The print industry is in a rapid decline, online news is more popular than ever and  Rupert Murdoch is proposing making people pay for his online paper’s from next year.

Are we just waiting around for the end of print – or will Murdoch’s plan actually push people who are unwilling to pay for online news back to their newspaper?

Online news is growing rapidly but in a lecture with journalist Rob Andrew, editor of Paid Content.co.uk, it became clear that at the moment people are unwilling to pay for it. A yearly subscription to The Guardian can cost around £350 but in a recent PCUK/Harris Poll, it was found that only 5% of people asked were willing to pay to read news online.

Newspapers rely on advertising but unlike with online adverts – there is no guaranteed return – and more and more advertising companies are moving away from print for this reason.

Rob, worringly, but accurately, describes newspapers as being in a perilous state and compares this to the music industry.

Music is now accessible free online and the only way to make money from it is through live performances – as the experience of watching live music can’t be replicated online.  The industry tried to introduce copy protection to stop music being shared online but abandoned this after sites like Spotify and We7 have made music instantly available for free.

Newspapers are looking for a short-term answer to this crisis to appease shareholders but what they should be doing is finding a long-term solution.

Specialist papers like the Financial Times and European Wall Street Journal currently charge a subscription. The FT has 128,000 subscribers paying approximately £90 a year. I find it highly unlikely people will pay for The Sun, News of the World or even The Times – but Mighty Murdoch is dead set on introducing these charges and if they are no longer available in print form the only option may be to buy online.

Surely if one paper charges online, people will just go to a free newspaper’s site instead? It would be impossible to implement a pay wall system unless all the papers agreed to do this. People do not want to pay for online news and most public opinion polls go directly against Murdoch’s plans.

The Guardian has a different ownership model to papers in the Murdoch News International empire and this allows it to put more into being innovative and exploring and developing it’s online version.

The future of print is very uncertain – if Murdoch does introduce charges will other paper’s follow? or will this backfire completely and will people just go somewhere else for their news?

Today, we7 has released their radio service. You can start a radio station from either an Artist or a Genre, and listen to an endless stream of related content, all for free.

The only caveat is that, as it is a trial, you need to be a registered user to access the functionality, so if you haven’t already got a we7 account, register now!

You can start a radio by going to the we7 radio page, or by clicking the play button in the new headers on the Genre and Artist pages.

Conveniently, the if you start a radio station from an Artist, it (usually) starts with a track by that artist.

It’s also really flexible – if you like the song you’ve just heard, open your queue and click on the play button to listen to it again. You can also look ahead to the next couple of tracks and remove any that don’t appeal, from the same place.

You can also continue using the queueing options on the play buttons around the site – the radio station will continue after you have listened to your queued tracks.

To stop the radio station, either click the red ‘x’ in the radio bar at the bottom of your queue, or just click a play button to replace the radio with something else you want to listen to.

Let me know your impressions in the comments field below.

In questo blog ne ho parlato più volte… la pirateria è molto probabilmente destinata alla morte e non per i provvedimenti burocratici/legislastivi ma per i nuovi modelli di business (streaming su tutti) che stanno venendo fuori negli ultimi tempi.

A confermare tutto ciò ci pensa un articolo di ieri del Guardian dal titolo “The strange death of illegal downloading”.

“sta accadendo (la morte del download illegale) a causa di un esplosione di nuove aziende che offrono brani gratis, legalmente, che non costringono ad andare sui siti peer-to-peer, evitando così il rischio di brani fasulli o virus. Sempre più persone si affidano a queste aziende perchè è un modo molto più semplice di ascoltare musica”

“Spotify.com e We7.com, da soli hanno guadagnato almeno 5 milioni di nuovi utenti nel loro primo anno, soprattutto fra le persone che precedentemente scaricati illegalmente. Usano i cosiddetti “FREEmium” modelli di business che offre brani in streaming gratuitamente, se si accetta una pubblicità o per niente se sottoscrivere un abbonamento mensile”

“Steve Purdham, Il CEO di We7 chiama il suo modello “”better than free” (meglio che libero) perchè è più facile che scaricare illegalmente

Traduzido por Pablo Lopes Queiroz

Fonte: www.utalkmarketing.com

Rumores indicam que a gigante Google lançará um serviço similar ao iTunes, que integrará  os serviços de busca e música.

