air-Play on terrestrial i.e. traditional, programmed radio will drastically decline, as people are switching to the Internet (and by extension, to each other) as the #1 way of sourcing music programs. We will see a drastic increase in fragmentation as people will do anything from carefully customizing each track in their lists to just listen to 'what's on' - and there will be 100s of permutations in between. From total engagement to total passive consumption, there will be offers covering each - and they will all be connected.
Because of the strong uptake in next generation mobile devices (fka cell phones), the explosive proliferation of social networks and the drastic increase in wireless broadband capabilities at ever decreasing costs (yes, not yet - but give it another 18 months) we will see people use their mobile devices as prime instruments of listening to radio-like music programs - there will be hundreds of radio/music apps available via the various app stores that each device maker AND operator will offer; some paid, most feels-like-free, some sponsored.
The other point is that as the car becomes fully connected and always-online people will shift their music consumption to Net-based offerings while on the road, as well (in addition to the already stiff in-car competition from iPods etc) - this will be a very very very serious challenge to traditional Radio (and TV) broadcasters. Local news, traffic, sports etc will be programmable to interlace with your Internet-based stations - the best of both worlds? Talk about Change!
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