My Mum said "surely all this YouTube and MySpace kills sales?".
I replied "well, radio and TV haven't for the past 50 years - they expose the music and people go and buy it".
"But that was because you never knew when a radio or TV station would play it again", she said. "With the Internet, whenever you feel like hearing it again, it's only a click away".

Good point?

Yes, the King Mother is spot on here.

Most people from my age group will admit to listening to the charts on Radio 1 in our youth and taping our favourite songs. But the sound quality wasn't there and you'd get the DJ's voice over it. Consequently, we were off to the record shops to buy the songs we loved.

Now there's high quality sound on tap.

Your Mum has a very good perceptive point there JK.

I think the main problem is the all digital format. There is nothing physical to own. YouTube clips and myspace music can be downloaded and duplicated at zero cost with virtually no time or effort.

Making cassette copies years ago was time consuming but even with that you knew you could go out and get a better copy on vinyl or CD hence, a sale.

Having access to all this media on tap, anytime, anyplace has removed the need to own a piece of product. Myself? I want a piece of product... I want the packaging, photos, lyrics etc. I want to be able to add it to my collection on my shelves. You cannot do that with digital media via YouTube or myspace.

There is no sense of occasion. When I was a kid, my family would have music evenings... set up the record player, dig out the record box and play records (and quite a few of them were JK hits!) and the family shared that pleasure. That element is now long gone. A family is not going to crowd round a PC monitor to watch YouTube videos, nor sit there watching a software mp3 player go through a jukebox of files. Theres no physical interaction. No sense of bonding.

It certainly presents a huge challenge in converting these things into physical sales.

And not only is the music on-tap 24/7, the performance rights are not being paid either.

Dontcha just love new business models?

Great stuff JK and indeed food for thought for us all.
However there is no need to end physical products.

A cool well designed collectible vinyl or 'gold reference' CD can be sold alongside T-shirts or bundle a T-shirt with the physical from the artist website.

Also if they don't pay don't let them play your full songs. Put it on your own site with your own google ads and let them stream away on your website.

Myspace and Youtube should be trailers for your music then if they want it they can go buy it or go to your website and join your 'members only' section.

It really is such a major problem.

Even the records and cd`s I have bought recently sit in a pile as I click on Myspace to play the tracks instead.

The only way out of this problem now,is to completely lower the Myspace media player down to lo-fi mono previews.
If the Myspace people care about music now, as much as they did when they started the sites, (with obvious good intentions I might add,) they need to do it now, they are killing the thing they loved with slow kindness.

YouTube is not such a problem as it doesn`t sound very good does it?

In fact, I would go as far as saying Youtube does encourage music buying as ,if you like a track, you would like to hear it properly.

But then, hey!Search for it next on Myspace!

Ah Mart you have such faith in the great unwashed.

Sadly I suspect that 99% of ordinary people don't care whether it's HI FI or low fi, brilliant sound or tinny crap, they just want the catchy song (or, in most cases, don't want it as it's not catchy enough).

Given that, they play again and again.

I'm a case in point and I'm in music, a Producer for God's sake! Yet if there's a tune I like I'm happy to find the YouTube video (far better search facility than MySpace), leave it playing in a window whilst working in another (who wants to watch the crap film?), listen half a dozen times and then move on.

Buy it? You're joking.

your mum talks sense JK, however, the fact remains that people are buying stuff from itunes for their ipods by the truck load. Different strokes for different folks perhaps?

The problem is Big End, that truck isn't as big as it was.
Nowhere near as big, for example, as needed by large companies to run major labels.

And when divided up to all rights owners, the shares get very small indeed.

Especially when 95% of "sales" are not sales but steals.

and so death of the majors and back to low cost operations that can turn a profit from a smaller truck? Or are we all doomed?

Its a simple equation that is going to take a very clever person to solve.

X = The public are taking free music for granted.


Y = The public need to be reminded and encouraged to believe that music is a sellable/buyable product which they should value.


Homework Assigment.
-------------------------------------------------
X

-

Y

= ?

Mart, JK, Everyone. It is simple. Reverse the trend.

