Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 7 Oct 2011 06:26:50 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111006/16505116239/new-record-label-will-give-out-all-its-music-free-wants-fans-to-subscribe-to-label.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111006/16505116239/new-record-label-will-give-out-all-its-music-free-wants-fans-to-subscribe-to-label.shtml FutureHit.DNA a few years back, and it's really a fascinating look into the music business. Frank, who formerly was the Senior VP of Music Strategy for CMT (part of MTV) as well as VP of Music Programming at Yahoo! Music, basically tried to scientifically breakdown what it took to be a "hit" song in the modern digital age. Of course, some might dismiss this as formulaic (and perhaps cynical), but I can't recommend the book enough. It's not just about "oh this is what makes a hit song," but it takes a look at how listening habits change in the digital era, and how even that may impact what makes a hit and what doesn't.

It appears that Frank doesn't just want to write about this, but he's about to put his theories to the test. Today he's announcing a new record label, called DigSin, that will be focused on releasing singles for artists rather than full albums. But here's the interesting bit: all of the music will be released for free. What he's looking to do is build up a base of subscribers who will want to be pushed new great songs that he's releasing. In effect, rather than a "label" in the traditional sense, you can think of it as a "tastemaker," or even a filter or trusted friend.

I have to admit that I've been fascinated by this concept for a little while. I've written in the past about how I've paid a small label/distribution company a yearly subscription in the past for a "CD of the month" club, because I trusted the guy who ran it to find me awesome CDs. In that case, it was a small operation, where the guy who ran the label would take into account each of the subscriber's tastes and try to match music to what they liked. It was like having the guy at the record store who knew your tastes picking out what you should listen to. It was fantastic. In this case, Frank is trying that on a larger scale... and not charging for it.

In this case, it appears that Frank is going to be looking at alternative revenue sources. If he can bring together enough music fans, that's certainly an opportunity. I would bet there will be some sponsorship opportunities that make sense, but I could also see some more creative efforts, such as upsell opportunities for merch or concert tickets.

The timing of this is interesting, as he's launching it at the same conference where Ian Rogers, the head of TopSpin -- and also a former Yahoo! Music exec -- gave a talk on the race to be trusted, noting that he believes that's the next stage of the music business. Basically with so much content out there, finding the right content for you is key, and that's going to be a trust issue. If you trust someone to bring you good music, that's a powerful connection.

Of course, it's worth noting that Rogers, in his speech, tells the record labels that they cannot be that trusted partner, because people will always doubt their sincerity on whether or not the musician that they're pushing, who's signed with them, is really that good. It is an interesting question. I think it's possible for a label to be trusted, but it's difficult. Though, I actually go back to an open letter that Ian himself wrote to then head of EMI Music, Guy Hands, about why he should turn the label giant into a trusted filter based on affinity groups around existing big name artists (i.e., build a mini label around... The Beatles, for music that Beatles-lovers would like and then build out that brand as a trusted brand). It's possible. It's just difficult.

On the artist side, DigSin is also focused on being a better partner -- an enabler rather than a gatekeeper. It's signing artists to very short term deals, with agreements around songs, not the artist. That is they'll share in the monetization of the specific songs. And the songs will still be available via traditional channels -- iTunes, Spotify, etc. -- for people who want them that way. But the real focus is on DigSin's ability to bring together a core group of people who are really into hearing the next great song first, and to help connect those people with musicians making those songs.

It's definitely a big challenge -- and one where there may be many hurdles. But if it's done right, it could be quite useful. I'm intrigued that Frank is attempting this, and if his notions on what makes a hit are correct, and he's able to execute on that with the artists who release singles through DigSin, it could become a very interesting model to pay attention to.

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]]> interesting-ideas... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111006/16505116239 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:49:13 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/1827296844.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/1827296844.shtml homogenized "winner-take-all" culture thanks to the rise of our robot overlords, better known as online recommendation engines. Or something like that. It's a nice theory, with some interesting statistical modelling behind it. And, I've always been interested in "winner takes all" economies, since the guy who taught me Econ 101 literally wrote the book on "winner takes all" economics.

That said, I think this really only tells a part of the story -- and maybe not the most important or most interesting part. That's because (and, again, this may be due to my own econ education) it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that we'd see hits follow a winner takes all approach (that's how hits work). Nor is it a surprise that the effect would seem stronger as the world globalizes and borders and barriers become less of an issue. So, yes, of course there will be a "globalized" winner takes all situation at the hits level. But is that all?

