What’s Ahead For 2011? Jonathan Ostrow: Social Charts Will Flip The Music Industry On It’s Head
(Updated) As we end the year, Hypebot asked some our favorite thinkers, writers, and friends to answer two questions – one looking forward and the other back. Here Jonathan Ostrow, the co-founder of MicControl, answers.Hypebot: What do you see as the most important business and consumer trends that will shape the music industry in 2011?
Jonathan Ostrow: Fan funding (or crowd funding) picked up quick a bit of steam of the last year with more artists than ever turning to fan funding campaigns to raise money directly from fans who are interesting in joining the journey.
The 'fan funding' space has really filled itself out in 2010, with companies like Kickstarter, RocketHub, Pledge Music, Indie GoGo and SliceThePie leading the way.
However, with as much success as people have found through fan funding (Pledge Music has reported an astounding 70% campaign success rate), many are still skeptical that the risk of alienating the more casual fans and the potential for public failure involved with fan funding may do more harm than good. With many still on the fence, fan funding still has not made its way into the mainstream, although with the current growth and excitement surrounding the concept, 2011 could very well be the year of fan-funding.
2010 saw the introduction of 3 new charts, all using social media influence as an important element of the ranking process. Big Champagne was first to market with their Ultimate Chart, and soon there after came Billboard's Social 50 and MTV's recently announced Music Meter. In an interesting turn, MTV has actually created the most 'emerging artist' friendly chart, by working with Echo Nest to ensure that all established artists, such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber have been stricken from the list.
In 2011, the new focus of social media influence-infused charts could start to flip the music industry on it's head, giving emerging artists an even more real opportunity to use social media to create a very real and sustainable career as a professional musician.
Hypebot: Since this is ultimately all about music, what were your top musical moment(s) of 2010?
Jonathan Ostrow: MicControl has only been in existance in its current form since mid-2010, so this year has been an extremely exciting one. Though I have met some truly incredible people and have quite a few new opportunties, these are two of my most notable music memories from 2010:
1.) Moderating a panel on branding at the CMJ Music Marathon 2010 conference in NYC.
2) Having the opportunity for MicControl to work one-on-one with quite a few up and coming hip-hop artists. Being a musician myself and a life-long lover of live music, having the opportunity to stand on stage and film the performers of a sold out house at the House Of Blues in Boston was an incredible rush.
Jonathan Ostrow is the co-founder of MicControl, a music blogging network based on a music social networking platform. For guest blogging opportunities or for simply reaching out, Jon can be found on twitter and facebook.
