Apple Hits 25 Billion Downloads: What it Means for the Music Industry

Yesterday Apple announced that it had reached the milestone of 25 billion songs sold.*  The number is impressive by any means and brings yet more important context to the current scale of streaming versus downloading.   But of course music downloads are just one part of Apple’s business, and not a hugely important one at that.  Apple sells downloads to improve its device proposition.  As I have written before, it is effectively monetized CRM, and interestingly in these days of increased investor scrutiny, music sales are actually a low margin revenue stream for a company which prides itself on high margins.  Which means the better that music sales do, the more they dent Apple’s profit margins.

But the really interesting trend that the 25 billion downloads reveals is that the surge in iPhone and iPad sales has brought a very significant boost to iTunes sales (see figure).  This has major implications for the music industry.  In 2008 digital music sales fell off a cliff when iPod sales started their long term decline (see my previous chart here).  But now, following an inter-product cycle lull, music sales are up again. The impact of Apple’s device sales on music sales is huge.  When declining iPod sales started pulling digital downloads growth down I wrote that ‘when Apple sneezes the music industry gets a cold’.  Now it is also clear that when Apple smiles, the music industry grins from ear to ear.

There are other factors at play too (such as the impact of all those new Apple stores coming on stream in markets such as Russia and India).  But the data does show that we are some way yet from streaming denting download sales. Largely because downloads are a much more natural entry point for new digital music consumers.

For some final context though, as significant as the surge in iPhone and iPad sales has been on music sales, it has had an even more marked impact on App downloads.  Which is a timely reminder that these devices are built for multimedia, interactive, visual experiences.  While the music industry’s main product for iPhones and iPads remains a static audio file.  That problem needs fixing fast.

 

*For long term Apple watchers the use of the word ‘sold’ is significant. The language Apple usually uses is that in the opening paragraph of the release ‘bought and download’ which has long been assumed to be worded to capture free downloads also.  The interesting question now is whether the use of the word ‘sold’ in the release headline is a clarification of terms, or an over eager copy editor.

How Xbox Music Could Become the World’s Biggest Streaming Music Service

Microsoft this week announced the launch of XBox music, a blended music subscription, personalized radio and download service available on Xbox, Windows mobiles and tablets, and soon Windows 8 on PCs.  Microsoft does not have the strongest of track records in digital music, with ill-fated previous efforts such as MSN Music and Zune.  However this latest foray could possibly, just possibly be a game changer.

From a user experience perspective Xbox music ticks a lot of boxes:

• It is multiplatform, working across Xbox, tablets, smartphones and PCs.  i.e. most of the device types consumers want to get music on
• It blurs the distinction between access and ownership by integrating radio, on demand streaming and downloads
• It combines free and paid

In fact there is an argument to be had the what Microsoft have done with Xbox music is what Apple should have done (should do?) with iTunes.  But this isn’t what gives Xbox Music such disruptive potential and indeed Apple won’t be overly concerned yet.  Apple has managed to make music work in a way that no other device company has because it exercised near absolute control across its tightly integrated ecosystem, from top to bottom.  Microsoft might be able to exercise that sort of control on Xbox, but nothing close to it on phones, tablets or PCs.  So do not expect Xbox music to turn Microsoft into a music device and service powerhouse that will usurp Apple.

The PC Beachhead

So just where does the disruptive threat come from?  From the little old PC.  In my view the boldest move Microsoft have made here is to commit to hard bundle free streaming music with Windows 8.  Think about that for a moment.  Every single copy of the latest update to the world’s most ubiquitous PC operating system will have a Spotify equivalent included for free.  The last version of Windows will have shipped 350 million units by the end of this year.  When you start looking at that sort of scale Deezer’s 26 million users and Spotify’s 24 million users start to look positively modest in comparison.

Microsoft have not yet revealed details of how many weekly hours of free music a Windows 8 free music user can expect to get, but have stated that the allowance will scale back after 6 months, which suggests that the initial allowance will be meaningful.  Which of course is hugely disruptive to the incumbent streaming services.  Suddenly a competitor’s massive marketing funnel will be preinstalled on the PCs of their target and existing customers.  Microsoft will have paid handsomely for this free music allowance and it should be viewed as a hard cash investment in Steve Ballmer’s recently publicly aired mission to ‘make Microsoft cool’.

