The PC is Dead

Technology has come along way in the last few years, and the trends of consumption change along with it. We are now heading towards a time where people will no longer be carrying around their laptops as smartphones will soon out number PCs on the planet. 

 

We have moved to a world of access, where we have everything we want at our fingertips, and just as the music industry adjusts to a new business model, along comes the next.  Still the problem remains with the 'old guard' record labels struggling to keep it together, and maintain some kind of resemblance of what the industry was. But, will they, and you the music makers, be ready for what comes next?

 

Even Facebook is starting to realise it's the mobile market is where the future is with its purchase of Instagram. No one wants to get left behind. The model is changing.

 

Bob Lefsetz sows a few seeds here for you to think about where all this is all heading, also with a view on how current social trends may soon dissapear and become outmoded.

 

You can read his article here. 

 

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/04/24/seeing-the-future/

 

Why Facebook bought Instagram  read more on that here.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/15/pinterest-will-take-facebook-into-the-mobile-age.html

Since We've Been Gone

It's been a hectic 2 months here at Make it in Music,  and now we are back and ready to roll!. Firstly Ian has now started working at Three Six Zero Group, one of the key management companies in Electronic Dance Music today (also partnered with the Roc Nation company set up by Jay Z), helping to look after the careers of acts such as Deadmau5, including his Mau5trap Label, Swedish House Mafia and Calvin Harris to name just a few. This last month has taken him to the Winter Music Conference in Miami and the Coachella Festival in California, where reviews from the Mafia boys gig there said they absolutely rocked it.

Secondly I was supposed to step in a month ago and get things back on track, but due to illness have been out of action until now.

Although Ian will chip in with daily tips and tweets when he can and will still be writing posts on the main site.

So, while Ian is running around taking care of business, it's up to me Steve Travell, to keep you up to date with the posts here. I've been in the music industry longer than i care to mention, and seen alot of trends come and go. I am a Musician, Remixer and Producer, Sound Engineer, Record Label Owner, DJ, Blogger, Web Developer, and Social Media Strategist, currently teamed up with Ian on several exciting web projects including Direct to Fan Marketing. I also teach music production at London based music college Point Blank.

So what have we missed?

I guess one of the biggest shake ups has been the introduction of Timeline to pages on Facebook. This overrides your landing page option so no longer will fans be automatically routed through to the third party app of your choice such as Bandpage, Fanbridge or Reverbnation, where a curious fan's first encounter could either be a posted video, an email sign-up list or streamed music. Those apps are still available, but now only accessible via tabs that require a further click to reach. We will have a full article on the Make It In Music Website on how to get get the best out of the Timeline soon.

This just goes to show it's better to have your own website as the centre of your online presence than rely on the likes of Facebook who seem to change the goalposts to suit their needs and not the needs of their users.

And while all this was going on, ReverbNation have updated their look considerably (is this a response to FB?). Gone are the browns for a much cleaner professional look with a bigger focus on the things that are most important to Artists, like getting new fans and sharing music.

Madonna, the Queen of Pop, has she finally lost her touch? Looks like she has set another record, this time for the biggest recorded drop in record sales ever. Bob Lefzetz has an interesting view on it here.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/04/10/madonna-stiffs/

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/04/madonna-new-album-fails-mdna-sets-record-biggest-drop


We have also seen artists rise from the dead, with the Tupac duet with Snoop at this year's Coachella. Looks like you don't have to worry about your live performance career ending after you snuff it, or maybe even worry about doing a gig in one location a night. 

The world of streaming music has taken a couple of turns recently. Spotify finally opened up in Germany, and after successfully launching in the States and introducing its cool new App system, has now gone into an endorsement deal with Coca Cola. However, even with a turnover of $900 Million this year they still managed a loss of $60 Million.   Whereas Grooveshark is now being sued by all four major music companies since its remaining label deal with EMI has collapsed.  6 Reasons Grooveshark’s CEO Thinks Recorded Music Should Be Free is an interesting interview given by CEO Sam Tarantino to Evolver.fm  giving a pretty good argument for free music.

http://evolver.fm/2012/04/19/6-reasons-groovesharks-ceo-thinks-recorded-music-should-be-free/

So we are looking forward to bringing you our daily news and tips keeping you up to speed on new trends, techniques and news on how to suceed in The Music Industry 2.0.