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#36: Livestreaming enabling new business models 💌 | Music streaming consolidation 🤝 | Secondary ticketing 🎫 | Facebook VR 👓
Hey everyone,
Let’s schedule meetings for Amsterdam Dance Event (19-23 Oct). If you’re in town and haven’t reached out yet - get in touch if you’d like to meet, or come see my panel.
I’ve changed the format a bit this week. Feedback welcome.
Enjoy - have a great week everyone!
Love,
Bas
From me, for you
This week’s lead piece is about donations. The immediacy brought on by the rise of high quality live streaming means donations now go beyond mere charity.
I was interviewed by Jazzfuel about digital strategy for artists. We covered a lot of ground, from the streaming landscape, to startup methodology for musicians and their managers, to using Facebook ads.
How innovation in technology can help the career-building jazz musician
Q&A with Bas Grasmayer of MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE.
For the Synchtank blog, I wrote about this year’s consolidation in music streaming. 2016 could well go down as the end of the beginning for music streaming. In the next months expect an acquisition, an IPO, and a potential closure.
Projecting Trends: Consolidation in music streaming
As the news breaks that Spotify may be buying SoundCloud, Bas Grasmayer examines the wider trend of consolidation in the music streaming space.
Digital Music Space
Spotify recently enabled the first ‘unofficial’ remixes on the platform due to their partnership with Dubset. Some argue that this decreases Soundcloud’s acquisition potential by Spotify, but I think that’s nonsense. Spotify partnered with Dubset in May, to do exactly this. Why would they be in talks with Soundcloud - let alone the advanced stage? The Spotify / Soundcloud acquisition can still happen.
Spotify and Apple Music get unofficial mixes, the best part of SoundCloud
SoundCloud’s big differentiator is its offering of unofficial, user-uploaded content that the major labels don’t release and that isn’t on Spotify or Apple..
Amazon’s music service for Echo users will launch in the next few weeks
As consolidation looms in the music streaming space - a big entrant is nearing launch and ready to compete.
I’m very excited about music becoming more adaptive, augmented, or even generative, and think it’s one of the biggest changes music will go through as a format this century. It’s already common in games, with No Man’s Sky, a game with an infinite procedurally generated universe, having a soundtrack that perfectly matches its theme. (if this makes you want to buy No Man’s Sky: read the reviews very carefully)
How one of 2016’s most talked-about video games brought generative music to the masses
‘No Man’s Sky’ sound designer Paul Weir’s rule-based music writes itself.
Live Music Space
The ticketing pioneer on why Pandora’s $450 million investment was a “fair price,” and the future of the secondary market.
Analysis: what's the real cost of secondary ticketing?
Chance The Rapper, Iron Maiden, Mumford & Sons, Pixies and more are getting louder and louder about what they see as the scourge of secondary ticketing.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Have you seen Mark Zuckerberg’s VR demo? These things tend to be a bit cringeworthy, but there are some interesting moments that hint at the future of experience design, and the interactions of different layers of reality: the physical, the web as we already know it, and VR worlds. The biggest promise of VR in the near future was always augmented reality. We’re entering a new era of user experience design and Facebook is ready to lead the way.
Facebook to fund VR apps and entertainment with $250m
Yesterday saw virtual-reality developers gather for Facebook’s Oculus Connect conference in San Jose, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg making a keynote appearance.
Well-known startup accelerator Techstars has launched a music program. Each year, they’ll invest $120k in each of the 10 selected music related startups, who will take residence in their space in Los Angeles.
Applications close at midnight on Sunday, December 11, 2016. The program starts late February, 2017.
In light of a recent TechCrunch article, which some are holding up as a sign that blockchain’s going to solve all of the music industry’s problems… A reminder: the industry needs to solve these problems. Blockchain is not a magical spell. You can’t say “blockchain, blockchain, blockchain” and suddenly the industry is fair and transparent for everyone. Developments enabled by blockchain are likely to find themselves impeded by complex laws, regulations and statutory bodies.
The music industry isn’t ready for the blockchain
The blockchain cannot solve the music industry’s problems, before the industry figures out a way to solve them themselves.
It's a wrap
This week I’ve been listening to Mr. Oizo’s new album - recommended for electro lovers. What I’ve had on repeat is Acid Arab’s newest release. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a blend of techno, acid and Arabic influences.
Also, I thought it was pretty cool when Daniel Ek shared a guest post featured by MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE last week.
That’s all for this week!
❤️: twitter - linkedin - facebook - musicxtechxfuture.com
📰: click here for last week’s edition about Spotify success, digital strategy & life-saving headphones
Are donations becoming a viable part of artists’ business models? – MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE
With the rise of live streaming and new media models, donations deserve another consideration.
Regular insights about the future of music, media & tech. Written & composed by @basgras.
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