Microsoft Must Get Its House in Order if it Wants Digital Music Success

But before we get too carried away, we need to remember that Microsoft has tried and failed numerous times before to make music work and so the odds are not necessarily stacked its favour.  Microsoft has a number of key hurdles it must clear if it is going to make this big music investment payoff:

• Microsoft needs to join its organizational dots.  Part of the reason Microsoft’s previous music initiatives faltered is because it failed to break through its internal organizational silos. For example, the last time Microsoft launched a streaming music service (via MSN) it wasn’t compatible with its Zune music player or Zune store.  Xbox looks like a brave effort to join the organizational dots, in much the same manner as Sony Music Unlimited, a brave effort to try to follow Apple’s iTunes model.  Both Sony and Microsoft will have to reverse decades of organizational thinking and process if they are to truly transcend their organizational silos.
• The user journey has to be truly seamless.  Consumers have long grown weary of bloatware shortcuts on the desktops of their newly purchased PCs, attempting to entice them with 3 months free trial of some service or another.  Microsoft will have to make the user signup and activation journey for Xbox music truly seamless and as deeply integrated into the Windows experience as is possible.
• Europe may not play ball. One key force will pull against deep integration: regulatory oversight.  In 2004 the European Commission expensively forced Microsoft to unbundle Windows Media Player from Windows and to pay a massive $761 million compensation package to Real Networks.  And that was just for hard bundling a music player.  How will the European competition commissioner look at a hard bundled US music service that could seriously disrupt two European streaming music services (Spotify and Deezer)?

So Xbox music has the potential to be a game changing play, bringing digital music to the non-Apple masses.  But Microsoft will have to get over itself and some major market challenges first to fulfil that potential.

Why Apple’s Dividend Payment Is Actually a Product Strategy Story

I’ve just published a new post over on Media Industry Blog

Apple’s decision to use approximately half of its vast $97 billion cash surplus in a mix of dividends and stock repurchase says as much about the company from a strategic perspective as it does financially.

In these days of low interest rates on savings, having large reserves of cash isn’t the strategic plus it once was, which is why financial analysts and investors haven’t exactly been getting wildly excited about that $97 billion being left to sit in the bank.  By deciding to pay a dividend to shareholders and to repurchase stock, but to leave half the money untouched, Apple is able to have its cake and eat it. It has sent a positive message to the market, allowing investors to share further in the company’s current prosperity but at the same time it will retain approximately $50 billion, a vast chunk of working capital.  Read the full post here.

Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis?

An upfront note: though this post focuses on the UK market, the principles, as you will see, apply across most music markets.

At first glance the UK recorded music market isn’t in too bad shape: album sales declined by a not too worrying 5.6% in 2011 and digital grew solidly, including 26.6% growth in digital albums*.  And of course there was Adele.  So an end of term report card would probably read something like ‘Could do better but good signs of improvement’.  Unfortunately that is a case of papering over the cracks.  Here’s why:

• CD sales are falling at an alarming rate: though digital album unit sales grew by 5.6 million, CD album sales fell by 12.3 million.  So the digital growth was less than half of the physical decline in absolute terms.  A worrying ratio at this stage in the development of the digital market (i.e. when it should be maturing, not just getting started).
• The single continues to drag revenue growth down. Digital singles boomed to 176.6 million, a whopping 56% greater volume than combined physical and digital albums. And yet their value is close to just a fifth of album revenues.   Despite solid digital album growth, unit sales of digital singles increased by about 17 million, three times the units growth rate of digital albums.  And though the spend increment is much greater for albums – and this is of course the lens labels will typically view the trend – the unit growth is the best indication of consumer behaviour.  i.e.  music buyers are still throwing their weight behind digital single purchases at a quicker rate than they are digital albums.
• The CD buyer is withering on the vine.  Most importantly of all, the CD buyer is becoming an increasingly rare breed.  There are fewer shops on the high street, which is where the majority of CD buyers still buy their albums. HMV – the UK’s leading music retailer by some distance – has been suffering well documented struggles.  It is possible that HMV will disappear from the high street entirely in the next couple of years.  Though this won’t be an extinction event for CD buyers, it will however leave a gaping hole in music revenues (possibly a quarter of all album sales).  The majority of these Digital Refusniks who haven’t seen any reason to start buying CDs online – let alone downloads – are unlikely to suddenly switch even if they have to.  More likely they will just drift out of the market entirely.  These are the passive music fans who only buy the occasional album, don’t have an iPod, don’t want to spend £9.99 a month on music and who listen to a lot of radio.  With so much more choice of high-ish quality music on digital radio and TV these consumers won’t even feel that much of a dent in their music behaviour when they no longer buy CDs.
• The CD is disappearing from the living room.  I’ve been beating this drum for years now but still don’t get the sense the risk is being taking seriously.  Living room tech spend has shifted firmly to the TV and music’s weakening foothold is either a docking station for the digital crowd, a streaming player for the really tech savvy or, in the vast majority of cases, a dusty old midi player which sooner or later is going to find itself in the bin or the garage.  When that happens music will have disappeared out of the living room (and before anyone makes the case for music on the TV, that permanently relegates music not so much to poor relation status, as crazy aunt locked away in the attic.  People buy TVs to watch stuff on them, not to have a blank screen while music plays on the poor quality speakers).

