Taste Sharing is increasingly driving the music business according to a new study released by the Harvard’s Berkman Center:
Drawing from an early-adopter survey conducted through Gartner, report co-authors Derek Slater, a Harvard senior and Berkman student fellow, and Mike McGuire, a Gartner Research Director, find that consumer-to-consumer recommendation tools, like playlists, enable consumers to actively present their individual tastes to each other and are becoming increasingly common. According to survey results,nearly 20 percent of online music listeners reported listening to music via playlists at least five days a week and more than 25 percent of online music listeners listened to music via playlists 1-4 days a week.
Early-adopters’ current use of recommendation tools drives Slater and McGuire to predict that by 2010 twenty-five percent of online music store transactions will be driven directly from consumer-to-consumer taste-sharing applications, such as playlist publishing and ranking tools either built into online music stores or external sites.
This is essential reading…the premise of sharing as a means of discovery is certainly not new but rather an extention of the current trend in self-publishing that has exploded as a result of the spread of the blog meme, Flickr and social networking sites. Whether the sharing of playlist is public (like Apple’s iMix), aggregated semi-anonymously (like last.FM or Audioscrobbler) or underground via P2P, its clear that the word of others with similar tastes is increasingly likely to catalyze curiosity about a unfamiliar artists. If you look back on the original Napster, its ease of use was certainly compelling but not nearly as exciting as exploring the collection of a like-minded music fan.
There are terrific research and marketing opportunities here, but marketing in these contexts must be applied responsibly. Artists, managers, marketing companies and labels must not misuse this new power of information by polluting it with artificial buzz and fake data.
Kudos to Derek Slater….these 12 pages are perhaps the most required reading for music marketing professionals published this year.
1 response so far ↓
1 isaac // Dec 22, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Here’s the thing that kills me: that this is a surprise to some people.
In the physical world, 10-30% of CD purchases are made based on recommendations from friends/colleagues/family members. For teens and college-age buyers, it’s on the high end of that scale.
It only stands to reason that as digital music gives people access to a much greater depth/breadth of selection, AND allows you to sample before buying, they will rely on peer recommendations slightly more than 10-30% of the time to sort through the noise.
You must log in to post a comment.