"Few Niche Music Products Create Profitable Markets"

I came across this quote from Dave Haynes, VP of Business Development for Soundcloud, while reading Billboard.biz today. The article attempted to explain what makes a successful music app in today's over saturated market of developers looking to make "the next Pandora". It explained how despite the passionate efforts of techies, music nerds and "fanatics" most products simply fail because they are not developed with the intent that they will be used by casual fans.

These new and developing apps allow fans to scan their libraries, share their tastes, and report their "musical moments" for other fans to see. However, the article also reports that sometimes a product developed first by music fanatics and then applied to the mainstream can become successful. The article profiles Songkick's new tour tracking app which surpassed 100,000 downloads within the first two weeks along with Shazam and the newer app, Soundtracking--both being used to identify artists and track songs.

It occurred to me while reading that, of course, I fall into the music fanatic category (hell, I am writing a music blog reporting on relatively unknown artists as well as new and developing apps). And yet, which apps do I end up using? Mired in a music technology mess, with developers just looking for the next thing, even as a fanatic I often find that I use Pandora, Spotify and even peruse iTunes singles of the week to easily consume music. This leads me to believe that perhaps these programs are universally popular because they cover so much music and can function the same way for a lover of Top 40 Hits, and a hipster looking to listen to Pitchfork's top staff picks.

But where do apps start? How do the fanatics that develop them distance themselves from the fringe to understand what mainstream consumers want? While the digital realm is new and schools like NYU have even developed a Music Business Major with a concentration in Music Technology, the wave of the future will be the development of easy-to-use yet all-encompassing programs that can appeal to a wide variety of consumers.

Spotify---Giving iTunes a Run for its Money?

This past week billboard.biz announced that Spotify, the widely successful music service that took Europe by storm, has come to America at long last. With spotify, users will be able to search for any track, share music, and even use mobile devices and an offline mode if they become premium members.

Billboard is projecting that the market for music listening services as a whole will improve as a result of this new software. Although iTunes is probably still the most well-known program, competition will likely be healthy for the music service market as programs like Spotify and Rhapsody continue to compete for subscribers.

Just yesterday, I received an email telling me that my own Spotify account was ready. This morning, I eagerly logged in, started perusing the program, and began searching for artists and creating playlists. Like most programs nowadays, Spotify allows you to sync with facebook and share musical tastes a la Last.fm. It also syncs your iTunes library so that you can access all of your current music through Spotify.

Spotify bases a lot of music sharing around user-generated playlists, that can then be switched on and made public to other users. The one thing that I don't really enjoy are the advertisements that come up in the side bars which, unfortunately, can be characteristic of applications that require the internet. I do, however, love the fact that Spotify helps to advertise artists by playing little previews of their music and encouraging users to click to listen on Spotify. It's an informative way to discover new music.

As the software continues to develop and as it gains speed in the states, I look forward to hearing feedback about Spotify and discovering further innovations in the way that we experience music.