Comments on: What should the music biz do next ?

By: doc jones

doc jones — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:48:01 +0000

wee do need new music today from the 60,s 70,s 80,s when music had real values, and people or shall i say artist were into real insturments no musical robot machines that are called new school music instead of being called animated music from real school music,because theirs no old school music,because its a fact music never gets old yust better with a variety doc loves all music types check me out at demotrial.com youill find a variety of my taste in classical music punch in california/doc enjoy my friends.doc jones ps.give new artist a break youill love what wee have to offer the music industryie.

By: Citimobility

Citimobility — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:02:49 +0000

Mmmm…, the holistic variable pricing algorithm – complex pricing potentially makes for a worse customer experience, especially if the end goal is converting what is still an early adopter downloads market into a mass market phenomena. I agree with Steve Jobs on simple pricing, but also believe there needs to be price tiers (as you see in physical retail where catalogue & compilations are priced differently from new releases).

Make a requirement of all labels/participants that any websites they have , 100pct of them prevent search engine crawlers – think this might be a red herring labels dont always control artist sites which account for the bulk of traffic. Label sites themselves are not that significant in traffic terms.

Thanks!!!

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:14:46 +0000

Brilliant. Too bad they wont do this. Or start making good music. And they wonder why their sales are declining. I guess scaring kids into buying music is the way to go.

By: Daniel Williams

Daniel Williams — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:59:33 +0000

Great post Mr Cuban. I agree 100% that DRM-free music is what the consumer wants and the only thing that can save the music industry.

Check out http://www.audiopyro.com

We developed the system over the past 2 years to generate a songs value based a number of things including, song popularity, artist popularity, genre, etc. The artists that we have on the site love it as it rewards them for actively promoting their music. Since the music on the site is 100% DRM-free, the users love the site also.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:05:09 +0000

"Then let the company find the best multi-platform user interface"

Songbird would be perfect for this.

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

By: Pop

Pop — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:50:27 +0000

Very simple, let the tech companies (Google, Apple, etc..) who are currently making the big money off the digitalization of the music industry buy out the Big 4 and let the labels do what they’re suppose to be doing in the first place which is ARTIST DEVELOPMENT. Break away from radio because 10 million spins will not equate to 8 million albums sold in a time when people want mp3 files for their player. Save alot of payola money. If you want to still play the CD game then bring down the cost to around 7-9 bucks and market it as the best way to burn music to your mp3 player (DRM free so it supports any player, higher bit rate, no risk of viruses, etc…) People will buy more albums once the labels break from the radio trap and develope the type of artist that can give you 10 quality tracks as an album.

By: Jay

Jay — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:04:40 +0000

Your idea has no legs. What your business mind fails to realize is that Apple’s success has nothing to do with iPods or Steve Jobs or the music companies or DRM, but everything to do with great software. iTunes is great software that is so easy to use that even a computer novice can feel like an expert. The pricing plan was simple, the software was simple to use and, when used with an iPod, everything “just worked.” The music companies will never be able to recreate this success. Even Microsoft with all it’s history and software engineers haven’t been able to create a piece of software to rival Apple’s solution. (The Zune is an embarrasment) And I know you are against anything Apple, why I don’t know, but Apple is the only outfit that created a solution for all computer users, regardless of platform. Hate Steve Jobs and Apple all you like, but they got it right and they continue to “innovate.” The real definition of the word and not Bill Gates’ personally invented meaning of the word. So create all the business plans you want with committees upon sub-committees upon sub-committees and while you are doing that and the music companies argue over pennies, Apple will be releasing a touch screen, wi-fi, wide screen true video iPod. (Innovation) And the rest of the world will go back to square one, grasping at straws and desperately tring to catch up.

All that said…. Go Mavs!!!

By: michaelGregoire

michaelGregoire — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:46:04 +0000

Very few people want to pay for streaming audio. Think about any other product, when does it ever make more sense to rent than to own?

By: Brian Despain

Brian Despain — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:30:29 +0000

Mark your initial premise,
“Create an Itunes competitor that is a joint initiative open to all music companies and independent artists , supported by the Big 4 and funded by a private equity group.. Hire an entrepreneurial CEO that you can agree on, let that person hire the people to run the show and get out the way. If its a compromise effort it Will fail.”
simply will not pass the anti trust test nor even the current anti-trust decree signed by the big four. Due to previous efforts (successful I might add) to fix the price of music cds, the big four are largely prohibited from operating in this manner.

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:59:33 +0000

This is my take on the music biz:

http://www.jeremiahjacobs.com/blog/archives/000223.html

http://www.jeremiahjacobs.com/blog/archives/000192.html