Interactive Album Art: A New Music Package?

After exploring the intricate ways that social networking sites have been using iPhone applications to expand their user base in last week’s post, I have decided to turn my attention to the future of album art and how advances in web technology, specifically the iPhone (see left) and interactive websites, are beginning to address an issue that has been plaguing the music industry for over 20 years. Album art has been debated ever since CD’s replaced vinyl records as the primary music product in the early eighties. While nobody was very happy when the beautiful 12x12 images that adorned LP’s were reduced to an unflattering 5x5 CD insert, it seems as though everyone has waited until now to express their dissatisfaction. Recently, many artists have taken steps to digitize their album artwork utilizing new media in order to create a new music package that could potentially replace the conventional album format made commonplace by CD’s. I have commented on two blog posts, “The Future of Album Art” by Bob Boilen from NPR: All Songs Considered and “Amazon’s Artist Stores Highlight Album’s Declining Importance” by Eliot Van Buskirk from Wired: Listening Post. Each post offers slightly different viewpoints on where the future of album art lies, as well as examples of interactive artwork. Developments like this could open new doors from a promotion and marketing perspective as artists will be able to reap the rewards of having “album art” that can distribute audio files, play videos, build a fan base or incorporate any other social networking or web-based feature imaginable. Each comment appears on the respective blogs, and both are attached below for convenience. I have added NPR: All Songs Considered to the linkroll to the right, and Wired: Listening Post can be found there as well.

“The Future of Album Art”
Comment

Thank you for your excellent post on the future of album art and specifically for citing the visual elements of an album as a definitive part of any listening experience. I can identify with having my attention drawn away from a cover image or lyric sheet by the multitude of far more interactive art forms available at my fingertips. A new precedent has been set by the Internet for what others expect when it comes to graphic design. I agree with the following statement from your post: “The music may hold my interest, but the artwork rarely does. I've come to the conclusion that it's the fault of the art and not my short attention span.” I believe that while an album’s cover art may be visually stimulating, a normal image does not satisfy the level of user interaction even the most elementary web surfers are used to finding on a website or blog. In a time when not only the internet-savvy demand clickable features, and CD sales decline more everyday, the transformation of physical cover art into interactive digital media is becoming an increasingly more important topic. Do you think that the transition from physical art to digital art will have an impact on album format? While perusing cyberspace, I have found a number of blog posts expressing a need for a “new package” to replace the CD, as audio files are only a piece of an album. For example “Designers Work to Rescue a Dying Art Form – the Album Cover” from Wired: Listening Post touches on this topic. As a student closely following technology’s impact on the music industry, I maintain that eventually bands will release groups of songs via interactive websites serving as the “album art” and distribution mechanism, updating the “CD package” for the internet age. The artwork in your post is an excellent example of this because it maximizes any fan’s connectivity to the band while satisfying the original intentions of traditional album art. The post “Amazon’s Artist Stores Highlight Album’s Declining Importance” from Wired: Listening Post outlines even more ways in which artists have begun to accomplish this, focusing on Amazon’s new artist pages.

“Amazon’s Artist Stores Highlight Album’s Declining Importance”
Comment

Thank you for your comprehensive post on the declining importance of the traditional album as a means for artists to release their music by exploring the transformation of album art into an interactive digital medium. As a music listener who values the visual elements of an album in my listening experience, and a student studying the ways that technology is changing the music industry, I absolutely agree that the future of album art will be iPhone applications, “artist pages” on sites like Amazon or MySpace and even websites rather than a simple digital version of lyric sheets and album covers. The essential factor in creating successful album art is finding a way to visually engage the listener while keeping their focus on the music. “The Future of Album Art” by Bob Boilen from the NPR Music blog highlights this point. In the past before the internet, some of the most popular record covers such as the Velvet Underground and Nico’s famous Andy Warhol-designed banana cover (see right) and the Rolling Stones “Sticky Finger’s” zipper album cover boasted features that maximized user interaction in an age when such features could not be imagined. Today liner notes can come in any form, such as a video, videogame, photo gallery or application. In response to your statement “The album is receding as a means of organizing music, which has been splintering into re-shuffleable digital singles for years,” do you think singles will be more readily accepted, or will albums just get shorter? Will the transition of physical album art to a digital format change the way that songs are grouped upon release?