Fontes informaram que a Google já está, há algumas semanas, adquirindo direitos de conteúdo de grandes gravadoras, para o lançamento do serviço, o que afirmam tornar mais fácil encontrar, ouvir amostras e comprar músicas por meio do recurso de busca.

Usuários poderão adquirir as músicas disponibilizadas na página da Google ao clicar em um botão de “compra” e por meio de diversos sites, como a Amazon.com e a  iTunes Music Store da Apple.

Os serviços iLike e LaLa facilitarão o recurso a partir de 28 de outubro, informaram as fontes, que não obtiveram permissão para falar publicamente do serviço antes de seu lançamento.

O novo serviço envolverá as principais gravadoras de música do mundo, como a Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner e a EMI.

As gravadoras esperam que, ao facilitar a busca por músicas na web, possam também alavancar o mercado digital, atualmente dominado pelo iTunes que conta com 70% das vendas de download na rede.

Steve Purdham, CEO do we7, um dos sites mais acessados do Reino Unido, com 2,5 milhões de usuários mensais, disse que a proposta deve ser analisada com cuidado.

“O acesso à música on-line parece ser o ‘hit’ do momento e os jornais sempre abordam rumores como este, sobre um serviço de música da Google”, afirma Steve.

“Enquanto esse conceito é bastante discutido, muitas pessoas ainda evitam falar sobre a grande questão: isso reforçará o mercado? Tanto o MySpace Music, quanto o Imeem e o Spotify enfrentam os problemas da realidade econômica atual, em que a escala de valores não é a questão principal, mas sim a sustentabilidade econômica.”

Steve ainda disse, “o YouTube, por exemplo, ainda aguarda pelo retorno de lucros desde sua aquisição, pela Google, em 2006. Entretanto, o site continua a se expandir de forma rápida, anunciando recentemente que conta com mais de 1 bilhão de visualizações por dia”.

“A habilidade de expandir a plataforma de vídeo, em tal escala, ao menos por agora, e sem o desenvolvimento de um modelo de renda sustentável, tira o foco das inovações necessárias para transformar a internet em um ambiente corporativo favorável às diferentes mídias.”

Steve afirmou que o “Google Music” (ou “Google Audio” / “OneBox” como vem sendo chamado) seria ótimo para os consumidores, mas alerta, “o que a atual indústria fonográfica mais necessita no momento é  uma demonstração de que a economia pode funcionar”.

“O foco deve estar no pagamento de direitos autorais aos artistas, nas transparência do modelo e em sua sustentabilidade. Uma vez que isso aconteça, então as escalas de valores e as oportunidades poderão ocorrer de forma positiva”, ele conclui.

“A we7, com um bom amparo das gravadoras, construiu um importante serviço de distribuição on-line de conteúdo e atingiu o primeiro lugar como um dos sites de música mais acessados do Reino Unido, com 2,5 milhões de usuários mensais, e nosso foco está no modelo de trabalho baseado em anúncios publicitários.”

NOTAS DO TRADUTOR:

• O evento de apresentação do serviço se chamará “Discover Music!”.
• Informações adicionais sobre as músicas (títulos, bio, artistas, CDs) serão fornecidas pelo serviço.
• O novo serviço da Google será integrado ao já conhecido serviço de busca da companhia.
• O sistema de busca de músicas será bastante similar ao padrão de busca da Google.
• O ILike foi recém adquirido pelo MySpace, portanto é provável que o novo serviço da Google envolva ambos os sites.
• Os usuários poderão fazer o stream de músicas direto do Google e por meio de seus parceiros ILike e Lala.
• Tanto o serviço ILike quanto o Lala fornecem o stream limitado de músicas.
• Por meio do Lala, usuários podem fazer o stream da música apenas uma vez, após esse processo o usuário  poderá comprar a música ou a acessar por apenas 30 segundos.
• Já no ILike, algumas músicas estão disponíveis (completas) para streaming e outras contam apenas com 30 segundos de acessibilidade.
• O MySpace Music possui os direitos totais de streaming de todo o conteúdo disponibilizado no site (por meio das principais gravadoras).

The other day I stumbled upon this article.  A little bit like the Radiohead endeavour, Tommy Lee and his producer Scott Humphrey decided to collaborate with the fans in creating a new album.

