Gerd Leonhard's weblog is on my reading list, but I hadn't gotten to it this week when I received an email from my friend Stephen Hill recommending a long essay that Gerd has posted there. Stephen describes it well as follows:
... Gerd Leonhard (founder of licensemusic.com, serial entrepreneur, and now "media futurist") sums up the last ten years of Internet media trends and presents a rational path toward the future for music companies. Though it was aimed at Independent record labels, the principles are broadly applicable to any web media provider, including radio, TV, video, games, etc.
Stephen's right about it being "broadly applicable." In this converged world, this essay is must reading for all of us. See, for example, what he has to say about radio:
... 5. Digital radio will deliver 100% time- and place shifted music experiences, stopping only a tiny bit short of becoming another iTunes. The reality is that net radio is just another Tivo for music. Radio will indeed become the feels-like-free, on-demand music box, once again: the only remaining ‘Radio1.0’ factor will be that it will continue to be curated and expert-produced, as well as taking in social recommendation and smart technology agents. The best radio stations will become very strong brands (Radio 1, KCRW etc), out-doing what used to be record labels. How will you license Radio2.0 if you insist on staying with a per-copy model? ...
Link: GerdLeonhard.net. Gerd is the author, with Dave Kusek, of The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution. --Dennis
Dennis, thanks for the link and the kind comments; much appreciated. You may also like this video of a panel I did at the CommonWealth Club in SF, on 'digital rights & wrongs' http://www.fora.tv/searchresults.php?keywordsearch=leonhard&x=0&y=0&page=1 as well as my youtube channel at www.gerdtube.com... and keep up the good word - I read all of it!
Posted by: Gerd Leonhard | Saturday, 07 July 2007 at 11:21