iPhone Applications: Making OurStage Bigger

While Myspace and Facebook struggle to incorporate music-marketing platforms into their existing online empires, many websites that began exclusively streaming audio continue to evolve, utilizing new technology to attain the mainstream success the other social networking websites have been experiencing. After some online investigation, I learned that both Pandora and Last.fm have produced iPhone applications, which upon release doubled their user base in a few short months. However, while Pandora and Last.fm are the definitive independent music outlets, especially given their recent mobile achievements, a new player has entered cyberspace within the last year fronting the most indie-centric business model of all. Welcome OurStage, an online “music discovery destination dedicated to finding new artists” that boasts a rating system allowing users to determine which independent bands will get maximum exposure and which will have to assess their careers. Having enjoyed moderate success upon its inception in 2007, OurStage has mimicked Pandora and Last.fm by releasing OurStage Radio just last week. An iPhone application that simplifies the website’s voting process into a mobile stream-and-vote platform, OurStage Radio is poised to take streaming applications to a new level of usability and interactivity. Although Myspace and Facebook have large goals and business models such as breaking down multiple applications into their larger interfaces, the more refined websites like Pandora, Last.fm and now OurStage have successfully utilized the iPhone application, spreading their focused media initiatives to a larger audience.

Given “the iPhone and related products accounted for 40% of Apple’s revenue last quarter," it is clear that a large number of people are using iPhone applications. By developing mobile software as an extension of what has already been established online, often overlooked streaming audio websites are finding ways to effectively introduce their services to a large reserve of consumers. This works due to the simplistic nature of the iPhone interface, which in Pandora’s case proved to be even more user friendly than the website itself (see graphic above.) Pandora unleashed their iPhone application in July of this year and currently have almost 2 million registered members using it. Before this however, Pandora founder Tim Westergren began the “Music Genome” project in 2000 and built an undying fan dedication to fast, functional and user-friendly streaming that eventually caught on with tech-savvy music listeners. Despite recent struggles to stay afloat, Pandora continues to have extremely loyal support from its users. Their reputation, coupled with the revised structure and simple layout of the iPhone application, bred success in the form of an overwhelming burst of new interest when the application was released. To borrow from the post “Pandora Doubles Listeners With iPhone App” by Eric Benderoff of The Chicago Tribune, “I’m amazed at how many people have said they have known about Pandora but have not used it until the iPhone came out,” Westergren said. “I would not have expected that.” The Pandora iPhone application had a new member sign up every two seconds over the first few days of release.

As Pandora continues to have success, and Last.fm works to revise their current application, whether or not OurStage Radio will introduce more users to the service remains questionable. However, by starting iPhone promotion later than Pandora and Last.fm, OurStage has the advantage of learning from the other's accomplishments and failures. They also seem to have the same mentality as Pandora in terms of structuring the software as a simplified version of the main webpage. By simplifying the cage-match style voting process to a thumbs up, thumbs down method, depicted in the graphic to the left, and streaming only one song at a time, OurStage Radio increases user interactivity. This way, the application can fit and function on an iPhone while still generating meaningful statistics and streaming content, achieving both of OurStage's marketing goals. OurStage Radio has a leg up on both Pandora and Last.fm’s iPhone programs because of the degree to which the users interact with the mobile interface. Pandora's has limited options, Last.fm’s is too complex, yet OurStage's employs a simple rating system with streaming content as well as the standard playlist and share features that are commonplace in all three applications. No statistics regarding potential accomplishments are available yet, but there is a great chance for OurStage Radio to be triumphant. Though the underlying punch line to these websites' mobile marketing plans is Apple rules the current online music world, and will continue to do so for a very long time as they continue to provide the innovative outlets these websites need to compete in a congested industry.

