Mobile Games - another saviour of the music industry?

Ever since the spectre of digital music began to haunt the music industry, any number of saviours have stepped forward to try to halt the loss of earnings felt as a result of illegal downloading. We've had the 360 degree record contract, social media, streaming and even the return of vinyl.  With the announcement that Taylor Swift has signed a deal to launch a mobile game, there's a sense that the music industry is likely to be rescued by a band of heroes as opposed to a singular figure.

Pop stars having mobile games makes a lot of sense; you can license your music for use in the game, promote yourself to a young, growing audience and create easy, click through sales opportunities.  However, it may not all be plain sailing, as documented by Perez Hilton, Katy Perry's first attempt at a game wasn't so successful and reminds us that quality can still count when it comes to attracting an audience.  Perhaps the most important point here, though, is that only a very few music artists will have the audience appeal necessary for a games company to want to do a deal with them.  It's not like games developers are going to be rushing to sign up artists from indie labels - though I would love to be proved wrong on this one.

U2 and Apple - the story that keeps on giving

There's a wealth of stuff available on this story.  This image highlights lots of the issues that can be found in U2's decision to release their new album for free through iTunes.

#Music

If you want a highly contemporary example to illustrate how digital technology allow the audience to personalise their music experience and artists to promote their music for free, look no further than Twitter's new music service #Music.  You can read a simple explanation of how it works - recommends music to the user based on who they follow on Twitter - by reading this BBC News article.  Alternatively, you can get a more in depth analysis of how it will benefit everyone - Twitter, the music industry, artists and the audience - on the Wired website. Here's a short extract from the Wired article to illustrate the promotional benefits of the service:
"It’s a smart play to get more musicians to become more active on Twitter. Let’s say you are Lady Gaga. When your new single drops, you can now use Twitter Music to send it out to every one of your 36 million followers–and they can play it without even leaving Twitter, thanks to Twitter Cards. Her followers can retweet that, effectively amplifying your 36 million strong following by an order of magnitude. Because website can embed tweets, complete with media, news organization and bloggers can take the original Tweet and drop it in a story so people can play the track all across the Web. And if enough people Tweet it, that song hits the Popular tracks page. Which means even more people hear it. It’s an upward spiral You can also imagine what happens to the obscure artist if a Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber tweets one of their new tracks. It’s got amazing viral possibilities that are great for artists, which means they’re more likely to be active on Twitter. And as it turns out, musicians are one of Twitter’s more vital assets."

Big Four Reach For The Sky

Sony have announced the latest attempt to combat illegal downloading - Music Unlimited.  The UK version launched just before Christmas and it is now being made available across Europe and later in the US.  The service allows users to access music by Sony artists, and those signed to the other big four including EMI, which is stored using Cloud technology.  This means that once you are signed up to the service - which costs a fee (the basic costing £3.99) you can access the music on a variety of devices, from PS3s to mobile phones.  It offers the user the benifits of personalisation and mobility and, what many may see as, affordability. It will be a a rival to serives like Spotify, which also streams music.  It's another example of the big music groups trying to do things in-house, allowing them to have more control over the supply chain, reduce cost and increase profits. 

Read the article from the Guardian (click on the link embedded in the title) and ask yourself how this announcement offers further examples of the synergies created by Sony Music being part of a conglomerate.