It seems as though the first era of digital music may have come to an end. Napster died, P2P lived in some black market twilight zone, streaming services on ad-supported revenue were suffocated by unsustainably high licensing fees, and subscription services sputtered along, never quite capturing the imaginations of music fans. 2009 ended in a flurry of acquisitions (LaLa, iLike), launches (Vevo) and shutdowns (iMeem), which dramatically rearranged the digital music landscape. When the dust finally settles, expect digital music to begin anew.

With that in mind, here are my five predictions for music in 2010.

1. Labels Will Get Smart

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It’s been coming for more than a decade, but major labels are starting to grasp the digital opportunity. They’re licensing music on more sustainable terms, diversifying their business model, investing in new technology and, most critically, understanding more than ever what it means to be truly consumer-led.

As market leaders, major labels have the resources and the networks to profit most from the changes currently taking place. The move from physical to digital hasn’t been as fast as many people might have wished, but that’s because digital still doesn’t pay like physical does.

CDs, when they sell well, still mean big money. Digital isn’t like that. But that’s changing, and as major labels have shrunk, their capacity for change has increased. Expect 2010 to be the year that the bad press on the major labels starts becoming more favorable.

The promises of the digital age — deeper understanding of the music consumer, integrated ticketing and merchandise, direct-to-consumer sales, and fans as marketing teams — are all about to become a reality, and major labels will lead the charge.

2. Physical CD Sales Will Continue to Decline

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To ensure at least one of my predictions comes true, I’m going to forecast that globally, sales of physical CDs will decline in 2010. That’s one thing you can definitely count on.

3. Release Strategies Will Evolve

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The traditional model of building buzz through radio singles followed by a carefully timed album launch will still be the norm for commercial pop music. But at the edges, we’re going to start seeing a new model for releasing music that’s more attuned to the diverse community of music consumers.

The new model, pioneered by Topspin Media, will be the multi-tiered, staggered release. Artists will offer free, full streams and selected downloads early to the curious and the devoted, building their fanbase as they grow. Traditional release schedules will follow, in tandem with more innovative products, at more diverse prices, to more accurately segmented groups of fans.

Rather than just a plastic CD, we’ll start seeing multiple tiers of music product: free streams and low quality mp3s, simple digital and physical packages, enhanced audio and packaging on digital and physical releases, and then levels of premium products including vinyl, merchandise, and increased access to the artist.

We still think of music in its physical form as a CD on the shelf. Increasingly, we’re going to understand it as a suite of music products — T-Shirts, mugs, books, framed art, signed lyric sheets, USBs, and once-in-a-lifetime music experiences.

4. Music Will Live Legitimately in the Cloud

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It’s been talked about for a number of years, but 2010 could be the year we start thinking of music less as a finite product and more as an infinite, on-demand reservoir to be accessed at any time for a fee.

This process will roll out in tandem with the evolution of music “products.” Even if music is universally accessible, it’s still key to people’s identity. We still need something to put on a coffee table, something to pass to friends, something to put under the Christmas tree and something to signal to the world that “this music is part of me and I want you to know it.”

iTunes, as ever, is in the driver’s seat to make the most of this change. Its acquisition of LaLa could see them own the streaming market as it currently owns digital music.

Spotify’s buzz seems to have cooled, but it’s still the best-placed streaming service to take advantage of the cloud’s potential.

Grooveshark’s growth, if it continues, is going to make it a serious player in the streaming game.

MySpace, with iMeem and iLike in its back pocket may also consolidate its place in the land of the streaming.

Startups such as MyOwn.FM and The Cloud Player will challenge established players.

And finally, Google –- who owns the bridge over the moat, digitally speaking –- could pull the rug from everyone and facilitate properly integrated music streaming into its search platform.

Whoever emerges at the front of this pack will be in new territory, providing access to the world’s music, anytime, anywhere on any device.

5. Ethnic Music Content will Grow

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The new music models will start trickling down to international markets such as Russian music, Greek Music, and Spanish radio stations. These niche markets are huge and are similar to the long-tail results in search engines.

6. Who Knows?

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There’s some as-yet untested consumer models building momentum.

