Kind of a “duh!” moment but it only makes sense – if businesses stock a variety of both popular and niche items, chances are you’ll sell more of all of them. When discussing current technologies and their effects on media, goods, etc, it’s too easy to turn it into a polarized topic:

1. Current technologies are a salvation for niches and will be the demise of mass-produced/marketed items.
2. The long tail is overhyped and isn’t going to make a difference in the long run.

To me, right now it’s important to study the nuances and get people to report on their own habits and experiences, which is what Chris Anderson’s book and blog and Elberse’s article do to an extent. The SpringBoardMedia post looks at a nuance that was new to me, the idea that some of the real long tail financial winners will still be bigger stores who have the name recognition, the ability to hold/license a large variety of popular and niche items, and probably a good discovery or social networking aspect to make it easier to sift through the store’s items.

What’s easily lost in the long tail discussion is that most really aren’t focusing on the two polarized points of view listed above, but that it provides for an improvement over the industrial model of market and social production and interaction. This Common Craft video pretty much sums it up for me:

More ice cream!

To add to the problem with defining niche music, a lot of music genres that used to be niches are now much more widespread – hip hop, indie rock, alternative, etc – and a lot of artists that aren’t popular in the mainstream are categorized in these genres. What I’m curious about is how people are discovering music if it’s not promoted by the mainstream, so for now, it’s niche enough for me. In the survey I’ve asked people to use whatever phrase they think is appropriate to define the types of niche music they listen to. Low fi, shoegazer, underground hip hop, classic punk, old skool, noise rock, whatever, I’m guessing no one likes labeling but other than generating a longer list of individual musicians/bands that people listen to, it has to be done.

The whole project is really just about getting individuals to put in their own words how they interact with music that isn’t heavily promoted by mass media. There are a lot of preconceptions around about various types of music and the people who listen to it; as well as all the preconceptions about Web 2.0 phenomenon. For a study to be successful I think it needs to be rather open-ended and do some data collection about how individuals are actually finding/listening to/sharing/making/promoting music. It’s easy to theorize but plenty of that has already been done about the state of music online and what will happen with the long tail and niches. I just want to look at a variety of specific examples grounded in reality and see what pops up.

• Social Networking can work really well for musicians, but it generally takes a huge amount of time and effort. Not a huge revelation but something that was a common thread in most of the panels. It left me wondering what entities will/are developing to do this – obviously bloggers, fans on networking sites, and a rash of other businesses – but what will they really look like in the long run. Musicians can do it themselves but I’m guessing many don’t have the time or desire to do this kind of self-promotion.
• Marcy Rauer Wagman’s excellent response to a comment from an audience member/musician who was upset about music piracy: The old paradigm for musicians used to be 1) play locally 2) get signed to a record label 3) the industry takes everything and musician gets nothing, or even ends up owing money. New paradigm: self-produce, distribute and promote and keep the revenue stream/trickle for yourself. Still not optimal – and obviously doesn’t apply to many of those who have made it really big – but generally an improvement, especially for niche musicians.
• Something I was totally ignorant about was that terrestrial radio only pays royalties for songs it plays to the composer; online radio pays both the performer and composer. Seems to have developed as the entrenched music industry sought to fight competition from online services, though of course the fact that performers aren’t compensated by terrestrial radio stems from a legacy of greed.
• Legislation around royalty rates for online broadcasting is pending and important to keep track of for those of us who’d like there to be a good variety of webcasters around. Per Ken Freedman, webcasters are only exempted from outlandish royalty rates (often 70-200% of an online radio station’s actual revenue) if they have less than 230 concurrent streams.

