Comment by daeken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by daeken | Hacker News Reader

While I think the author's heart is in the right place, I think he's fallen into the trap that nearly everyone in the music startup industry has fallen into: the content and distribution are the easy parts, getting people to give a damn is the hard part.

Go to any little venue in NYC and you'll find a dozen talented musicians, many of them with very well produced albums already; the talent is there, the production is cheap as hell these days, it's simple. So you start an online label, you aggregate this content, you make it available in various forms for various prices (including free) and you have... nothing. Content is worthless without eyes and ears.

The hard part in all this is getting it in front of users, and getting them to care about the music. The major labels are fantastic at this: they get radio stations (which they control) to hype them up; they run ads all over the place; they put on massive tours and make the consumers a 'part of the music'. How are you going to compete with this? If you can answer that question, you win; nothing else matters.

I think there is a software solution to this problem.

#1: A Recommendation Service: You know how Amazon will list "People who bought this, also bought these ..."? The problem with these recommendations is that people may have bought other items, but you don't know whether they actually liked them. I envision a music recommendation service that lets people select mainstream music they like and recommends indie music they might like based on user ratings.

#2 Music Analysis: There are already software tools that can predict hit songs [1], so why not take the idea a step further. Let users select a number of songs they like and build a profile of their tastes. This would predict new music they would like before it built enough critical mass to be in the "recommended by others" section.

#3 Talent Gamification: Think you've got American Idol potential? Submit your audio clip to the service get user ratings (and possibly software analysis). Do head to head match ups, clip of the day, or some other tactic to get people's interest and keep them coming back on a regular basis.

None of this is easy, but I definitely think the potential is there for a disruptive software solution to the major record labels' stranglehold on the music industry.

[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1136733...

I've thought last.fm should be an amazing source for recommendations. After all, they have an amazing database of music that I don't just buy, or like, but that I actually listen to. They know how much I listen to something and when and so on. That's got to be a great basis for recommendations. And somehow...it's not. I've often wondered why not.

I think a site that would have a huge catalog of exclusivly non-RIAA music with a great recommedation system and streaming radio would be a real winner. I know i'd use it.

Freemusicarchive.org has a lot of good content, and the curator picks help filter some, but I agree that a recomendation system would make a site like that significantly more usable

Ideally we'd have an entire content ecosystem that was MPAA/RIAA free. Movies with cc licensed audio sold for 5-10 a pop through hulu or some other type of streaming service. This could be sent to people's set top boxes directly, bypassing the normal gatekeepers of content.

#2 is what Pandora does. Pandora knows what music I like and will like better than I ever could.

> A Recommendation Service

For bonus points, this should also work for films, books, etc.

If you really want to kill them, just convince Microsoft or Google etc to buy the music industry and change the model. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the world: $38.6 billion in 1999 in $10.4 billion in 2008 That's the kind of business people want to get out of.

PS: I blame Video games and DVD's for sucking up a lot of the disposable cash flow from people who buy music. Digital content not degrading over time and forcing people to buy yet another copy of the same thing. And piracy destroying the idea that music has value. You used to see CD's with the sound track for a movie selling for just as much as the DVD it's self which is crazy.

I think that a huge part of all that is simply because most of us are stuck listening to a dozen or so radio stations in our cars.

People listen to the artists they hear 20 times a day during their commute.

It will be interesting to see what happens when something like Spotify or Pandora is widely available in-car.

Anyone with a smartphone can have Pandora in their car, I sure do.

This is exactly the same primary problem you'd face taking on the movie studios.

In a way, it makes sense to try to beat the music industry first.

Hmm. While music labels do still have reach, in fact, there's very little profit anymore in the creation of recorded music. Today, records primarily serve to build hype for concert tours, which, contrary to your suggestion, are not put on by music labels, but by organizations like Live Nation. (Labels own the rights to the specific recordings produced under contract with the artist, not to the songs themselves.)