Guvera is promising the world, not just to the music industry, but to advertisers as well. Whether consumers buy into its advertisement for content exchange remains to be seen.

Rdio, with serious pedigree and some big money backing it, hasn’t poked its head up completely yet, but you can be assured that whatever it offers isn’t going to be lightweight.

Lost in all the buzz is the fact that some legacy digital music companies — Last.FM, Pandora and MySpace to name a few — still have the established brands, the existing customer base, and the revenue streams that preserve their lives beyond the froth of the tech/music blogosphere.

And of course, there’s Facebook. The biggest country in the world (or soon to be), Facebook and music have always been awkward bedfellows. If Zuckerberg and Co. can figure a way to integrate music with the Facebook platform, the existing user base would guarantee a big chunk of the market overnight.

It all adds up to create a big void of uncertainty, one that will be filled in the way the web knows best — by its end-users. What those end-users decide they love will ultimately determine the winners and losers in the digital music economy. As a passionate music fan, I can’t wait for the competition to heat up. For those on the digital frontier, music really is better than it’s ever been.

In retrospect, that was probably a HORRIBLE cereal name...

Showing how a little misunderstanding can start a fight..

WOW I feel sorry for that guy.. xD

Hey..that's not Kanye!

IMMA LET CHU FINISH.

HEY.

Well, this is new, huh? The “iLike” category is just gonna be short, normally over media-ed posts with stuff i found and like..hence “iLike”..clever y/y? no? yeah well no one asked you.

iLike

Merry Christmas, everyone!

May your presents be what you wanted, your food well prepared, and your hearts filled with love.

1. glass orbs

2. pretty lights

3. presents

4. Christmas trees

(click on images to view source)

My favourite Christmas song.

<— Pssst. Check out the side bar.

I follow a lot of blogs and I thought I could share them with you too. The first is a lovely little blog called Simply Hue.

Created by Vicki Dvorak her profile reads “As an artist and color consultant, I’m inspired by BEAUTY and COLOR. I hope I can bring a little of both into your day!”

Here are some pictures from her blog.

Happy following!

CHRISTMAS !!!

If it weren’t for school and exams I would have started Christmas posts as of the 13th of December. Now I’m 8 days late and have lots of catching up to do.

One of my personal goals for the new year is to get my skin in tip-top shape.  Fortunately, I’ve never had uber problematic skin but I do have my share of blemishes due to stress and whatnot.  After a recent trip to my esthetician (Cecilia of Soie Aroma Skin), I came home with a bunch of samples that I was urged to try.  I’ve been leaning more towards natural skin care products for awhile now and Cecilia knew just the products to get me on the bandwagon!

By sending me home with the Antioxidant Grape Moisturizer from iLike Organic Skin Care, I was basically sent home a changed woman!  The day after my Silk Touch facial and Oxygen treatment, I began substituting the iLike for my usual moisturizer.  The airy texture of the formula was what caught me first since I was so accustomed to heavier mixtures.  The light scent of grapes and other fruits was present but nowhere near the likes of lip-gloss or cosmetics.  I hate annoying smells in my skin care so I was glad that this one didn’t come with one!  After smoothing it over about half my face, I saw how absorbent it was – which meant I wouldn’t kill the jar in month.

After a week, I was in love.  My skin began to feel noticeably tighter in the mornings and appeared a bit brighter and even.  iLike’s products have received the ISO and BDIH certificates; ensuring that they are among the purest when it comes to skin care.  Each and every item that’s produced is made in a certain way so the active ingredients in the whole fruits and vegetables used remains intact and nurturing to the skin.

I initially thought my first experience with natural skin care would be a little shakier but I feel almost relieved that it’s over and done with.  Now I can take the next steps and I’m eager to try something new from the iLike line!

You can find iLIke products at various specialty retailers listed on their website.

If you’re in the NYC area, you can find their line at Soie Aroma Skin Care Salon.

Obviously the best parka out there.

Foto: Foto Jonas Ekströmer / SCANPIX (Borrowed from Dagbladet!)

Me and Royalty - In good company!

Great song to start off the week to!  Have a happy monday!

