The Economics of Online Music

Short & sweet today. I’ve been talking with a new on-line music portal www.bandit.fm being pioneered by Sony BMG here in Australia. Downstream are looking at potentially partnering with Sony to help build an audience for their new service.

Now anyone that knows me, knows how much of an Apple fan I am. I think anything Apple touches, generally turns to gold. Apple have successfully become the trail blazer in almost every product category (think iMac, iPhone, iPod, Mac Books of all types and descriptions). They’ve also revolutionised the consumer software market with easy to use intuitive applications (think iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and before anyone cans me the whole iWork suite, awesome productivity suite for $99! Let’s also not forget iPhone apps – just brilliant way to build and scale your mobile platform).To date no brand really comes close to Apple’s innovation and foresight.

But when it comes to music, I think there is a true challenger that could really take it to them. Sony have developed what I believe is the BEST music site / portal on the market today.

New iTunes killer

I think it is the best for the following reasons:

1. Great content – they’ve developed the site intuitively with a mixture of channels, artist specific pages, video, news feeds etc. You can engage in specific genres like R&B, Hip-Hop, Rock, Pop or you can navigate to specific content rich artist pages like N.E.R.D, John Legend, Duffy etc etc.
2. Great site build – mixture of indexable HTML & interactive flash elements, URL structures, title tages, H1 tags etc
3. Downloads are easy after simple registration process
4. Music & videos are DRM free
5. Great experience – you can listen to a whole song or view a video in high quality full screen mode vs. Apple’s 30 second preview function
6. Not constrained by an app like iTunes – you can access it from any browse
7. Easy content network integration (PPC) into YouTube & Myspace. They are “THE PLACE” to view music related content.

Specific Music Genre Channels

Usher on Bandit.fm

The site will work very, very well for Paid Search / PPC campaigns, the site structure allows you to deep link to exact content as well as being able to achieve great quality scores which impacts highly on economical bid prices and as content is more compelling than iTunes, I believe with a much higher conversion process too.

The site also has very high potential to work very very well for Social Media, as the site structure let’s consumers be very specific about their Tweets, blog postings etc and create specific interest in genre based content communities. One area they could approve is allowing their content to be aggregated and syndicated on other sites, think embedding audio files or video files to MySpace or Facebook profile pages with pre & post roll Bandit.fm ads promoting their service – very economical way to drive new subscriptions, downloads or cross sell new artists / releases / albums.

So the product I think is truely world class, if this is release 1.0 I can’t wait for new versions updates. Bandit.FM can successfully take on iTunes and Apple in the market they really pioneered and commercialised (on-line music), and hopefully give consumers a compelling reason (safety – no viruses / Trojans, reliability ets) to BUY music rather that steal it from sites like Limewire.com. They only have to carve out small incremental percentages of the on-line global market to create real value & high return for their pioneering investment in on-line music. Congrats to the whole team at Sony BMG!

If you are into music give it a go.

The Economics of TV

Wow… hasn’t everything changed. I think  that change isn’t only constant, it is increasing at an exponentially rapid rate when it comes to marketing and consumer connections.  TV is one of those mediums that is changing at a breakneck pace, being driven primarily by the web, cheaper broadband, processor speeds and more importantly by human behaviour and the hunger to have it all now. It seems though that the only ones fighting this technological and social trend are the TV networks, somehow trying to hold back change like that boy who put his finger in the dike, trying to hold back the pressure of a tidal tsunami.

Lets define what has changed though…

Humans desire for visual entertainment hasn’t changed, we still want to see great content, be entertained, informed, learn etc. All the usual stuff we know & love in our existing inefficient model of liner TV transmission. Actually, all the stuff we do offline (Read, listen, communicate etc)  is what we NOW want to do on-line, the web has just become a faster more efficient means of content dissemination and connection.  There is a fascinating book on it it if you are really interested – Convergence Culture.  Back to TV….