MP3 Blogs: Setbacks and Solutions

This week, I came across some very interesting posts in my journey through the blogosphere regarding mp3 blogs and their recent struggles with the RIAA. “Are MP3 Blogs Under Attack?” an article on the music technology blog Hypebot, begins a discourse on the RIAA's secret takedown of blog posts that release free mp3's that, according to them, the bloggers do not have rights to distribute. Many bloggers feel that they have been violated, as many were not notified when their posts were removed. So when I found the post “Now You Can Add Free Legal Music to Your Blogs” the word legal caught my eye. This post on distorted-loop.com about a new widget from we7, an ad-supported music service that allows bloggers to legally post content from the we7 site directly into their blog, simply describes that the widget is a great, legal way for bloggers to post audio content. I commented on the Hypebot post hoping to spark some discussion about using widgets to keep content in the right places, and also on the distorted-loop.com post. While the we7 widget could be of use to mp3 bloggers, it is still a few steps away from a definitive blog release widget that artists and record labels control the parameters of in order to even out some kinks in mp3 blogging regarding free downloads, and who has the rights to post mp3's. However, it is a step in the right direction. My comments are posted below for reading convenience, but also appear on each articles comment thread.

"Are MP3 Blogs Under Attack?"
Comment

Thank you for this insightful yet open-ended post about the RIAA’s impact on mp3 blogging. As a student blogger new to the blogosphere, but well versed on the importance of blogs to online music marketing strategies, I am just becoming familiar with the process of releasing material to blogs for promotional means. There is no denying that a traditional mp3 blog post is a great way for band’s to gain exposure on the web. However, I believe that the way in which material is presented to blogs should be honed by the artists and labels that control the content so that artists who release their material in the hopes of getting publicity know what content is being released and how those releases are being presented. If artist’s and record labels were specific about the way they want their songs presented on blogs, defining which songs off their album, or how many they want included in the post, there would be far less confusion in terms of what ends up in an mp3 post and whether or not a post is valid by the RIAA’s standards. Ideally, the integration of widgets or other applications in blog press releases, developed and preset by artist’s and labels, would both ensure that bloggers have the artist’s permission to make a post and release a few songs. Widgets would allow the parameters of the release, like how many songs are released for free download, to be controlled by the artist and would also limit the amount of content released in an mp3 post. Then the mp3 blog post would be of maximum benefit to both the artist and blogger, keeping the phenomenon of free album release against the artist’s will to a minimum. If there was a simple and attractive almost cut and paste application that artist’s and labels could drop a few mp3’s into and include with their press releases, it would even make the job easier on bloggers. Thinking ahead to what a widget like this could potentially do, if a digital download feature or link was included with a stream, mp3 blogs could become the music stores of the future. While I have been thinking about this idea for quite sometime, a post was recently made on distorted-loop.com about such a widget.

"Now You Can Add Free Legal Music to Your Blogs"
Comment

Thank you for the heads up on this cool phenomenon. While perusing the blogosphere I also came across a post on hypebot.com entitled "Are MP3 Blogs Under Attack?" which sheds some light on the recent RIAA actions against bloggers who are posting content that does not belong to them. My comment on that post is available here. Seeing this post made me think: Are widgets the answer to the sometimes-harsh legal actions that bloggers face when posting content? While I don’t think this specific widget is the one that will solve this problem, it is most certainly a step in the right direction. If there was a definitive widget specifically for mp3 posts, it could solve a number of legal issues while at the same time open promotional and even monetary doors for artists and record labels. I imagine such a widget to include not only streams, but also even a digital download capability and some artwork as well. If the widget had a simple cut and paste app design that bloggers could just drop into their post, it would be great for press releases, and artists would be able to use mp3 blogs to their full marketing advantage without fears of having their album leaked for free. They would have the ability to control and post whatever content they want. While the we7 widget seems great for casual bloggers who just want to post about mainstream artist’s, those who do multiple blog posts on mostly independent artists may not have much use for the widget if the content they wish to post is not a part of we7. I was wondering: Do you know of any other widgets such as this one that maybe cater more toward the indie mp3 blogger? What are your thoughts on the RIAA’s actions against mp3 bloggers? Thank you for your post.