The Bottom Line

The music industry is being entrapped by a demographic pincer movement: on the left the emerging Digital Natives lack a product strategy that meets their needs, on the right the traditional CD buyers lack a format succession cycle.  This is why the industry is becoming obsessed with squeezing as much ‘ARPU’ as it can out of the remaining core of 20 somethings and 30 somethings.  But of course that strategy can only go so far.  I’ve written at length about strategies for the Digital Natives, but the case for the Digital Refusniks is even more pressing, if less glamorous.  The following needs to happen, and quickly:

• Digitize the relationship.  Before an analogue customer base can be migrated to digital, the relationship with those customers must be digitized.  In fact most HMV music customers have no relationship with HMV at all, or rather it is a series of brief encounters that start and finish with a cash till transaction.  First HMV – and indeed high street music retailers anywhere – need to start finding a way to establish digital relationships with these customers and then use that as the platform for a digital revenue strategy.  As my astute former colleague James McQuivey is fond of pointing out, Netflix built is success on the platform of digitizing its customer relationships. It is time for high street music retail strategy to follow suit.  (And by the way, simply trying to push consumers to the online stores isn’t the answer).
• A format succession strategy needs putting in place. The Digital Refusniks consumers need their hands holding as they are gently coaxed into the digital realm.   They need convincing that the ephemeral web has tangible benefits comparable to that of the CD. That might mean delivering things like better artwork etc. but to get this right we need to know a lot more about the emotional triggers that CDs press for this consumers.  A proper human needs assessment needs conducting, onto which a human-needs based product strategy can then be mapped.  In all likelihood this will result in a couple of hybrid physical-digital products which will deliver all the benefits of CDs with a steady – but not overwhelming – stream of digital content to allow digital to ‘show some leg’.
• A new beachhead in the living room.  As I proposed 4 years ago, the music industry (principally the label and retailer elements) need a new living room strategy which should take the form of a new piece of highly affordable Hi-Fi equipment.   While its encouraging to hear that Google looks set to build upon the fine work of Sonos with some streaming music kit, the Digital Refusniks specifically need a hybrid device i.e. one that plays CDs too.  Something that looks contemporary enough to warrant replacing the old midi system and is cheap enough to shift millions of units.  You’ve probably guessed by now that this will need to follow an Amazon Fire approach of loss leading on the hardware to establish the Trojan horse for content sales.  But it is an investment that will pay off.

The Digital Refusniks are a challenging and unfashionable demographic and the counter-case for addressing them is that in 10 years or so they’ll have disappeared from the market anyway.  My conservative estimates put the loss in the region of 15% to 20% less total UK recorded music revenue in 2016.  The industry may well be able survive its revenue forecasts being that much smaller, but a) does it want to? and b) HMV can’t.

*All sales numbers are BPI trade values.  You can see the complete BPI release here: 

In Conversation With Sonos’ John MacFarlane

I recently had the opportunity to catch up Sonos’s CEO John MacFarlane, the video of our conversation is below.

In the video John and I discuss various key issues facing the digital music market, including:

• what the next generation of music services will need to deliver
• The role of experience in music products
• getting digital music into the living room
• Facebook’s content dashboard strategy

John is an insightful guy and hopefully this video will give you a sense of his vision.

