Mark Mulligan: “Most Fans Don’t Use Many Devices”
The thinking behind cloud-based music services tends to go something like this: fans want to access their song libraries across as many devices as possible. The problem? Mark Mulligan from Forrester has posted a new study that suggests "most consumers don’t use many devices to listen to music." But, the problems don't just stop there. In addition, there are the many more rights, connectivity, and
interoperability issues that would need to be sorted out. That is, of course, if
people actually used multiple devices.
Mulligan suggests that the true potential to be harnessed here isn't multiple device use, but to figure out how to join the dots of the digital music experience "so that discovery, acquisition, management and consumption can all happen within one unified 360-degree music experience environment."
Mark
I have been in the music business for over 35 years having basically done it all. see http://www.musicbizguy.com/about. I couldn’t agree more with your statement that “discovery, acquisition, management and consumption can all happen within one unified 360-degree music experience environment.” This is exactly what I wrote in April of 2009 in my blog entitled “Unite in the Name of Exposure” http://tinyurl.com/ch6ojr. As you can see from the the comments to my piece even some pretty smart people don’t get why this kind of environment absolutely needs to happen before the new music business can move ahead with any speed. I applaud your insight and look forward to the day when this thought becomes a reality.
David Sherbow
The link to my post didn’t come up so here it is again in full form http://musicbizrealitycheck.com/blog1/2009/04/06/unite-in-the-name-of-exposure/
I have to question Mr. Mulligan’s numbers. A quick informal Tweetpoll of my first 25 respondents showed that the average number of devices they listen to music on is 5.36. “Inescapable fact” that they don’t listen on multiple devices? On what planet?
Now, here’s the worse news: they WANT stuff to SYNC. Boy, do they want stuff to sync. In other words, if they buy a track on iTunes or Amazon they want it to sync and show up as a purchased track in your cloud service.
Do with this info what you will… Just thought I’d pass it on.
Most people use two devices – their computer and an iPod or cell phone/iPhone. As long as they can get their music on both, no matter the method, it’s cool. Everybody wants this to be so complicated. Just make it easy and cheap, and you’ll rake in the dollars because people will sign up without thinking twice.
I agree with Stephen that simplicity is the key. To this day, I still don’t know why Apple can’t make a drag and drop interface for iTunes. I gave up on iPods ages ago thanks to the dreadful software and the amount of time i spent keeping my library up to date on my device. I now use an Archos 605 Wifi which is total drag and drop even on wireless!
Make it a simple experience to use the music on multiple devices, and consumers will make it their habit. Habits are exactly where the money is.
Simon Adams
Co-Founder, MyMusicSuccess
http://www.mymusicsuccess.com
Liz – did you or the responders define “devices”? The average was 5.36 devices for the 25 people who responded? That seems very odd, but possible. Instead of an average, it would be more interesting to see what each person listed as a device they use for listening to music. The actual problem here might be these people having too many devices…
I don’t think the number of devices should have anything to do with it. It should be about ease of use. I use at least 10 different devices for listening to music. I have no problem getting my music to all of them, it’s just sometimes not easy. I think everyone that uses multiple devices has ways of doing it, otherwise they wouldn’t use so many. Cloud services are about streamlining the process of using multiple devices. It saves time and frustration, and people will pay for that.
Graham Tobias
http://www.twitter.com/grahamtobias
I have two computers, my wife’s iPod and a phone. I would love to have Lala back for that reason alone. I don’t want to go through the trouble of syncing those devises – I just want it to be there for me to access. That’s what a cloud-based service provides.
I think that Mulligan’s assessment is at best short-sighted.
Thanks for all your thoughtful comments.
On the whole I think we’re actually agreeing here. i.e. that the important thing is extending a great music experience not counting the devices. The intent of my report was to emphasize this point and to help ensure that service providers do not get distracted by some utopian aim of getting ubiquitous interoperability when it’s not what’s needed right now.
As for the 5.36 devices per Twitter follower of one of the commenters here, let’s remember that Twitter is not universally adopted and that it is not a representative sample of internet users, let alone consumers as a whole. Twitter gives you an insight into the engaged consumers and they are a great near term target. But they are not the mass market.
Mark Mulligan