As a producer, Humphrey is responsible for making business choices related to the creation of new music that will benefit the artist.  It was interesting to hear Humphrey say that in a meeting he heard words like web 2.0 and interactivity.  As he said, he didn’t see these things happening in his business, so he decided to take the plunge into web 2.0 and ask Tommy to create an album with the fans.

It is awesome to see artists understand social media’s importance and using it to their advantage.  And social media ideas like Tommy Lee’s really do help an artist.  When one of the collaborators makes it onto the CD, you know that person will run out to buy it.

CD sales experienced a 15% decrease in 2008 alone, so understanding how to get your music sold is crucial.  Artists need to sell CDs to be successful.  We will have to see if Humphrey’s collaboration idea helps sell this album for Tommy Lee.

All of this is well and good, but let me play devil’s advocate for a moment.  In 2008, 95% of music downloaded was pirated.  Will incentives like actually being on an album really influence people to buy music?  It seems people today want music for free and artists want to be paid, so where is the happy medium?

Gareth Reakes tried to find this balance with We7:

The problem of online music might have begun with Napster in 1999, but it continues today as artists, producers, and record labels decide what can be done.

Social media initiatives like creating an album with the fans, or connecting on a personal level through a blog or Twitter, could really help an artist sell records.  By having fans who feel connected on a personal level, they might feel more obligated to go out and buy a CD (support the artist) rather than downloading it illegally.  Just a thought.

A new We7 Scrobbler update has been released!

Twitter user and We7 Scrobbler fan Babs_05 discovered that playing the same song multiple times only scrobbled once. So I’ve fixed it.

I also took the opportunity to implement Libre.fm support. To enable it, you’ll need to edit the source and change the line

'config' : lastfm, to 'config' : librefm,

EDIT: I’ve taken out the libre.fm support to hopefully resolve some issues with scrobbling. Hopefully I can add this back soon. Feel free to keep using the existing script if you’re a libre.fm user and it works for you. (Fiddle the version number at the bottom of your existing script to ‘1.5.6′ to supress the update prompt).

In other news, we7 has the exclusive first play of Muse’s new album The Resistance! Have a listen by clicking the button below:

Muse – The Resistance

Spotify iPhone App

Fatto inusuale da parte di Apple annunciare la disponibilità di un nuovo applicativo per iPhone di terze parti, ma nel caso di Spotify l’attesa era evidente.

Dopo settimane di speculazione, Apple ha ufficialmente approvato l’applicativo che si appresta a fare il suo esordio su iTunes Store. Per Spotify si tratta di un ottimo colpo, dopo aver fatto circolare un video di un’applicazione ancora in fase beta qualche mese fa. L’applicativo è un’ottima risorsa per portare nuovi abbonati (il servizio premium di Spotify ha un costo di 9,99£ al mese) e sicuramente un grandissimo stimolo per tutti gli operatori coinvolti con il business dello streaming musicale (We7, Napster, Rhapsody, iMeem, per citarne alcuni).

]]> http://misskarolina.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/f-r-e-d-a-g/ Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:16:54 +0000 K http://misskarolina.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/f-r-e-d-a-g/

Idag är det fredag.

Klockan har klämtat hemgång. Men jag sitter kvar. Lyssnar på R.E.M på we7.com.

Ögonen hänger på halv stång. Ber om vila. Träningsvärken från tisdagens monsterlöprunda har nästan släppt  helt. Dags att byta ut mot nytt efter en runda på gymet imorgon.

Daniella och jag är hemma själva lördag till söndag. Det blir runda till Teddington för att lämna papper till mäklaren.

Dejten igår var mysig och trevlig. Det finns förhoppningar om fortsättning, men som vanligt återstår det att se. Största nackdelen med dating, inga raka puckar. Bara slöa puckar som går i den riktning de känner för.

Om två veckor är jag i Sverige. Om två veckor har jag en ledig vecka att se fram emot efter Sverigebesöket.

Publunch med Gemma idag. Catch up lunch date. Bartendern jobbade. Jag behöll mitt lugn. Förvandlades inte till pink jelly fluff. Min blick söktes inte åt hans håll så fort jag såg honom i rörelse. Jag var förvånad. Gemma var förvånad. Ingen av oss såg det komma. Men båda hurrade och applåderade min förändring. To ourselves.