What's much more interesting to me is what happens beyond the hits. And, as you start to dig down into subsectors or subcultures, you begin to notice an interesting pattern there as well: that those subsectors and subcultures follow that same power law pattern themselves. The big name bands in a subculture may seem "small" in the wider world, but they're huge within the subculture. Within that subculture, they're the winner who took all -- but from a more limited population.

In some ways, it's the fractalization of culture.

Just as a fractal repeats its same pattern as you zoom in and look closer on the smaller segments, so do cultural subsegments. And those segments continue to thrive, despite the recommendation systems just pushing people to the hits. Part of that may be that once you've begun exploring those subcultures, the recommendation engines and collaborative filters drive you towards the "hits within" the subculture -- or it may be that the impact of algorithmic recommendation engines isn't quite as dominating as some make it out to be. Yes, people do rely on those recommendation engines... somewhat. But they trust people they know even more. And once you get involved in a subculture you quickly find other people already involved in that culture who act as guides who point you both to the "hits" but also to the interesting and "diverse" long tail places to go as well.

So, yes, there is a winner take all effect found in the recommendation engines, but it hasn't resulted in less diversity within our cultural output or our cultural consumption -- and that's because people don't just follow that limited algorithmic overlord to find the content they want to consume. In fact, the original statistical model highlighted above more or less makes this point. Basically, it shows that even if each individual sees a more diverse culture, it can still end up with a more homogenized culture -- but really only among the hits. Basically, because the world is global, the really big hits go global and become winner-take-all in a much larger market. But, at the same time, the niches thrive as well.

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]]> rethinking-the-niche http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091106/1827296844 Thu, 7 Aug 2008 03:54:13 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080806/1357461911.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080806/1357461911.shtml is somehow deceptive advertising. Now, most techies recognize that "hits" are widely discredited as a measure of visitors. But they're not deceptive in and of themselves. They're accurate in showing exactly what they claim: hits, which includes any connection to a server (i.e., every image on a page counts as a separate hit, so a single website could have many, many hits). The fact that some people don't recognize the difference between a hit and a unique user doesn't necessarily mean that a "hit" is deceptive. If the company were saying that 5 million hits equaled 5 million users -- then you could sorta see how their might be an argument concerning deceptive advertising, but just using hits doesn't seem deceptive at all.

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]]> seems-a-bit-extreme http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080806/1357461911 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:40:15 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080627/1233561537.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080627/1233561537.shtml how hits still make a lot of money, and the idea that all the money is now over in the long tail doesn't seem supported by reality. Chris himself makes some very good points in response, noting that some of this depends very much on where you "draw the line" between the hits and the tail. Since there's a sort of "fat middle," small changes in where you draw the line of what counts in which category can have a big impact. Chris makes a compelling argument that Elberse chose to draw the line in the wrong spot. He uses the inventory of various brick-and-mortar stores to determine where the line should be drawn, rather than at the somewhat arbitrary 10% and 1% lines that Elberse used.

However, I'd like to argue from a different angle as to why the HBR piece is missing the point. I don't think that anyone ever said that you completely ignore the hits. Perhaps it's a problem of the name "the long tail" but it starts to make people focus all the way at the end of the tail -- the part that is the least profitable. It's the point where only one copy of something is sold every so often. The companies that suddenly announced they were going to focus on the long tail seemed to think that you focus only on that tip at the end. That was not the point at all. You don't ignore the hits -- you just recognize that with infinite shelf space, you can now supply much more beyond the hits -- and that aggregate amount can add up to a substantial sum that no store with limited shelf-space can match. So, Elberse is completely correct in suggesting that companies don't just focus on the tail end of the tail -- but anyone who did so in the first place was misinterpreting the point of the long tail concept.

Even more to the point is that the concept of the long tail changes the shape of the market. When shelf space was limited, it made it that much more difficult to even get a creative work produced at all. You had to be able to convince someone that your work would make it into the "hits" category, and then get them to finance the creation of the work. And, anything that didn't actually become a hit fell off the chart completely. You basically had a bimodal distribution of content: the hits that sold, and the crap that didn't and was no longer available. But there was a hidden third category that most people didn't think of: the stuff that didn't get created at all because it wouldn't sell enough alone to justify it.

Yet, with the combination of cheaper tools for content creation, combined with cheaper distribution tools and infinite shelf space, that third "hidden" category started to exist in the open, where it was invisible before. And, on top of that, many of the works that fell into the "crap" end of the old model, could migrate into the long tail and make enough sales to be decent. But the point remains that it spread out the distribution, made it possible for much more content to both be created and sold -- and there are plenty of companies capitalizing on that. That doesn't mean that the hits go away or that the long tail concept doesn't make sense. It just means that you don't focus on the long tail by only focusing on the crap end of the long tail -- but on the entire distribution.

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