Reflections on Mashable’s “5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010″

Posted on | January 4, 2010 | No Comments

Soundctrl board member Toby Daniels recently linked me to this Mashable article written by Nick Crocker, the founder of We Are Hunted (I’m a huge fan):

1. The majors can’t be lazy and threaten the consumer to maintain the way things used to be nor can they rely too heavily on their back catalog for publishing, so I’m not sure whether they will get smart like Nick’s first prediction suggests.  Everyone needs to adapt to new technology, continually establish new streams of income, and be willing to move on from any of those streams on a drop of a hat or else…
2. I have never been a fan of predictions.  Predictions are for people who don’t act. Music industry doesn’t have time to predict.  They need to act, reflect, and make changes because what has worked will never work again, so Nick’s obvious second prediction is correct because CD’s are for a niche group of people who grew up with CD’s and crave the physical collectability of music.
3. Nick is right that Top Spin Media gets the concept of creative release strategies, but they’re not alone.  There’s also Peekok and Echo Spin.
4. I have been a huuuuge advocate of Lala since I first met Bill Nguyen at CMJ in 2008 and him selling Lala to Apple only proves me that much more right.  HOWEVER, the cloud won’t be realistic for another 5 years.  Wi-fi needs to be EVERYWHERE including cars and the subway in order for that to happen.
5. His fifth prediction is a huge cop out.  A lot of these music tech companies are awesome theoretically, but are unable to meet the standards of the majors as well as have a sustainable level of income.

Only time will tell if Nick’s predictions will come to fruition.

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