Snart hemfärd. Jag och Rose. Mot Sherwoodskogen. Mot solnedgången. In i dimman. Upp på taket. Dansa, dansa. Sansa stilen våldtäktsman.

Ta-ta

The news that Spotify’s mobile app is now available for the Android platform, coupled with an anticipated Autumn US launch, are both part of the music service’s inexorable rise and media interest.  Spotify undoubtedly has momentum and potential in abundance.  But, even without considering the issue of cash burn, it is also important to keep a sense of scale. Spotify has done a great job of acquiring a sizeable audience after a short period of time, but needs many users more before it can be considered on a par with some more established services that get a lot less attention (these days at any rate).

In the chart below I have mapped the number of users of Spotify and a number of other key free music services, each from launch.  What is clear is that Spotify has made a solid start is growing at a stronger rate than Pandora was at the same stage.  If Spotify ever reaches Pandora’s scale and business model viability, it will rightly be considered a success.

But it is also clear that other services like Last.FM and imeem grew more quickly.  And just to put the absolute scale of Spotify into perspective, the Pandora iPhone app alone is mapping almost exactly in line with Spotify’s entire user base. (No coincidence of course that Spotify see the iPhone app as a crucially important ticket to further success).

So what can we conclude from these numbers?

• Extrapolating Spotify’s early user growth suggests that if it is sustained it could reach the 20-30 million user range within 2 years
• A US launch will significantly accelerate audience growth (all of the other services mapped here have US reach.  imeem and Pandora have reached their scale in the US alone)
• Spotify will need to accelerate its revenue model maturation if it is going to be able to sustain this projected level of growth.

The last point is key. All of the other services in the chart have had to deal with the challenge of audience cost sustainability:

• imeem has had well publicized financial difficulties with WMG writing off millions of debt
• Last.FM recently closed its free service to countries it couldn’t operate in profitably
• Pandora closed its non-US operations when it couldn’t strike deals with rights owners that would enable it to operate profitably in international markets.  Pandora has long focused on building financially sustainable audiences, a strategy echoed by We7 in the UK.

Spotify has run a fast first lap, but it is a very, very long race.

Which online music service is offering a compelling product that users want to engage with? The answer it appears, is Spotify. A simple Google trends comparison demonstrates that whilst other major music streaming services such as We7, Last.fm and Grooveshark have had a consistent level of interest over the last 12 months, Spotify is running away with the public’s imagination.

It is interesting to see that searches for Last.fm have very slowly declined, but that searches for We7 and Grooveshark had improved significantly since this time last year.

There are probably several reasons for this:

Public awareness of the availability of free, legal online music to listen to may be starting to hit the mainstream and ordinary Internet users.

Spotify is getting people interested in the different options available, so they/we are trying out different services to see which one suits us.

Last.fm has had run ins with the RIAA, so users are slowly turning to alternative solutions.

What is clear though, is that interest in Spotify shows no sign of abating and the freemium business model has captured the public’s imagination. This has of course been stoked to boiling point with news of an iPhone app, reported on many blogs over the last few weeks.

The chance to listen to music on the move through Spotify is exciting the legions of iPhone users, who although only make up 10% of the overall mobile handset market, are set to grow over the next 18 months.

With expectations of a possible java app also brewing, Spotify will be available to users of mid to low end handsets too, something iTunes does not address, making it a potential mobile super app.

Spotify is innovating and has the potential to be the next element of Internet lexicon to become widely used as a verb – think Google or Tweet – a sign that it may just be one of the most important evolutions in the consumption of online media yet.

Spotify is certainly the darling of the moment.  In the close to a decade that I’ve been covering the digital music space for Jupiter, and now Forrester, I have seen oh so many services come and go.  I’ve seen far fewer grab the limelight and hold it in the way Spotify is currently doing so.  In fact the only other digital music service that has ever sustained the same pulling power as Spotify is Apple’s iTunes.  And of course there is a lot of talk about whether Spotify is an ‘iTunes Killer’.  (For the record I don’t think the comparison is a valid one, rather that Spotify is a complementary addition to an increasingly complex digital music marketplace.  But I’ll park that discussion for another day.)

The Financial Times today ran a story about Spotify being close to securing substantial extra funding, and I for one hope they secure it: the music industry needs Spotify to get a decent shot at being a success.  It’s no secret that ad-supported music services have numerous challenges, not least a softening ad market.  It’s equally no secret that Spotify needs to make its premium business a success.  But building the ad business and the premium revenues will both take time.  Until those are fixed every new user for Spotify is cost to the bottom line.  So it would be a real shame for Spotify to have to put the brakes on its audience acquisition given that they have that most sought after of dynamics: momentum.