This speaker is long-run-bestseller for Mac item. Looks like something that might be seen in Sci-Fi movies. UFO electricity generator maybe… I’m gonna buy this, and until then, it will be in the first place of my MUST-BUY list.

P.S. I saw all the review for this and most of them said sound of this product is amazingly awesome!!! (Bravo!!!).

Congratulations to my beloved Ramblinwreck! Let’s go bowlin’ and eat some oranges.

Gets really good at about 3:09.

I like this pic.
Every time I see this pic, my mind get loose and I can feel some comfort.

The gigantic communitity network MySpace Music launched this Wednesday 2^nd December 2009 three new products: Myspace Music Charts, Music Videos and Artist Dashboard in Australia. As Nick Love the Executive Director, Business Development at MySpace explains “The launch of Music Videos, Music Charts and Artist Dashboard mark the next phase of the MySpace Music experience in Australia”.

The new products are:

MySpace Music Charts – www.myspace.com/music/charts

Give to the fans a true picture of artists and music popularity. This  barometer show what people are actually listening to. For the artists MySpace Charts show and labels useful information about what’s resonating with fans, tools to rank and track popularity, as well as insight into how their content is being socialised throughout MySpace. The new “Movers” section which gives an immediate view into who and what is trending up in music across MySpace.

MySpace Music Videos – www.myspace.com/music/videos

Offers fans one of the most comprehensive online collections of licensed music videos available anywhere on the web, music recommendations based on your friends, A to Z cataogue, following MySpace’s recent acquisition of iLike-  a leading social music discovery and sharing service- iLike now features and distributes MySpace’s music video catalogue within all partner websites

MySpace Artist Dashboard – www.myspace.com/music/dashboard

Is a free data dashboard for all artists and labels globally, that unlocks detailed analytics about an artist’s content within the MySpace Music and iLike communities. Give Unlimited access to charts, graphs, and snapshots of MySpace Music data for all global artist, data includes fan geography, song plays, profile views, friend count, and profile visitors, iLike integration into MySpace Artist Dashboard provides top-level data from iLike’s partner networks, Artist Dashboard is available in 17 languages in over 20 territories and fan demographic Information

MySpace Music offers a huge catalog of free audio and video content and user and artist playlisting. MySpace Music aims to empower  independent and unsigned artists by allowing the community stream content.  Over the last few months MySpace has unveiled a wave of global music partnerships with iLike and Google. Lately announced an agreement with leading independent music agency Merlin this week representing 10% of the global music market.

All these products can produce a revolution in the way that we listen music, Don’t miss the oportunity to try MySpace Charts, Music Videos and Dashboard from this week.

PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God from Frank Warren on Vimeo.

Great song from their new album, feel good. Enjoy.

개인적으로 뭔가 지식이 쌓여가고 공유하는 모습이 보기 좋아서 Wikipedia에 적지만 $5를 donation을 했었다. 공부하면서도 워낙 많이 쓰니까 donation을 해야할 것만 같다는 생각이 들어서 였을까?

한국 wikipedia는 자료가 그다지 많지 않지만 Englsih version의 wikipedia에는 정말 방대한 자료가 축적되어 있다. 심지어 reference도 세세하게 달려 있는 것을 보면 지식이라는 것을 하나의 재산권으로 확실히 인지하는 문화를 느낄 수 있고, 또한 실질 자료를 바탕으로 함으로써 독자에게 깊은 신뢰를 준다. 또한 적합한 경우에 누구나 edit할 수 있는 면은 wikipedia에 있어서 선구적이고 훌륭한 면이 아닌가 생각된다. 특히 wiki는 ‘참여(participate)’와 ‘자원(volunteer)’이 중요하기 때문에 이를 잘 이끌어 온 WIKI foundation과 많이 참여해 준 많은 필자들에게 박수를 보내지 않을 수 없다. 조만간 병리학 시험이 끝나는 대로 창립자(founder)인 Jimmy Wales에 대해 조사해서 적어보고자 한다.

Wikipedia의 창립자인 Jimmy Wales

멋진 것 같다. Freedom of information. 대학 시절 교양 시간에 들었던 정보의 불평등화 얘기가 갑자기 떠오른다.

