As a regular user of music streaming services such as last.fm, I have been generally impressed with the capabilities of these services. There’s one thing, though, that’s been playing on my mind recently: none of the existing services (including Pandora, Spotify, last.fm and others) are quite right.
What do I mean by this? Well, a quick perusal of music streaming communities makes this apparent. There has been a lot of discussion recently about last.fm’s move to a subscription-based model in territories outside the US, UK and Germany. Couple this with complaints about Spotify’s lack of community and the obvious lack of services like Pandora outside of the US, and it should be clear that current services are not meeting consumer needs.
So, in this series of blog posts I’ll be setting out what I’ve discovered about this complex and transitional online sector and taking a look at how a better music streaming service might take shape. To make a short digression, I won’t be asking questions about the difficult legal status of music streaming in different territories, or about how the low barrier of entry for music streaming services influences the sector. The reason for this is that there is just too much information out there, and much of it is inaccessible to those outside the concerned companies.
What we will talk about, however, is what music streaming services can do to meet consumer needs, while taking in to account constraints such as legacy systems and shifting licensing methods. What I’m really getting at is all the aspects of a complete service that meets the needs of consumers are already available. Yet there is no single service that combines these aspects successfully.
In the next couple of blog posts, then, I’ll be looking at consumer expectation and how this might be met by a music service combining the best aspects of what is already available from existing services.
Is that the sound of a can of worms being opened I hear ?
This is a fasinating and complex area.
From talking to folk within these companies, one reason for them moving to a subscription model is that, in certain countries they just can’t get the business drivers to work. IE. Members listen but then don’t buy from affiliates returning money to the subscription service.
One issue to think about is streaming v’s download models. The download model is begining to make ground because when a network – either home broadband or moble – drops out or buffers, streaming becomes broken from the user point of view.
Download such as ‘Comes with Music’ means as long as you can stay connected long enough to get the song, then you can play it as much as you like.
The other issue I would be interested to hear you discuss is the artists point of view. No surprise here for anyone who knows me.
Some streaming services have onerous terms and conditions for artsits who upload music in the hope of gaining an audience. If the service T & C’s hurt the artist and there fore the development of new talent, does it really work for the subscriber.
Again many services have chosen to work with major labels. Understandable as dealing with the thousands of independants would be a nightmare. They respond to the independant sector by saying ‘ work with us via an agregator’ however again the terms of these contracts can be onerous for new and emerging artists.