Future Of The Music Business Is Selling Less Of More

Wired Editor Chris Anderson makes a compelling case that the the era of hits is all but over and that in the digital future an almost infinite number of niches will drive the industry. In his new book "Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" excerpted in Wired Andersen writes:

"..It will take decades for our entertainment industries to internalize the lessons of this shift…This hit-driven mindset has leaked out of Hollywood boardrooms and into our national culture."

"If it’s not a hit, then it’s a miss. It has failed the economic test and, therefore, never should have been made…Ultimately, our response to hit culture is to reinforce hit culture. The world of shelf space is a zero-sum game: One product displaces another."

"…But now the audience is turning to a distribution medium that doesn’t favor the hits alone. We are abandoning the tyranny of the top and becoming a niche nation again…we’re increasingly forming our own tribes, groups bound together more by affinity and shared interests than by broadcast schedules…"

"The mass market is yielding to a million minimarkets… Blockbusters must now compete with an infinite number of niche offerings, which can be distributed just as easily. Justin Timberlake still makes albums, but today he has thousands of bands on MySpace as rivals. The hierarchy of attention has inverted – credibility now rises from below. MTV and Tower Records no longer decide who will win. You do.’

The article and the book are a must read. It’s not quite a guidebook for the new music industry, but it does point the way.