At the same time however, I think it is important to put Spotify’s nascent European adventure into perspective.  Spotify itself is not about to become ‘the future of the music industry’ but it does stand a decent chance of being one of the first truly mass market online services.

As you can see from the chart below, Spotify’s user base growth is impressive.  (It is important to clarify that the current European user number is the 4 million as shown in the chart, not the 6 million reported elsewhere.  Spotify clarified to me that those 6 million numbers are not correct and are ‘unsubstantiated’).

But just what does 4 million really represent?  Well across the 6 European markets Spotify is available in (Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain) it represents 3 percent of all Internet Users and in the UK it represents 5 percent.  Those may not sound particularly high but are impressive given that the service only launched 9 months ago and only formally came out of invite stage this year.  By way of comparison it took Pandora a year to reach 1.7 million users, representing 1 percent of US Internet users.

So it is clear that Spotify has momentum.  But it is too early to say that it is a success.  Pandora now has 30 million users and its iPhone app users alone out number total Spotify users by more than a million.  Also, there are plenty of streaming music services with many more users, such as imeem (25 million in March),  Last.FM (20 million in March) and iLike (30 million in March).  Spotify has some distance to go before it reaches the levels of those services, none of which are being talked about as the future of the music industry…at least not anymore.

And there lies the rub.  Each of those services had their time in the spotlight.  For a while each was seen as the shape of the future.  They still have plenty to offer, but the attention has shifted elsewhere, due in no small part to the fact that their user growth reached a plateau in the 15-20 million range.

To build upon its great start and be a long-term success Spotify needs to do three things:

1. Break through the 15-20 million user bar like Pandora did
2. Convert roughly 5 percent of its user base to premium offerings
3. Build a sustainable ad business that helps shoulder the cost of its free users

Launching in the US and having its iPhone app approved by Apple would both be great ways of moving towards achieving those three aims.

Spotify has made a great start but it hasn’t even finished the first lap yet.  Here’s hoping that they’ll have made more substantial progress before the backlash begins.  Because one thing my years of market watching have taught me is that the higher a service is built up, the farther it has to fall when it is pushed off the top by many of the very same people that put them there.

Music streaming is, we are told, booming. Spotify and, to a lesser extant, Last.fm have so far grabbed most of the headlines, but they’re not alone and any one of the music streaming services now available would have blown my teenage mind apart.

Combined with something like Amazon recommendations they’re a fantastic way of discovering new music. Allowing you to live with songs and albums before making up my mind to buy them.

I regularly visit Spotify and Last.fm, and recently checked out We7. It’s interesting how differently they come across and the variety in their functionality, given that all three are just music streaming services.

For my ‘money’ (as I use the free – but not ad-free – version), Spotify is the best of the lot. Overhyped, to some extent. But it’s like having a giant iTunes library and then having to choose everything you listen to. I know – oh, the hardship. Still, that’s no recommendations, no Genius function, no shuffling your library.

Last.fm on the other hand is predominantly random. Often it’s spot on. You pick an artist you like and get related tracks. However, tt doesn’t distinguish between album tracks and live cuts, which can be confusing.

There are a range of further options. By signing up you can allow it to collect all the tracks you like or dislike and use it to refine the related tracks it provides. There’s even an application to download that can pick up everything you listen to on your iPod. More than that, it collects these tracks in your ‘library’, which you can choose to listen to on random. It’s a very internet-driven bargain: take my user data, keep it for your market research, but provide me with a personal, refined, targeted service in return.

As for wanting to be your friend, there are also a range of community add-ons – listen to your ‘neighbourhood’, comment boxes on every track, but these do nothing for me.

And if Last.fm wants to be your friend We7 wants to be a shop. I’ve not used it much yet, but first impressions are very much of the ‘listening posts’ music shops sometimes still have in between the computer game display, where the customer is allowed to listen to the shop’s choice of albums. Why a shop? Well, it just feels like an Amazon or HMV, but with full length tracks the way it’s set out. It is also the most upfront one about its commercial imperative. Still, it is refreshingly easy to use. Click on a track and up it comes, no registration or other hurdles.

