The Music Format Bill of Rights

Today I have published the latest Music Industry Blog report:  ‘The Music Format Bill Of Rights: A Manifesto for the Next Generation of Music Products’.  The report is currently available free of charge to Music Industry Blog subscribers.  To subscribe to this blog and to receive a copy of the report simply add your email address [...]

Steve Jobs

In memory of the man who almost single handed dragged the music industry into the digital age. Without him we’d probably all be walking around with mini-disc players and buying Super Audio CDs.

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 [...]

The Socially Integrated Web and Facebook’s Content Strategy

Click on the video below to view my latest Music Industry Blog podcast.  This episode addresses the Socially Integrated Web, the term I use to describe Facebook’s content strategy. Topics covered in this episode include: Joining users’ digital dots The four types of digital content ecosystems How Facebook will extend its ecosystem reach The universal [...]

iTunes in the Cloud: A Great Start, But Just That

So Apple finally launched their much anticipated cloud music service, and they didn’t disappoint. At least by cloud-locker standards they didn’t. But I wanted more, a lot more. Here’s my quick take on what Apple launched and where I think they should go next: Automatic Downloads What is it? Enables iTunes buyers to transfer music [...]

Five Music Predictions for 2010 (and Five Reasons Why 2009 was a Flop)

[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] Lots happened in 2009 but it wasn’t a vintage [...]

So Why Did Apple Approve Spotify’s iPhone App?

So they did it: Spotify got their iPhone app approved and it is available today (as is the Android app).  I won’t pretend I’m not surprised.  I felt this competed too directly with core iTunes music player functionality for Apple to approve it.  And of course Spotify isn’t even available to the vast majority of [...]

Why Napster’s New Pricing Strategy is More than Just Price Cuts

Napster has overhauled its pricing strategy in the US, selling pre-stored value cards in retail stores. It’s being widely reported as ‘Napster slashing prices’ but it’s more than just that.  The key things of note here are: It shifts the consumer focus onto downloads: each card has a pre-stored value for MP3 downloads as the [...]

Apple iTunes Music Store (Finally) Goes DRM-free: First Take

So finally Apple gets DRM-free across all of its music catalogue on the iTunes Music Store (80% now, 100% end of Q1). It’s late, not too late but non-the-less late. As Apple accounts for the vast majority of the paid download market we can talk effectively talk about the impact this will have on the [...]

Why MySpace Should Think Long and Hard Before Challenging the iPod

When questioned at a conference recently, MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe suggested the social network would consider launching an MP3 player some time in the future, thus going head on against Apple.  It might sound like a logical next-step but it’s not.   The reason MySpace has become so important to the music value chain [...]