Music Distribution & Sales

There are a lot of naysayers around the music industry who are saying that giving away music for free does not help out the artists who are being distributed.  Last night, this new ecosystem of distribution and sales worked perfectly.

On Facebook, I registered for the Apple group as I'm a loyal Apple fan and I've been given the ability to download the iTunes/Facebook compilations.  I downloaded Compilation #3 not knowing most of the artists and I really dug Rocky Votolato, Mew, Boy Kill Boy, Mae, and The Go! Team.  I have since begun purchasing their albums directly off of iTunes.

This isn't the first time it's happened to me but digital distribution is transforming the way that I find and purchase music.  Facebook/iTunes recommended these artists to me and had I not joined the Apple group, I probably would never have heard about any of these artists until one or two of them had broke thru the clutter and been played on Z100 or 104.3 here in Manhattan.

There are many cooks in the kitchen regarding digital distribution but I'd like to focus on the music recommendation part of the web.  Haystack Media, Inc., a Manhattan based community tastesharing company is in private beta currently and looks to launch in Q3/Q4.  There are a handful of other players in the market right now but which will survive and what will they need to do?  Thoughts?

Comments

[C]

Didn't MySpace prove that theory wrong already?

[bill]

As a consumer, I hear about a new artist from a newsfeed, on a blog, or from some other sort of tastemaker.

My next move is to usually follow the links to something like MySpace where I can sample the music.

If I really love the band, I can save their profile location to a bookmark and keep revisiting it and stay updated with information. Where most of these networks like MySpace, TagWorld, and PureVolume fall short is the inability to stay easily updated with content, share that discovery, and to monetize the discovery experience for the artist and label.

And yes, I've put my money where my mouth is. Here's a list of some bands that I've heard on the web and purchased:

The Black Angels (KCRW podcast)
Thunderbirds Are Go!podcast)
Ladytron (75 Minutes podcast)
The Outline (Hi My Name Is Mark podcast)

While I understand that I'm usually a few years ahead of the curve on this stuff, I clearly see non-traditional digital distribution becoming more and more important to both artist promotion and revenue.