Jazz Odyssey

This article which was published a few days ago in the Washington Post covers a lot of ground about the various (possible) futures in the acquisition and consumption of music. The variety of possibilities makes one thing very clear–the splintering of the mass market is creating an array of consumers who have different motivations, different degrees of technical skill and different needs to be satisfied. From the flavor-of-the-week folks who just want a hot single for $0.99 to the fanatical devotees who want premium tickets, alternate takes of albums and every live note the artist has ever played, it’s going to take a wide variety of business models and channels to ensure that everyone can get what they want with an economic structure that makes sense for all the parties involved. It will also require that attention is paid to who wants digital, who want physical goods and who wants both.

This once again touches the interoperability nerve–unless the big
players in the digital music space get their act together and allow
music purchased from any service to work with any hardware (you
know…like how compact discs currently work) then their offerings
start to sound a lot less compelling and making things more complex for consumers isn’t good for anybody’s business.

You can read the full article here.