Ultimately, having any of these services as a teenager would have made that music obsessive indie kid very happy indeed.’So, you mean I can listen to any music I like? For free?’ Think of all the seminal bands I could have checked out. Mind you, who in the ’90s indie scene wasn’t “seminal”.

But they’re never going to replace iTunes until they’ve got a all encompassing range and until they can be used with a mobile basis. The range is already impressive, but I like to be pretty picky sometimes. My personal test is whether they have anything by Grant Hart. All three look to fall down here, lacking either the former Husker Du drummer’s solo albums or the band ones with Nova Mob, but then again I haven’t seen anything from him in a bricks and mortar shop since the mid-1990s. Mind you, Last.fm get’s bonus points for knowing who he is (recommendations just now included Sugar, Husker Du and Paul Westerberg, so not bad).

So they’re not the second coming, but they do seem to be the future of music consumption. Afterall, why should I buy an album without knowing what it sounds like, without being able to test-drive it first.

What albums wouldn’t you have bought given that choice?

Since I am unable to get an audio player working on the blog and I really want to make a playlist I’ve decided to make use of we7 . The playlist I created has a selection of  ’songs for life’ -  ones I have loved a long time- and some new music that’s caught my ear.Hope you like.

George Kranz fans will be delighted to know George gave an interview before his first cross-over concert, “Din Daa Daa George Classical”, with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra in Berlin, Germany April 2009. See previous post for more info and tracklist Here !

To read George’s interview in full, see link below!!

Pictures from the cross-over concert “Din Daa Daa Goes Classical” – George Kranz performing with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, Berlin, Germany, April 2009.

Photo by Geh.

Photo by JAS

Read George’s interview in full (English translated) from his official website HERE !

Listen to George Kranz’s music from previous albums below!

Check Out George Kranz new album Deutsche Lieder 2008.

George Kranz’s first album – My Rhythm 1984

George Kranz’s project for the Grips Theater as composer, writer, and producer- Linie 1 The Musical 1986

See past George Kranz posts for more albums and info – click on the tiles/links below!

George Kranz’s Jazz band 3 + 1 website + Din Daa Daa Goes Classical

LINKS

George Kranz Official Website:
http://www.george-kranz.de/

3 + 1 Official Website – English translated:
http://www.drei-music.com/

3 + 1 Official Myspace Page:
http://www.myspace.com/dreipluseins

Schöneweile Official MySpace Page:
http://www.myspace.com/schoeneweile

Author: http://knightgrooves.wordpress.com/

Портал We7 позволяет бесплатно прослушивать музыкальный контент мейджор-лейблов и многих независимых лейблов.  После регистрации, вам откроется дополнительный бонус в виде плейлистов, которые возможно расшаривать другим пользователям .

В базе We7 доступны многие популярные исполнители:  La Roux, Lady Gaga, Dizzee Rascal, Fleet Foxes, Don Williams, Calvin Harris, Abba, Kings Of Leon, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Frankmusik, Kasabian, Deadmau5, The Killers, James Last и др.

Лубую понравившийся трек можно купить прямо на сайте.

Но не обошлось и без минусов. Зачастую  наиболее популярные треки, доступны только в виде 30 секундных превью, а перед каждым полным треком играет небольшой рекламный ролик.

ReadWriteWeb just posted a list of 18 music streaming services. Good list, though it is missing a few subscription based services (like Rhapsody) and services that are well known within certain territories (like We7 in the UK). It also doesn’t make a differentiation between the licensed services (legal) and the more questionable services.

An article in the Guardian on Sunday reports on a study by the guys at Music Ally which says that music streaming has paved the way for an increase in sales and a drop in illegal filesharing

The key points:

a) 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month this January, against 42% in December 2007

b) 65% of teenagers are streaming music regularly

c) 31% of 14 to 18 year olds listen to streamed music on their computer every day

d) 19% of music fans are buying single track downloads

e) 17% of music fans are illegally using filesharing platforms

According to the BPI, digital singles were up 41.5% in 2008, while physical singles sales plunged 43.5%, a good demonstration that music is alive and well.

This is interesting timing following the news last week that the BPI and Virgin will begin contacting people suspected of filesharing and last month’s Digital Britain report which outlined planjs to give Ofcom an increased role in preventing filesharing.

