The music fiends and tech geeks among you no doubt followed Apple’s product announcement yesterday; I watched it on my phone. [Hey look, a major media company unafraid to provide high quality live video on a mobile platform!] Of the new offerings the one that immediately got my attention was Ping, an iTunes-based social music service. I am a longtime Last.fm user and have been frustrated that iTunes has never natively supported the ability to feed data to that service or others like Twitter. So now I’m trying out Ping:
After spending some time today with Apple’s new service I must admit I’m a bit disappointed. Ping has no browser version and apparently no open API or other feed mechanism, meaning profiles are essentially locked inside of iTunes. And I am completely shocked that in the set-up process I was never prompted to import my play history – I simply assumed that track plays would be a central element of the Ping profile. Other weak points as of now include the paltry selection of artists whose iTunes pages allow following and a paucity of options for finding other users.
Apple seems to envision Ping primarily as a platform for iTunes Store purchases. No doubt the record labels it works with appreciate that approach, but if the company continues to emphasize buying over sharing Ping may end up a marginal presence in social music.
Except that Stones Throw Records doesn’t need them so badly that it won’t celebrate the varied but unsanctioned remixing of one of its recent productions, Aloe Blacc’s I Need A Dollar.
Orchestras definitely need dollars – not to mention the kind of diverse audience interest that Stones Throw inspires – and we won’t attract either by locking down our media. Quite the opposite … we’ll know that we are relevant when recordings of our performances are out in the open and taken up for creative reuses of all kinds.
As I look at this graphic I have to wonder how we might plot ‘Those who listen to music live’ – after all, the accepted wisdom of the moment is that contemporary musicians ‘have learned to consider their recorded output, formerly their bread and butter, as a form of promotion for live shows.’
The real story in nonphysical goods is one of deflation. Value in once-scarce — well, once-controlled — commodities like news, information, and advertising decline as the internet explodes creation and competition. The internet also destroys the ability of many to control distribution and thus value. But at the same time, the internet drastically increases efficiency thanks to platforms and open distribution and the ability — no, the need — to specialize and collaborate.
This is why the old controllers of scarcity have such trouble rethinking and remaking themselves for the economy of abundance. Their reflex is to control more, when that only decreases value.
So stop selling scarcity. Scarcity has no value.
As Jarvis points out the theory holds true for performers, many of whom are finally beginning to understand that ‘putting our content and information out there is how it gets distributed, how we find new people, how we build new relationships, how we realize new value.’ [via Frank Chimero has a blog.]
![Interesting illustration by Brian Rea for a recent New York Times piece on music licensing and copyright enforcement. [via kateoplis]
As I look at this graphic I have to wonder how we might plot ‘Those who listen to music live’ – after all, the accepted wisdom of the moment is that contemporary musicians ‘have learned to consider their recorded output, formerly their bread and butter, as a form of promotion for live shows.’](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6y5f0MOJP1qzprlbo1_500.jpg)
![For my vinyl and/or design folks: A colorful jacket for an intriguing recording from a fantastic new collection of vintage record covers. [via Jez Burrows / Woods via ※ ✎ ® ✎ ※]
Bonus: I wasn’t previously familiar with this music by Avshalomov – will have to check it out.](http://blog.jasonweinberger.com/photo/1280/722472847/1/tumblr_l4cynsZiSN1qazv0k)
