Category Archives: Music 3.0

Public Domain Day

Public Domain Day is January 1st of every year and celebrates the moment when copyrights expire. Films, photos, books and music become "free as the air to common use" if their copyrights are finished, and they then become part of our common culture. ...

MP3 Players Are Dead

What was once a hot business sector now looks to be going the way of the CD player and cassette deck as sales for MP3 players have plummeted over the last year. Although that part of the electronics business is still a somewhat signifanct revenue str...

When A Label Just Doesn’t Get It

When it comes to major labels, some are much hipper than others. Warner Music Group (WMG) has always been thought of as pretty progressive in terms of keeping up and buying into the latest technology, but that doesn't mean that all departments get it...

The Shattered Hit Record Model

We've all heard the complaints about the current Music 3.0 music industry model: physical product doesn't sell anymore, download sales don't make up for the shortfall, and streaming music cannabalizes sales and pays a pittance in royalties. Then...

4 Rules For Crowdfunding

Here's a post from a couple of years ago that I thought I'd repost, given the every increasing interesting in crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is becoming a popular way to finance a recording project, thanks to sites like Kickstarter, MyBandStock...

What Sony/ATV’s Direct Negotiation With iTunes Means

In a move that may signal a change in the way business is done in the music industry, music publisher Sony/ATV Music will soon negotiate directly with iTunes, Amazon and every other online music distributor directly. In effect, they're cutting o...

The Label Implications Of Neil Young’s New Pono Music Service

As you may or may not know, Neil Young gave a brief peak at his new Pono high-resolution music service last week on the Letterman Show (see below). Young, who has railed against the quality of MP3s for years, wants to bring audiophile quality to c...

What Is A Brand?

Whenever I speak at a college, I always ask the audience what their brand is. I usually get a blank stare back. Now I totally agree that business terms like "brand" will make a musician's eyes glaze over faster than an air guitar contest, but it's imp...

Neilsen Says Music Discovery Still Led By Radio

In a new report by Nielsen called Music 360, most people still discover their music most frequently from radio, but teens listen to music through YouTube more than any other source. Among the other findings is that 36% of teens have bought a CD in th...

7 Ways To Improve Your Site’s Navigation

One of the main premises of my Music 3.0 book is that your website should be the center of your online universe, not Facebook, ReverbNation, Ning, Tumblr or any social network. The reason why is that you control everything about your website, where ...