A great seminar overall by an organization that’s passionate about keeping current technologies open and available for all to use fairly. From their site:

Building a Musicians’ Middle Class
Eight years ago, Future of Music Coalition was conceived as an organization that would work to build structures to create a musicians’ middle class. It was clear to us that, while the music industry has made a handful of artists very wealthy, the vast majority of musicians live gig-to-gig, unable to afford the basic protections and securities of life that allow them to continue making their art and, equally important, without a way to educate themselves to break out of this cycle.
Since our 2000 founding, we have focused on elements that would allow musicians to better participate in the issues that affect their livelihood: encouraging the development of digital distribution models that reduce costs and increase connections between musicians and their fans; examining new business models that create more equal partnerships between creators, labels and consumers; fighting against payola and media consolidation that reduce artists’ chances of radio airplay; advocating for net neutrality provisions to ensure that all legal Internet traffic is treated equally; and helping musicians navigate the often-confusing world of health insurance coverage. We want musicians’ labor to be valued, we want them to be compensated for their work, we want them to understand how the myriad laws and regulations affect them, and we want them to have access to basic health insurance and medical services

It’s almost more interesting now to imagine the new site that Muxtape’s creator is looking to start, and if it doesn’t take too long, the timing may be right for indie bands that feel snubbed by MySpace Music to move over – though I think it would take some serious misstepping by MySpace and an insanely great offering from Muxtape to get people to add another site to their must-visit-for-music purposes. Something integrated with Facebook might be a better way to go if he can swing it, the audience is already there.

However I doubt that’s a natural direction for him, more my speculation about people being comfortable with an already familiar social networking format. This sentence in particular jumped out at me as tying into my research with Wealth of Networks, the Long Tail, etc: “I didn’t get into this to build a big company as fast as I could, no matter what the cost; I got into this to make something simple and beautiful for people who love music.” Niches exist because they’re a hobby, passion, natural interest. When a niche-based enterprise gets to a certain size and looks economically viable – or threatens existing economics – it tends to be bought out or forced out, which you could theorize changes its fundamental nature.

Anyway, kudos to him for trying, and for coming up with what may be an even better idea. That’s a sign of true interest.

Ok, the thing I really don’t want to admit is that I decided to check out last.fm because of the TV show Swingtown. An ok show with some good actors, an interesting premise, and a quick fix of nostalgia for me (not to mention available online via CBS whenever I felt like watching it). There’s usually a radio playing in the background in most of the show’s domestic scenes, and 70s AM radio was a staple of my childhood so it was kinda nice to hear some of these songs again. Then, when Swingtown advertised their own last.fm station, I figured it would be nice to listen to in the background while I cleaned the apartment or whatever. I made an account a few weeks back and hadn’t really checked into it until this afternoon.

I figured they’d have some artists that I liked but had already heard a lot of, college radio/KEXP-type stuff. And a lot of the urban stuff that I like (sidenote: why isn’t MIA considered urban? Her fan base? Her samples?). Then I realized there was a “cassette underground” tag that I used in part to prepare for an interview I have for the MA project. Then, I got sucked into 60s and 70s psychedelic pop, and then just started randomly searching for things. How about… the Sonics? Yup. Ok, how about the Wipers? Sure. I easily spent a good 30 minutes just jumping from similar artists to the next, imagining filling in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of punk/avant/indie rock that have always kinda bugged me. I’ll probably spend the next couple of weeks catching myself up thanks to last.fm.

Then, so, ok, Henry Flynt? Damn, yes. Interesting. Ok – Pandit Pran Nath? Wow. I’m not sure about the quantity and quality of available tracks for a lot of these artists yet, and am now really curious about licensing and how a lot of the more obscure artists got on here, but am pretty happy to have figured this out after so much time ignoring these sites. I don’t know much about pandora and imeem etc – to be honest I don’t know that I’ll have time to do any comparison anytime soon, though I know about pandora’s highly spoken of recommendations and still have a knee-jerk assumption that they’re not quite as dead on for me as people may say, having been burned by amazon and netflix already – but am just happily shocked and feel optimistic, sorta like this is one of the more selfish goals I was hoping to accomplish with my project. Though I didn’t really need a project as an excuse.

http://www.last.fm/user/plagiarista3 if you’re curious.

I have been reading all of the articles about indie labels not being offered ad revenue deals in the same manner as the major labels, but for some reason it’s not that upsetting. It does suck that a social networking site that was made hugely popular on the backs of indie and unsigned artists is not giving them a fair stake, but it’s not surprising. News Corp didn’t buy the site for anything other than to make money, so their actions are not shocking.

