Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
Sony’s future sans sales: The Drum ran a profile of Sony Music UK and its efforts to prepare for a future where streaming continues to erode album sales. “At the moment it’s about getting the concept right and thinking about how the consumer engages with our artists and our content in a more relevant way,” Daniel Hall, the company’s senior director of insight, said in the in-depth discussion. “The opportunity for us moving forward is how we can anticipate the way people are going to behave, and what metrics and analytics we can use to determine the types of artists they’re going to want to listen to.”
Another metadata service joining the mix: Another new company is pushing forward with the goal of shedding light into the dark corners of music metadata. Songspace’s co-founder and CEO Robert Clement spoke at SXSW about the service and its attempt to create a centralized hub for artists to input metadata. A great idea, to be sure, but the sheer number of players now trying to supply a metadata silver bullet doesn’t seem likely to improve the fragmentation issue in the short term.
The major labels just don’t get it. I, and people I know who are into streaming did so because:
a) We’re not impressed with the music being released.
b) We’re into music genres (easy listening, jazz, blues, folk, classical, etc.) that commercial radio doesn’t play.