How Blackberry’s and Playstation’s Problems Will Shape Paid Content Strategies

Research In Motion, the company behind Blackberry, are watching the dust settle on one of the biggest challenges the company has faced.  The prolonged email and BBM service outage may prove to have even more dramatic impacts on their long term prospects, with confidence fatally shattered for many consumers.  Sony will have been grateful for so much of the spotlight to be shone on RIM’s troubles as they found themselves victim once again to a security breach.

Security breaches, Denial of Service attacks, service outages and other such disruptions may have diverse causes but they have two crucial things in common:

• They disrupt the consumer experience, simultaneously  damaging consumer confidence
• They could often have been prevented with more effective preventative measures by the companies affected

All of this may seem distant from paid content strategies, but the impacts will soon be keenly felt, particularly at the costing phase.  When services are proposed, whether by a start-up or by a division of a large corporation, budgets and costs are never as big as people wished they were.  That is just the nature of doing business and technology builds.   Business casing, revenue modelling, cost forecasting are always balancing acts and security is rarely one of the first technology investments on people’s minds when building content services.

Security for content services has traditionally played a role similar to motor insurance when buying a car: you know you are going to need to take it out, and you know that its cost will be impacted by the car you buy, but the majority of your time and energies are spent researching the car.  Insurance is the afterthought.  Though of course you still have to pay the full amount else you cannot legally drive the car.  And here is where the analogy splits: with content service builds, if you find that you have allocated more than you expected to user features or content licenses you can make up the shortfall by reducing the costs on less visible components such as security.

This is all great for consumer product experiences: we get more features, more content, more supported devices etc. But those days are now numbered.  The ROI of great product experiences disappears if you lose customers because of service disruptions.  Just ask Sony and RIM.

RIM and Sony are the pivot points

Of course many other companies than Sony and RIM have been getting hammered by DOS attacks, security breaches and outages (Soundcloud was a recent victim).  But they are the landmark events.  They are the global scale events which will become industry reference points around which future strategies will pivot.

Now CTO’s and security experts will be given a much bigger voice in the earliest stages of planning content services.  If you are a start-up expect VCs to start wanting to see security expertise on your team and robust contingency plans in your business case. If you are building a service within a larger organization expect the CTO to start calling many of the shots.

Whatever your situation, expect to start having to allocate much more of your budget on security, and because content owners are unlikely to slash their license fees to help companies pay for security investments, user functionality will be hit hardest.  The end result for consumers will be safer, but less exciting content products.  Not the most enthralling of prospects…

Apple’s iCloud and What It Means to the Digital Music Market

Today Apple formally launched iCloud.  Back in June when Apple first announced iCloud I said I considered it a great start but just that.  After today’s announcement I’ll add that there is more meat on the bones but that Apple has still fallen short of its potential here.  Don’t get me wrong, iCloud and iTunes Match are great, elegantly implemented services.  But I still think Apple could have done more, much more.

A few months ago I wrote that Apple, Amazon and Android comprised Digital Music’s Triple A and that they all shared SPACE, that is Scale, Product, Ambition, Cash and Ecosystem.  This framework provides a useful lens with which to view Apple’s music related announcements today:

• Scale.  Apple is a truly global company with global reach.  Any service it launches needs to share as much of that reach as possible to deliver the benefit to device sales it exists for.  So it was a disappointment that Apple didn’t announce an international rollout for iCloud at launch (international markets will come later).  Launching in the UK will be crucial for Apple and will be where they can steal a march over the rest of the Tripple A. It is the most advanced digital market in Europe and Apple’s biggest market too.  Android and Amazon won’t find it so easy brining their locker services to the UK as Apple will though.  The UK does not yet have fair use legislation so the other 2 A’s (unlicensed) locker services that depend upon DMCA provisioned fair-use would not be legal in the UK.
• Product. Most of the attention is around the iPhone 4S and new iPods.  They are of course what Apple is all about. The seamless integration of iCloud significantly enhances the value proposition of these products.  We are in an age where consumer devices are defined by their surrounding ecosystem as much as by the hardware itself (see my Socially Integrated Web post for more on this). iCloud takes the Apple ecosystem to the next level. I’d still like to have seen better productizing of it though, such as pre-installed device bundles with a year of iCloud included as a standard pricing option alongside harddrive capacity.
• Ambition.  Here is where Apple fell a little short from a music perspective.  I’ve sensed a steady weakening of Apple’s music strategy ambition over the last few years and today’s announcements fit the trend.  It makes absolute sense of course.  When Apple first launched the iPod, music was the killer app for the small memory monochrome screen device.  In the days of the iPad, music just doesn’t show off the capabilities of the device like video, books and games do (regardless of whether that is the main activity people conduct on iPads or not).  iTunes has been hugely successful (16 billion downloads to date and 70%+ market share).  But Apple’s music strategy and consumer offering hasn’t changed dramatically since launching in 2003.  There have been some great evolutions (more catalogue – 20 million tracks, DRM-free, better editorial and programming etc) and some half hearted innovations (Ping, Genius) but it remains fundamentally the same product it was 8 years ago. Compare that to the evolution of the iPod.
• Cash.  Apples’ great advantage in digital music is that it can afford to loss lead if it so wishes as music is all about selling i-devices not direct revenue for them.  Yet Apple is ideologically a margin company and this is why they don’t ‘do a Kindle Fire’ and build a killer music subscription offering because they calculate they can get better ROI from more modest music innovation.
• Ecosystem.  Apple have just put clear blue water between their music ecosystem and those of the other 2 A’s of Digital Music.  The elephant in the room though is the new ecosystem in town: Facebook.  Apple was glaringly absent from the F8 announcements and there is no space for Facebook here.  Apple’s ecosystem is defined by devices, Facebook’s by user data and user convenuience.  Apple and Facebook will start banging into each other (see figure) and sooner or later the pair will start needing to build co-existence strategies.  In the meantime expect Android Music to start building strong links with Facebook.

So in conclusion,  I walked away from the Apple event with the familiar feeling that I wish there had been more.  But like I say, it is a familiar feeling.  I suspect that the music industry has missed its window of opportunity with Apple to drive truly transformational music industry innovation.  Maybe now they’ll start to regret having played hard ball with Apple in days gone by and start looking for someone else to pick up the baton.  They may be looking for some time.

Amazon’s and Apple’s Mirror Opposite Content Strategies

Amazon’s announcement today of their media tablet the Kindle Fire was long anticipated.  I won’t add to the countless virtual column inches discussing whether it can be an iPad Killer (though I do agree with my former colleague Michael Gartenberg that it is competing more with the iPod Touch than it is the iPad).  Instead I think it is worth comparing and contrasting Apple’s and Amazon’s strategic reasons for being in the tablet game.

As I stated in a previous post, Amazon and Apple are 2 of Digital Music’s Triple A (Android making up the third).  Both have in their respective ways shaped online music more than any other company (Apple with iTunes, Amazon with online CD sales).  Both willplay a major role in digital music’s, at the very least, mid-term future.  But they are in digital music, and digital content more broadly, for mirror opposite reasons (see figure).

Put simply, Apple is in the business of selling content to help sell devices whereas Amazon is in the business of selling devices to help sell content.  There is a poetic symmetry the identical yet polar opposite strategies of the two companies.

The differences have direct implications that are also mirror opposites:

• Apple can happily ‘just about break even’ on music downloads because of the way it helps sales of their high margin i-devices
• Amazon can happily price the Kindle Fire so aggressively that it is priced more like an MP3 player (and expect to lose money for the near term at least) because of the volume of sales of content it expects / hopes it will drive

Perhaps most importantly music, video, games, books and all other forms of content are crucial to the success of both.  20^th century media business models may be tumbling around our ears but the fact that the future of the tablet market depends so heavily upon media products will be among the foundations for future growth.

What Johnny Cash Tells Us About Apple

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Next week so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will post new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions on Monday 8th March. Thanks]

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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Apple just announced the 10 billionth iTunes music download sale.  An impressive statistic for sure but not the
end of the story.

As Apple often does with download milestones, it gave a prize to the 10 billionth download customer and revealed that the song downloaded was “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash, a song which originally dates back to 1958.  Given that Country fans skew older than most music fans (nearly two thirds are over 45) it is interesting to contrast this with the downloader of the billionth Apple App Store App: Connor Mulcahey aged just 13.

