Major Label Download Sites Not Doing So Hot
from the sounds-familiar dept
This has been discussed over and over again, but now the Associate Press has written up a story that is appearing everywhere about how consumers really don’t care about the major label-backed online music sites. I think it’s interesting that all the discussions about these sites focus on the money issue. None of them focus on the other benefits of a true peer-to-peer system that lets people recommend music to other people (and not just those songs the major label is pushing – or that a computer is recommending via collaborative filtering). Napster was nice because it built up communities of people interested in the same types of music. It wasn’t just about the “free” nature of the music. It was about the joy of discovering new music. I’m not sure the music labels will ever understand that.
Comments on “Major Label Download Sites Not Doing So Hot”
kill the flash...
Personally, I avoid most major label sites because the content is 90% flash/java hacks that don’t work well, play music with no option to turn it off, and navigate poorly. People designing web sites for musicians need to realize that fans are at the site for the music; if they really want excessive visual stimulation, they already have computers capable of generating much better stuff than any web site will.