Indeed, earlier this year, in agreement seemingly with this new report, RIAA and IFPI research showed that only 10% of all illegal downloads are considered to be a loss in sales. This with the admission that the BPI got it wrong over Napster would indicate that there is a U-turn in the offing.

So where do you think the likes of Spotify, Last.FM and We7 will fit into the next BPI report, and how will these services affect music downloads over the next 12 months?

It’s taken a bit longer for we7 to announce the winner of week 2 of the ME7 competition (and then a bit longer still for me to notice), but this week’s winner is week 1’s runner up, Daniel Smith! I’m guessing that as Dan’s playlist got significantly more plays than last week, and a bunch more than the 2nd place playlist, there was a bit more behind-the-scenes investigating going on before they confirmed him as the winner. That, or the excitement of the competition has worn off a bit after the drama the first week. But either way, congratulations Dan on winning £1000!

He won with a different playlist than he came second with last time, so must really have made a huge effort to share the new playlist with everyone, and not rely on the momentum from the previous week’s effort.

There’s still time to enter this week’s competition, and remember that any playlist entered gets automatically entered into the final week, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Check out http://www.we7.com/competition/me7 for all the instructions, including how to create, enter and share your playlist.

Last week saw the inaugural TechCrunch Europe Awards – baptised the Europas – announce its shortlist and winners. Judging by all the tweets on the day, it sounded like a great bash. I really need to go next year!

The thing that struck me most was the success of entertainment-based services (Spotify, Songkick, Songcloud are just three examples) and specifically the adulation that Spotify received. They were the clear winners on the night. I love seeing European companies getting traction and being rewarded for their success, however, I am a little perplexed that a service like Spotify, which is ultimately just another way of streaming content, had so much success. There is a real question mark over the long term viability of any content delivery service that doesn’t own its content – no matter how brilliantly intuitive or designed it is (and Spotify is both!).

My belief is the future will see us all have access to any music and video, any where and at any time. And the beauty (for consumers) and problem (for content services) with this is that if we can easily access all music on Spotify and We7 and Last.fm and any other newcomer in this space, what stops me from jumping from one to the other depending on what’s cheapest or coolest or best integrated? It’s not like you loose all of your music if you move to the next coolest music or video service, so what is it that keeps me there?

Last.fm developed a music social network, We7 have been attracting users by hosting exclusive content for a limited period and Spotify have focused on the simplicity of their UI and quality of the files. But is this enough to keep the technophile music fans from jumping ship next time another service launches?

Every week there’s a news alert about ‘ad funded music services’ Spotify or We7 reaching new milestones for user numbers. Last week Spotify announced 2 million UK users, this week it’s We7’s turn to announce 2 million unique users.

I am chuffed to bits to see two European-based music businesses growing so rapidly. These guys have clearly demonstrated that there is a demand for free (and legal) music which is effortlessly available on the web/desktop. This demand will ultimately lead to us having access to all entertainment content at any time on any device. There are still many distribution, rights and business model issues that need to be sorted before this happens, but it will happen.

So, once digital distribution has been sorted, the businesses that will thrive will be those who have also sussed out digital demand. In a world where everything is available to everybody at any time and on any device, demand is no longer based on what is available, but on what content is most relevant to us at that specific time. We will need smart filters that serve up relevant content to us based on location, time, entourage, past activity, tastes and mood.

That is why I am so excited about the work that my team is doing at The Filter. For the last 5 years we have been developing recommendation and relevance technologies for all types of digital content that use multiple inputs (consumption data, meta data, location, time zone, social data, etc…) to build models that enable us to work out the probability of what content goes with what situation – by using behaviour and mashing it up with meta data to provide a user with the most relevant content possible for them.

I am very proud that we have proven beyond any doubt that providing users with relevant choices of content leads to an increase in consumption per visit AND an increase in the number of visits because the user finds more content that they like at each visit. Over the last 12 months partners that use The Filter on their sites have seen uplifts in consumption of 15-20% based on increases in streams per visit and visits per week. And for us, it is just the start. As we get access to more data (using location on mobiles) and fine tune our engines, technologies like this will provide better content choices to individuals leading to more consumption.

Check out the debut album from VV Brown, her from those awesome video banners a while back,  ‘Travelling Like Light’ streaming free on we7 as of now, ahead of Monday’s official release.

Splendid.