The past decade was transformative for music consumption. Much of the nation moved to digital music, where they could download songs with just a click and store thousands of them on a single device (oh, and they could easily steal digital music too). The next decade looks to be equally as transformative, one where consumers will move to streaming music delivered from the cloud. They’ll do so in order to easily listen to music on any of their devices.
At the dawn of the last decade, the digital formats like mp3 were just emerging. Early adopters saw the opportunity to better utilize their existing music collection and a better way to find and listen to new music. Even before Apple’s iPod launch, these users were ripping hundreds of their CDs, downloading new music with peer-to-peer applications, and moving them to digital devices. Apple saw a way to make the same behaviors easier and a way to monetize them. And of course, the rest is history – most of digital music we consume today lives in the iTunes/iPod world.
While this was going on, a number of start-ups envisioned an even better way to consume digital music - to centralize it in the cloud and stream it to devices. New ventures like Listen.com (now Rhapsody), MusicNet, and Pressplay (now Napster) built subscription music services that gave users rights to much more music, eliminated the hassle of managing music on their PC, and streamed it all directly from the Internet. But there was one big problem. Users couldn’t listen to music where they wanted it most – on their portable device, through their home audio system, and in their car. We weren’t in a connected world then, so these streaming solutions were heavily tethered to the PC.
At the dawn of this new decade, we’re moving swiftly into a fully connected world. Within the home, Wi-Fi home networks have reached mass adoption. Outside the home, smart phones have connected people to all of their favorite Internet applications. For the car, OEM automotive suppliers like Visteon have already built connected dashboard devices via 4G. The consumer electronic industry is standing by and ready to connect every device imaginable. At CES last week, manufacturers demonstrated a proliferation of TVs, tablets, netbooks, radios, automotive dashboards, etc. with apps like Netflix, Pandora, Facebook, and Twitter. This connectivity will be the catalyst for moving music from the PC and portable devices up to the cloud. When gadget hungry users go to connect all of the new devices they’ve bought, they’ll get frustrated with challenges in accessing their iTunes music and look for new music services the fill the void. The generation of Milleniums that never ripped CDs will find it ridiculous to manage music on their PC and obvious to centralize it in the cloud.
The most innovative music players have already responded. The recent generation of music start-ups; like MOG, Lala, and iLike; all center their music in the cloud. Lala, for example, encourages you to upload all of your music and stream it. They allow you to buy the right to stream a song, in addition to offering downloads. Universal and Google have partnered to launch Vevo, a new music video service that streams its content. Never before have so many music videos been at the fingertips of so many consumers. Most significantly, Apple just acquired Lala, a move that paints a picture of where the digital music leader is going. You can envision them moving all iTunes music to the cloud and distributing it to all of these new connected devices.
I just got a Logitech SqueezeBox Wi-Fi Radio for Christmas. What a great product! It took me no more than five minutes to connect it to my home network and set it up with Pandora music. It’s only a matter of time before all the music I uploaded to Lala will play on this thing. When that happens, the existing iTunes/iPod way of listening to music will be outdated. And my guess is - we’ll be well on our way to the world of streaming music.
