September 27, 2009
The hacker culture is much maligned, often singled out as harbouring perpetrators of IT system break-ins. But a more accurate portrayal is a culture of learning, discovery and invention. Australian academic and author, McKenzie Wark, defined the ‘hack’ as “new information produced out of existing information.” In other words, taking a new perspective on current thinking.
Thus was born Music Hack Day in July this year, at the Guardian’s London offices. Hundreds of programmers, designers, artists and journalists were hot housed for a weekend, with the intention to create new tools and applications for accessing and manipulating music content.
Some of the stunning outputs created APIs to hack data hosted by Last.fm, SoundCloud, Google Maps, Song Kick and even the BBC itself (all with their blessing). The accessibility and transparency of the data enabled attendees to create music dating games, an iPhone app that visualises music and a music mapping system for global cities, including Sydney and Melbourne. In turn, the growth in applications further bolsters the publisher’s relevancy.
Other, more popular apps included software that automatically combines three tracks or more into a single remix, and the mobile phone app (developed via Google’s Android platform) which re-engineers the mobile phone into a musical instrument.
More recently, the Berlin Music Hack Day created music plug-ins for Wordpress, music-based viral games and mash-ups across numerous music sites. Again, the intention was to innovate and improve on existing data sets and music services, not to abuse the copyright of the content itself.
With more than 250 known music-related applications developed over 2008, Music Hack Day and the near-commercialisation of the hacking fraternity to encourage innovation across music consumption, will inevitably lead to the number of applications in 2009 dwarfing the previous year.
This innovation needs to be embraced by rights holders. New technologies, mash-ups and applications which tap into music services such as Last.fm, SoundCloud, and eventually, rights-friendly services such as Spotify, dramatically differentiate the legitimate channels from the pirates.
Access to data detailing demographics, geographies, music preferences, music history and even music purchases (the user’s meta-data) allows the hackers to mash these details with the music itself, creating a visual, more dynamic representation of an individual’s or community’s music profile.
Providing hackers with stem files, open platforms or unreleased material to remix and upload into systems not only encourages further remixing (2nd, 3rd generation music), but more importantly, exposes many more listeners to the original music (1st generation). This is the essence and value of an engaged hacking community - smart people developing new music distribution channels for new music audiences.
September 7, 2009
As local newspaper publishers play a dangerous game of brinkmanship to see who blinks first and introduces a premium-paid news service, there are some elegant parallels to the music industry and the plethora of streaming music services emerging both here in Australia and overseas.
All news groups have long toyed with the idea of charging for content, but it never became a priority (or even a necessity) until advertising forecasts in the last 12 months fell under the knife for some major reconstructive surgery. Advertising cycles are inevitable – peaks and troughs – but few have matched the severity of the most recent example. In Australia, like most industrial markets, what has spooked the majors, like News Limited, Fairfax Media and others, is the rapid decline in the value of online display advertising. Very few properties have held a premium.
In the specific case of News Corp, the company’s about-face on the pay-per-view model almost certainly started with the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s general success in charging for content is seen as a proof-point, providing the content leviathan with some Dutch courage to publicly castigate Google and its “parasitic ways”.
In music land, the latest music whiz kid, Spotify, with its elegant user interface and unfaltering streaming technology, makes the simple point to customers: mediocrity is free (160Kbps), while quality (320 Kbps) will cost. This is exactly the point being made right across the media landscape. Yet, while quality is one unique selling proposition (USP), the other is exclusiveness, and this is far more challenging as a USP.
The sheer enormity of interest developing around Spotify, and as a consequence several other ‘alternative’ offerings (depending on jurisdiction), including Grooveshark, Pandora, Slacker, Last.fm, and locally, Bandit.fm, Guvera and the recently collapsed Stripe service, gives the impression that music streaming is an inevitable successor to downloads and CD sales, or at the very least, of becoming the pre-eminent channel for music consumption.
Apply a reality check to that assumption, and streaming as a mass-market channel for music consumption is about a practical as flying cars. Technically possible, and a few early adopters won’t necessarily throw up much evidence of a poor experience, but as penetration grows, and more than a few try the option, the experience of a subscription-based music stream will increasingly fail any cost-benefit analysis.
Putting aside for the moment the vagaries of mobile network coverage, with congestion and reception issues likely to affect a mobile-based streaming service, this leaves broadband as the alternative mass-market channel.
The issue here is that the bulk of computer time for the majority of people ticks over in the workplace. This is neither conducive to listener attention (for the purpose of valuing ad spots) or company bandwidth. As the number of listeners rises, even by small increments, the vast bulk of workplaces will block access to all music streaming sites. Alternatively, streaming at home might be a pleasurable and entertaining option for some, but these audience numbers, let alone subscribers, will be relatively small.
This quantum shift from the current per-per-unit model, where albums and singles carry a unit price, to a ‘music as water’ argument, where content is treated like a utility, is going to depend on a zero-sum game between advertising and subscriptions. If advertisers don’t follow, then expect subscription prices to compensate. But if advertising does propagate the stream, and dissect every third or forth track, how much is enough?
The research is conclusive – both here and more recently in the UK. For the vast majority, streaming is only one option, and a free one at that. In fact, for younger listeners, streams are increasingly just another source of downloads. As with YouTube clips, particularly the remixes unavailable elsewhere, the proliferation of stream ripping conversion tools that convert material into MP3s, will simply make streams another source of material rather than an end in themselves.
So here’s a prediction: paid subscriptions for online news won’t pay the bills, and neither will music streaming.