So what the web has allowed us to do is no longer have to experience video content or TV in old world speak in a linear fashion (wait – start – stop – wait, repeat cycle, repeat cycle etc.) Now we can experience content in a multi-dimensional model where prime time is anytime, and we are no longer at the mercy of the television networks to dictate content and programming schedules to us. With the advent of TV shows on iTunes, Hulu, Video Ninja, etc etc we can watch whatever we want, whenever we want. In my home we see shows like Damages, Entourage, dare I say it Gossip Girl, The Mentalist, Flight of the Concords, Mad Men etc within hours of it airing in the USA. We stream it, download it and watch it all ad free on a schedule that suits our lives, rather than that of the networks. Actually we watch 3 or episodes all back to back, it is a much better experience.

http://www.Hulu.com

Video Streaming site - Ninjavideo.net

So I ponder the question, what will the future & Economics of TV be? Is there a better way? (yes obviously) Who will hold the balance of power, will it remain with the networks who still today are scratching their heads, wondering if they can fight it the same way the music industry did or will they embrace the change that is being thrust upon them by a technical and consumer lead revolution? Should they look to the pioneers of the web (gambling & porn), watch & listen carefully and adapt and commercialise their models or put their heads in the sand, only to come up for breath & see that everything has moved on without them? So I hear all you naysayers saying the IP TV market is small and nascent, but so too was the wireless broadband market, the 3G handset market and yes our old friend the Music market. Believe me it is sooner than we all think, and much much sooner than the guys paid to believe the old system won’t change.

So whats the new model then….

I think, predict, believe that Goggle will become the biggest TV network in the world in the very near future….here is why:

1. All TV based content ( that and everything else – Radio, Books etc) will be digitised ( fact is it already is!)
2. All TVC’s will also become digitised and stored on a TVC Ad Server System (similar to current ad digital display ad servers)
3. TV’s will be increasingly connected to media centers ( think Windows Media Center, Mac Mini or next Gen Apple TV), or co-exist in harmony with hand held devices like an iPod Touch or iPhone.
4. Google will be able to behaviorally understand a consumer / household based on a myriad of data sources (web surfing history, Search history, IP TV viewing history etc) & serve TV ads directly into a program that has been legitimately downloaded or is being streamed in realtime. Ad serving will be served on the basis of complex algorithms in a live auction model where market forces set pricing, similar to Paid Search today. Think Google’s recently announced “interest-based” ads on the content network with the mechanic applied to TV.  Media planners & network sales forces will be a thing of the past.
5. Consumers will decide how much advertising they are willing to bear and will trade the cost of ad free convenience off against receiving free TV, where & when they want it. So if I want no ads, I’ll have to pay a higher cost than someone who is willing to see say 8 or 10 ads an hour who may pay nothing.
6. TV schedules & post campaign analysis will be more like digital campaign analysis than the current pay, hope and pray approach (what I like to call the Strategy of Hope) to accountable effectiveness reports. Advertisers will be able to  understand who they’ve connected with vs. what shows they’ve bought and most importantly how the consumer has reacted within different latency periods from viewing TVC’s embedded into the content (no time shifting of course). Did they visit the site,buy the product, subscribe, buy something else in the clients product portfolio, did churn drop etc etc. The opportunities are endless. Will all TV in the future be more like DR / internet based campaigns – yes I think so at least.
7. Content producers / companies may distribute their content or shows directly to their audiences over the web and get a larger cut of ad revenue thereby dis-intermediating the networks.
8. A new breed of KPI’s will evolve based on value & yield, rather than TARPS and average spot cost.
9. Creative agencies will need to think of new mechanics to engage their clients audience meaningfully. No longer can they solve marketing challenges 30 seconds at a time, in the same linear fashion as the traditional TV networks serve programs.

I’d really appreciate alternate view on this, either from a Television network’s perspective or from the digital industry’s perspective. All I know is TV is going to change faster than we know it and become more like a Search market than the current state we all know and love ( or hate?).

Interesting update:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/content-rules-needed-for-internet-tv-20091105-i0b0.html