The Next Step For Music 2.0?
As the two main topics of this blog are music and web 2.0, I think it’s time to dive into the ever changing frontier of music 2.0.
The majority of my work experience since college has been focused on helping to shape the way we engage and discover music on the web. My start was with Vault Alliance – a music 2.0 that was positioned to create an online archive of live concert recordings spanning the past 40 years, collected from over 70 venues across North America. Unfortunately our project ran into the brick wall of DRM. Vault Alliance evolved into iggli which has recently released a kick-ass beta that lets you search for music events, buy tickets and get directions to the venue via your cell (and web). Definitely worth taking a look at.
Next I got involved with Me.dium as the DudeofMusic to enhance the way music lovers share and discover new music together with Me.dium’s real-time social web surfing. I launched the first online music festival where bands and fans got to surf, chat and tour music together. We called it RockMe.
As music 2.0 continues to evolve, companies are sprouting up with new ways for us to experience music online. Case in point, iClips, a live streaming service that has firmly planted their feet by streaming some of the biggest events in live music like the Voodoo Festival, Mountain Jam, and Summer Camp. In fact, I’m listening to Sound Tribe Sector 9 streamed live from Summer Camp as I write this.
Gotta tell you, I think I’m a fan of this whole live streaming deal. My first experience with it was during RockMe. – the grand finale was Rose Hill Drive streamed live from the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado. It just so happened that my band played at the Fox the night before and our show was streamed as the guinea pig (it was viewed by buddies living in Australia, South Korea, England, Chile and of course across the States). Later I caught AT&T’s Blue Room stream of Vegoose. I would have been there had it not been for that damn desk job. And now, thanks to my buddy Bret Berman (aka DiscoBret), I’m checking out the Summer Fest stream.
If you’re not into the camping out, the crowds, the inevitable festival mud, the pungent smell of dreads, or having to continually tell acid entranced festy-goers that “no they’re not blowing your mind,” then iClips’ streamed shows might just be for you. From my experience both the video and sound quality has been phenomenal. While it might be too late for you too catch the rest of tonight’s stream (featuring Umphrey’s McGee, & The Flaming Lips), you’ll have plenty more chances to check out some shows from the comfort of your home or office.
I think iClips is also providing On Demand access to their video content. However, they’re definitely treading in the gray zone of digital rights – who owns the content and has the right to broadcast it, the band or the company responsible for filming and streaming? Should be interesting to see how that pans out for them, especially if they start to get some serious site traffic.
For the time being they’ve got the content. Aside from the content rights issues, the only other question is whether or not music lovers are down with watching a show from their computers?
