Tag: Technology

Is There a Future for Hi Def Streaming Services?

Larry Miller

cropped-01LOGO.jpg It’s OK. We know you probably don’t use Tidal’s $20 per month highest fidelity music streaming service.

Or hey, maybe you do, but the fact of the matter is most people don’t spend their hard-earned money on luxury streaming services. But level with us here— even though you might not be subscribed to a high-fidelity streaming service, are you really satisfied with your earbuds?

On this episode of Musonomics, we investigate whether there’s enough room for a profitable niche market supporting multiple competitors in the high-resolution music market.

We’ll talk to MQA CEO Mike Jbara, 7 Digital deputy CEO Pete Downton, and HDTracks CEO David Chesky to see what the future of high quality streaming could become. Is there a real future for these high-quality music streaming services, and, if so, what does that future look like? Let’s find out. As always, you can listen to the new episode above iTunes, or stream it on Soundcloud or YouTube.

Music, Data and the Blockchain: A Digital Utopia?

Larry Miller

01LOGOImagine the creation of database that would contain all of the data about all the music that already exists as well as all music going forward. It doesn’t exist yet, but it might — on the Blockchain.

In our latest episode of Musonomics: why are more and more music industry insiders looking to Blockchain technology as a solution to the metadata problem? What really is the Blockchain? And why is it so important? These are just some of the questions host Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt, and co-host Carmen Cuesta Roca will unpack.

To get you started, we’ve covered the Blockchain on our blog before. Here’s a good Blockchain explainer, and here’s another entry on its significance.

The episode features PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers, who is evangelizing a comprehensive database of music metadata on the Blockchain. He’s also written on the topic, which you can access here. Singer-songwriter Imogen Heap sheds light on the potential for accurate and intricate metadata. And Bill Rosenblatt of Giant Steps Media Technology Strategies explains that industry-wide standards are key to the metadata problem, but the complexity of the music industry and its vast number of stakeholders will make those standards difficult to achieve.

As always, you can listen to the new episode above via Soundcloud, or you can find it on iTunes, YouTube, and Stitcher.

How Virtual Reality Could Change The Music Industry

Larry Miller

PM-jaunt

In the 1990’s, the concept of a functioning virtual reality (VR) system was still in many ways a science fiction fantasy — but that is no longer the case. Multiple developers, most notably Google and Oculus Rift (acquired last year by Facebook), have made VR into a real thing that could be as common as smartphones over the next decade — and VR could prove a valuable new tool for the music industry.

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