The Future
The Game Has Changed
The future economy is yours for the taking no matter how small you may be. As we keep on saying here at RMXPLAY, technology has changed the Game. The small players now have an equal footing with the big corporate players. In the music industry this is already prevalent with independent artists such as Ronald Jenkees amassing hundreds of thousands of fans and over 10 million views on YouTube without any major label backing.
Indeed, the Game has changed. And what excites us the most is the fact that we are approaching a point where the corporates will no longer have monopolies all to themselves. Instead, we will have millions of quasi-monopolies, created by you and me, to cater to millions of niches across the world. eBay does exactly this. Take away the sellers who cover just about any product you could think of, and eBay has no business.
Music Industry Effects
Musicians are in a great industry because it is already experiencing the above trend at full speed. The small players, you and me, we have an opportunity to create great products and sell them to people all over the world without any great barriers. The big players also have an excellent opportunity. By adopting the Long Tail principle as Amazon and eBay have done, they too can reap the rewards of this trend.
Instead of signing a huge act for £1 million, the majors could sign 100 smaller acts who cater to various smaller niches and groups in the market. Independent musicians on the other hand should find their niche and focus on that as opposed to attempting to please every one. Trust me, out of 1 billion people, no matter how niche your music is, there will be a group of people that appreciate it. There is a niche for everything!
The Future
In 20th century and before, people only trusted the large corporations because they were the only ones that had the capital required to deliver superior quality. Today, armed with an SLR camera and a copy of photoshop, you can create magazine quality prints in your bedroom; armed with a macbook and GarageBand, can create radio quality music; armed with an HD camcorder and iMovie, can create broadcast quality video. Superior quality can indeed be attained from home. This is the future.
So what?
The result of the above is the content outburst we are experiencing (Youtube, Flickr, Digg). This outburst has contributed to a new emerging trend; the need to “discover & share”. People more than ever, want something unique, something not so common. Something that no one has heard of but of which they can then take pride in “sharing” and being the “discoverer” of. This could be a quirky indie tv show like Awesome Town or a brilliant mashup of music by an unheard of musician in Israel (Kutiman).
The future is here and if you have something that is not only quality (because we have plenty of that now) but is also captivating, your idea or product/service spread like wild fire as a result of this emerging trend - “discovering & sharing”. All without need for a huge corporate arm to push and market it.
featured picture by sparktography