이미지 출처:

http://magazine.continental.com/archive/images/2005_july/idea-makers/jimmy-wales.jpg

사실 이런 얘기를 하고 싶었던 것은 아니고 wikipedia가 좋아서 wikipedia가 바탕으로 하고 있는 Mediawiki의 Mediawiki를 Bitnami를 통해 개인 desktop wiki로 만들었다는 것을 얘기하고 싶었다. 중간에 고생도 꽤 했지만 인터넷을 찾아보면 생각보다 쉽게 구축할 수 있다. 개인적으로 devonthink pro 2.0을 쓰고 있는 터라 wiki의 link를 devonthink pro 2.0 item link를 통하여 정보를 축적해 갈 예정이다. 물론 wiki는 다수의 참여가 있을 때 가장 빛을 발하지만 개인적인 용도로 써도 크게 나쁘지는 않은 것이, 몇 번의 수정을 가하면 상당히 빠르고 애착이 가는 정보 센터를 구축할 수 있기 때문에 관심있는 사람이라면 시도해볼만 하다. 참고로 한글 검색을 하는 경우에 약간 문제가 있긴 하지만 (예를 들어 ‘지우개’를 검색한다고 했을 때 ‘우개’라고만 쓰면 search가 잘 안되는 것 같았다), 이를 감수하고 잘 조정해서 쓰면 충분히 멋진 개인 database를 구축할 수 있을 것 같다.

이제 만들어 놓은 모든 정보를 버리지 말고 저장하도록 하자!!!!

내가 직접 만든 wiki의 미숙한 모습이다.

클릭하면 크게 볼 수도 있다.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Apple and Lala have struck a deal.

Apple, which is in talks to acquire Lala, is unlikely offering much for the streaming-music service.

Sources with knowledge of the discussion told me that Apple is interested in bringing some of Lala’s engineers on board. According to the sources, Apple is impressed by Lala’s technology. The 4-year-old Lala scans users’ hard drives and creates a duplicate music library that they can access from Web-enabled devices. The company also sells songs for a dime each.

I posted a story on Friday about the acquisition talks. Apple declined to comment on “rumor and speculation” and a Lala spokesman did not respond to an interview request.

Over at The New York Times, Brad Stone posted a report citing sources who also said Apple had a special interest in obtaining Lala’s engineering talent. But the Times also added this:

“The talks (between Apple and Lala) originated when Lala executives concluded their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim,” Stone wrote. “(Lala) initiated discussions about a potential investment with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes.”

That Lala was struggling to turn a profit is consistent with the kind of bleak news that has come out of digital music the past year. Many of the newer and experimental business models, such as ad-supported music, have flopped. The only reasonable question now is how much longer will this shakeout continue?

We saw Ruckus falter and close in January. We saw SpiralFrog flameout spectacularly in March. In August, MySpace picked up iLike, and sources said that MySpace acquired Imeem last month, but the news has not been announced.

What seemed to be different about Lala is that the company had received positive reviews from the music labels for a long time. Executives at some of the biggest recording companies have told me in the past that they respected Lala’s management and its focus on the bottom line. This spring, label execs said they saw some encouraging signs after Lala had revamped the service for seemingly the umpteenth time. It initially made a name for itself by trying to enable users to swap CDs over the Internet. It never went anywhere.

Then came the announcement in October that Google would offer Lala’s music to users searching for information on music acts. That could mean a boon said some of the pundits. Apparently, by that time, Lala’s fate was sealed.

So, we’re kind of right back where we started. The only proven winners in digital music are Apple and download sales.

Michael Robertson, the serial entrepreneur and MP3.com founder, told me earlier this year that it doesn’t matter if Imeem, Lala, and their competitors went away because there is always a new crop of players longing to jump into the music industry. Read More….

TVB 42nd Anniversary Awards Ceremony. 

- My Favourite Female Character Award (for Yiu Kam Ling – Beyond the Realm of Conscience)

- Best Performance Award

Heh… Am happy that her hard work over the years have paid off and she is being recognised and rewarded. Granted I’m not a super die hard fan of hers, but I like her acting.