Legal Research

CD almost dead . . .

Not dead really. Just the market share of how music is sold and acquired is shifting. We've seen this coming for years but it's always been a case of 'within a few years", or "by 5 years from now."

"The music industry must move away from the retail CD as its primary revenue generator before Christmas 2009, according to Gartner. "

They're advocating more aggressive diversification of their business models. They say retail music should consider:

1. Burn on demand models (nothing out of stock!?)
2. Exploiting mobile opportunities faster (including on other devices like Kindles)
3. Broaden digital content beyond music (lyrics, scripts, songsheets, karaoke, etc.)
4. Flexible online pricing
5. Drive down physical costs
6. Go digital first and stop using CD to prop up an expiring business model.

Libraries have already gone through some of this thinking but there's still stuff to learn from music.

What's next? DVD? Yep. eNews? Yep. eBooks, hmmmm?

Lots of the kind of stuff libraries stock.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on December 30, 2008 (boomark / email).