MOG & The Coming Consolidation In Music Tech

Is MOG for sale?  Despite conflicting reports, the answer is probably yes with the most likely suitor Rhapsody, who recently purchased Napster. But what matters much more is that we're almost certainly watching the early stages of consolidation in music streaming and much of music tech.

Within music streaming, the important consolidation trends to look for include: Who will be left standing and why? Will Apple or Amazon add music streaming? How will labels treat the remaining competitors when it's time to renegotiate contracts?

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Music streaming isn't the only music tech sector ripe for contraction. Other sectors likely to face consolidate include:

• digital music distribution – the victim of downward price pressure
• online artists services tools – There are too many tools vs. the number of musicians willing to pay for them.
• music discovery – No one has really cracked this code, but its hard to see why consumers will visit others sites to discover music when they can do it within Facebook and other social sites and apps that they are already using.

MORE: MOG is (kind of) For Sale