The saga in general has reminded me of Benkler’s Three Storytelling Societies, an excellent explanation of how things may be changing as far as our move from mass-media/centrally produced culture thanks to current technologies. What remains to be seen is whether News Corp and the major labels will make “enough” money from the social networking site that has already been left by a lot of people for Facebook, whether it’s from ad sales or music downloads; and whether MySpace will continue to be a good site for smaller bands and musicians to promote themselves and keep in close touch with their fans.

• What inspires people to seek out new and different types of music?
• Are musicians really finding a higher level of success and support via MySpace and other sites/technologies?
• Would musicians be able to support themselves using just the internet and other current technologies?
• How much effort would it take to do the above?
• How do people now find music that they love?
• Am I just trying to relive my teenage years (half serious about this question…)?
• Is more better?
• Are we too distracted to care about music in the same way?
• Are digital natives/people growing up with digital technology going to change music? In what way?
• Will music become background noise?
• Is it better for niche music to not have too much exposure? Would it change the quality? Will niches become too diluted?
• Will current technologies allow for better dialogues/more involvement in niche music?
• How does one become an authority online? Does quality of content equal success?
• Does repetition matter? Is that how we end up liking a significant amount of music?
• How do we know what we really love versus what we’re just used to?
• Will vinyl really make a comeback?
• Do we care less about something if it’s too plentiful? If it’s not as hyped?

I’m not sure if the questions are a bit pessimistic right now because of the current mess with the economy, and I already have some of my own answers to them, but am hoping to cover most of these with the project.

What I liked about the post was a recent comment mentioning Eric von Hippel’s theories about lead users. His book, Democratizing Innovation (along with Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks) is what’s given me some kind of hope or belief or whatever that current technologies will carve out more space for people to produce and participate as opposed to simply consuming.

In talking to people about their involvement with niche music, I’m getting a sense that there’s a type that is predisposed to searching out different music or art. The ease in which it can be found does make a difference, but I’d never felt that it would be something that would cause a huge shift in music sales or anything. Lead users seems to point at a similar group; people who have a passion and drive for a specific niche and bring their own unique pool of experiences to that niche, and end up changing it somewhat.

What I’m curious about these days is whether or not current technologies will make it easier for musicians or anyone with niche interests to make a living off of their passion rather than having to keep a day job; in addition to a vague hope that it would make our society a more interesting, fulfilling space in which to live out our lives.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/22/leaked-myspace-music-screenshots/

I have to say that as I’ve been spending more time on MySpace I’ve been a bit less convinced that the music store would be as successful as I mentioned in this post. It crashed my browser a lot more than I’d remembered, not sure if it’s all the flash ads or the wacked-out profiles (which I love looking at, other than the crashiness that ensues), or something worse and totally malicious that happens to not be directed for my platform (Firefox or Safari on a Mac, in case anyone cares).

I’d imagine that they’d make sure the store doesn’t do the same, but if I’m looking at playlists on a profile and my computer freezes up, I’m going to be less inclined to take the trouble of restarting and going back to find out more about what I’d been listening too or looking at.

This was also my experience – one day as a bored teenager I happened to be turning the dial on the radio and caught something that sounded really interesting (if I recall correctly, it was UTFO’s ”Hanging Out”).  None of the stations I’d grown up listening to were playing anything like it, so I left my radio dial there and kept listening.  It was, of course, the local college radio station.  

No huge surprises there, but it as a clueless adult it has me wondering how this is happening today. WFMU is still going strong so I’m sure it continues to help people find new and interesting music – possibly more so now that anyone can stream it online – but how exactly is the digital native generation coming across new and interesting music, if that is what’s appealing?

Maybe it’s my age showing but I can’t immediately see how the wealth of information online is as easy to stumble across the way that people in my generation came across that interesting radio program; it would seem that coming across one, two or three stations out of twenty-five or so on the FM dial is easier to conceive of than chancing upon the right thing considering the innumerable ways of finding music online. 

Sure, there’s a lot of talk about social networks and people using friend’s recommendations – but that only goes so far and doesn’t seem to add up to me for this particular example.  Maybe because we were all thinking about that specific part of your formative years when your tastes are developing.  Your social circles start to change for various reasons, and some kids end up searching out things that are too weird or different for their old friends taste.  For some reason with the people I’ve talked to and with myself, we didn’t discover niche music because a friend told us to check out college radio, it was just a happy accident.