Since most of the profit in the music industry now comes from touring, the labels are trying to get a piece of the action with so-called "360" deals, which promise them royalties from tours, merchandise, and more. But for the most part, touring and recording are not integrated businesses.

While I agree with your points in the technical sense, I think there is a more overarching concept that is the "hard part": There are too many people who want to "make it" in the music business ("make it" means different things to different people: by "make it" I mean make a living). I am sure if I changed the term to "performing arts" it would still be valid. While it is hard to get your music into people's face (which then gets into their ears and then into their hearts and then into their wallets) all the music business does is craft celebrities, images and trends in order to make a profit. In general (I know there are exceptions) the labels don't give a rat's ass about art and music; all they want it the money. They survive because of the money. You are very, very correct when you say there are untold numbers of talented musicians (emphasis on both "talented" and "musicians") in the world. But the fact they are talented shouldn't guarantee them the right to make a living from their craft. The market is just too saturated. In the end, it ends up being a business if you need to make money. This is the point at which one either gets a lucky break or sometimes compromises to become more of a celebrity or image rather than just a musician. I wish every artist could make a living from their craft. Sadly, someone has to grow their food, fix their vans and shuffle their paperwork. I think the best strategy for would-be pro musicians at this point is to self-produce, self-market and self-motivate. Sure, there may be a loss of quality by not using pro services or labels, but if they tour heavily and get a relatively small, yet faithful fan base they just might be able to make a living. I know many, many musicians who do this successfully.

http://www.jamendo.com/en/ is treating the very problem of remunerating CC artists, and they are doing well for quite some time.

Totally agree, the labels put out a slick, well produced product and have a lot of brand loyalty. And they have a huge headstart. But I think startups can build up some of that consumer loyalty by not being evil to their customers, and by providing the value add to music that major labels can't in the form of cool apps. And don't forget, even the now huge Virgin empire started as a little hole in the wall record shop on Notting Hill.

> brand loyalty

Not really. Consumers don't have a clue who the labels are. The labels are great at building brand loyalty for the artists.

There's two horizontals - the promoters (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, etc) which let artists connect with fans, and producer/distributers (Amazon, iTunes, indie labels).

You probably won't build a vertical that does both well, like the big labels.

The distribution and production is a solved problem. You won't distribute better than Amazon, and an indie producer will produce good and cheap records in an unscalable fashion.

The promotion thing (getting kickbacks from ads?) is social media. What do the artists need? What do the users need? And how can you do it better than Twitter?

I think brand loyalty can mean loyalty to existing artists which are signed with existing music labels.

How about creating a radio device that works over the cell network?

The cost of data on the cell network would be covered by "radio" advertisements. But the device would of course have extensive caching of audio on the device. Now you have a whole new band of "radio" and can show off those talented musicians.

How does it differ from internet radio and existing music streaming services (Pandora, Spotify, Last.fm etc.)?

No cell network contract required

I'm afraid this is highly unlikely, and there are multiple reasons. Firstly, mobile operators are gatekeepers in the space, and they want to profit on any value-added service. Secondly, take a look at mobile TV[1], which is a solved problem from the technical point of view, but still didn't get enough traction.

Instead of grafting an old idea to a different platform ("faster horse"), make something that works in the world where mobile operators are just dumb pipes providing access to the internet.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_television

Internet radio has really taken over this space. Mostly because you can access it from so many devices.

Remember the XM radio portable devices? They have since stopped making them. It makes sense. I can listen to XM on my phone or laptop and I don't have to worry about signal issues.

http://shop.siriusxm.com/edealinv/servlet/ExecMacro?nurl=con...

So, you're saying we're in the short window between when they stopped making them (a few weeks ago?) and when they no longer sell them?

They may be selling them, but I don't think a lot of people are still using them.

Most people that I know that had any of these devices (including me, mines in my closet somewhere), have stopped using them. Not to mention the fact that the merger between XM and sirius messed up many of the channels and functionality.

FYI: I quoted this comment in a comment on another HN post.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3495993

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