1. Do not give Rupert Murdoch free content to make money off your back. Put little trailers and get them to go to your website for the full version.

2. Put only clips on your website and if anyone wants to listen to it in full they will have to buy it. If not then you dont want them either.

3. Get people to your website but make sure your site is simple enough not to confuse the public.(Easier said than done i know).

Perhaps the horse has bolted now and we are in a state of anarchy.

Yep, most people nowadays don't care about sound quality. You just have to walk past a bunch of kids nowadays to hear the latest song being blasted out on somebodys phone speaker! It makes me cringe!

Mind you, I have a 5.1 soundcard and optical output going from my PC to my amp. Even Youtube sounds okay not going through tinny computer speakers...

Big End wrote:
and so death of the majors and back to low cost operations that can turn a profit from a smaller truck? Or are we all doomed?

Spot on, Big End !

It's the time of the true indie. Smaller labels that are more creative and adaptable will turn a profit on projects that the majors would never touch (and would lose money if they did).

This could be a great opportunity for music generally - and really help smaller genres (which never had mass market appeal for the majors)

KZ - the horse HAS bolted.
I strongly believe samples and clips are no longer enough to drive ANYONE to sales.

Sorry, it an entire rethink that is needed.

Your "don't let Murdoch..." argument is wrong. Wouldn't you like a full page in The Sun on one of your artistes? If you were offered a three minute slot on Prison Break (the best TV series around and on Fox), for that artiste's new single, wouldn't you grab it?

It's easy (and accurate) for my Mum to say that MySpace and YouTube kill sales by being always available. That's the situation. We must live with it and develop from there, not try to get back what was and perhaps SHOULD still be but, be honest, isn't anymore and will never be again.

At Last!

Mrs K has got it absolutely spot on.

The 'industry' needs a complete rethink. I buy CD's to use in the car. That's it. And these days I don't travel much ...

Everything else is free. If I want to see the artist play live though - I expect to have to pay.

So the answer lies in restricting availablity - as it always has been. People value something more that they can't get hold of easily (e.g. gold, diamonds, money!)

So create demand and then restrict supply - and if the quality is good people may buy. The problem is - and we're guilty of it - the internet is littered with our tracks - and we can't remember all the sites we've uploaded them to ... doh!

Stretch
www.Dastards.com

Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember that Crazy by Gnarls wasn't available anywhere before it's release, not on Myspace, Youtube etc. Do you remember lurkers appearing here after finding my posts about it via Google, asking where they can get it? It was only after the release that they did the album streaming on Myspace.

I think in the case of this song it was like the days before the Net, people were hearing it on radio and TV and loved it but couldn't access it as much as they'd like. So when it was released, bam!

If you can get radio and TV behind it, you can forget Myspace & Youtube. A big step I know for us smaller guys, but remember, this was a new label too.

Kev`s right.

Mrs Mart gave me a right rollicking for giving a whole business model away on another thread.

We give too much away in public forums sometimes I feel.
We all love to share our thoughts and ideas, and tips, but we need to keep quiet about a game plan in many cases and then leap.
On the net, the envelope is open before the letter falls out.

Hi JK well you are right for pulling me up on that point but let me clarify. Full streaming on myspace do not result in increased sales and in that case the benefits of it are minimal.

A full page article in the Sun or a 3 minute slot on Prison Break currently do result in sales. It is not Murdoch per se but more Myspace who dont give you any value add for your free content. If on the other hand it does increase sales or gives you some value then of course i will jump at it.

However correct me if i'm wrong but unlike the internet all other media have some form of PPL payment built into them don't they. Why not Myspace, Gootube etc

Mart wrote:
Its a simple equation that is going to take a very clever person to solve.

X = The public are taking free music for granted.


Y = The public need to be reminded and encouraged to believe that music is a sellable/buyable product which they should value.


Homework Assigment.
-------------------------------------------------
X

-

Y

= ?

Or...

X = the public enjoy watching the Guinness "Horses" advert

Y = the public should be reminded to buy Guinness

= poor marketing isn't the fault of the medium