Apple’s music and App stores straddle paid content’s demographic fault line. Apps – a fundamentally interactive experience – are tailor made for the digital natives, whereas the static 99 cents music download remains wedded to a bygone era. Of course the kids still like music, but the current digital music product doesn’t compel them to part with their cash in the way an App does.  The simple fact is that Apps have far greater monetary value for youth than music does.

Music product innovation is the music industry’s way into the App Store. The CD generation still values music but they’re becoming the foundation of music sales just when they should be making way for the next generation of music buyers.  Indeed, three quarters of digital music buyers are aged 25 and over.  So whilst it’s good news for Apple that they’ve discovered a way of monetizing youth, it does little to help music sales.  Which is the reason why the music industry needs to commence a period of unprecedented product innovation,

whereby apps become a key channel for music sales. (See here for my take on what 21^st century music products should look like).  Of course there are plenty of music apps already out there, but few are doing much to create a new music product paradigm.

iPod sales slow whilst the iPhone and Apps prosper. The final pertinent trend here is the slowing of iPod momentum. The simple fact is
that iPod sales are slowing (see chart below).  Thus much of the iTunes music download growth is coming from increasing the average number of downloads per buyer but that has limits, particularly considering the weaker appeal among youth. Meanwhile iPhone sales are growing at the  expense of iPods and App downloads continue to accelerate with unprecedented pace.

Apple remains the behemoth of digital music sales, but unless the music industry learns how to make products that Connor Mulcahey will buy, they will find the Apple bandwagon starts to leave them behind.

*Note: though Johnny Cash was the subject of a contemporary biopic (‘Walk the Line’) but ‘Guess Things Happen…’ was not featured in the film nor the soundtrack.

Putting the Crowd in the Cloud

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Over the coming month or so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will soon be posting new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions. Thanks]

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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I have a favour to ask of you: I have the germ of an idea which I am developing for a forthcoming report and I want try it on you.  So please let me know your thoughts.

Apart from the persistent pressure of free, two of the recurring trends that look set to shape the future of digital music are:

1. The Cloud
2. Social

First a few thoughts on the cloud….

The cloud is of course is already with us, but largely as a collection of disparate connected music experiences (e.g. Pandora, Spotify, Comes With Music) rather than as something more all-encompassing.  I’m skeptical of the truly ubiquitous experience happening anytime soon.  Indeed, the practical limitations on ubiquitous connectivity mean that connectivity will in fact fall short of ubiquity for some time (more on that from my colleague Ian Fogg later this year).  But it is clear that over the next few years more of the dots will be joined.  And sometimes the dots will be joined by innovative workarounds, such as Spotify’s ‘offline’ streaming solution.

And a few thoughts on social…

Readers of my Music Product Manifesto will know that I’m a stronger believer in the near term potential of social in music experiences than I am of the cloud.  In order to effectively compete against free music products need to create new, unique music experiences and social interactivity is a key means of achieving this.  If you put a $0.99 iTunes download against a $0.50 Amazon download against a BitTorrent $0.00 download the BitTorrent download will always win.  Future music products need to do more. Formally layering social functionality into the experience is key here, both to add a connected element but also for discovery.  With so much noise online, trusted taste makers (or ‘curators’ as Nettwerk Music’s Tony McBride calls them) are key.  And who do we trust most for recommendations?  People we know and connect with.

My thesis is that these two dynamics not only don’t have to be, dare I say it, disconnected, but that they should be inextricably linked. Their paths should be moulded together.

The likes of Last.FM (Audio Scrobbler) and Apple (Genius) have started to demonstrated the power of ‘Crowd Sourcing’ in the music discovery journey.  Spotify and YouTube and many others are showing the way for cloud based music experiences.

The time has come to be the crowd in the cloud.

Social tools and media are of course already inherently connected and inherently cloud based, whether it be Facebook, Twitter or MySpace.  When woven into the fabric of a digital music offering they bring that experience to life.  In a connected music experience that exists across multiple devices and multiple platforms, social connectivity is more important than ever. Social connectivity turns a bored 10 minutes waiting for a train into a connected a fun engaged interaction with a friend, sharing playlists on MySpace. It transforms looking for something new to listen to on your iPhone into a social discovery journey.

This idea’s still taking shape, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.  I’ll post further on the concept as it evolves.