Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

A close friend of mine used to work at the Virgin Megastore here in San Francisco. An affable fellow, he coordinated the in-store sets by the rather diverse array of musicians who used to pop up to do a few songs. Increasingly, he also managed other areas of the operation when fewer musicians started showing up. As sales of music slowed and the store grappled to reorganize around merchandising, my friend started to lament his fate within the larger context of music retailing. "I didn't get into this to sell t-shirts," he said to me once. He quit and went back to work as a trombone player in a number of local bands.

Well, today is an interesting day. And somewhere this gentleman is probably going to see this post in my Facebook feed and have an interesting moment of introspection. Because there is not one, but two fascinating pieces of news coming out of Viginland today. First, yesterday marked the closing of the flagship of Virgin's Megastore chain--the 57,000 square foot, two level outlet in New York's Union Square. But much more significantly, today Virgin announced a plan that may eventually prove to unseat Apple's iTunes and redefine the model by which the increasingly digital world of media is consumed. In fact, if you're my musician friend you might want to sit down right about now.

Unlimited MP3 downloads. From the world's largest music family of record labels in the industry: Universal Music Group. For $24.50 a month.

People familiar with the service said it would cost 10-15 pounds ($16.30-$24.50) per month, which could appeal to parents concerned by children accessing illegal sites.
The service, which both sides described as a world first, would allow Virgin Media broadband customers to both listen by streaming and download to keep as many music tracks and albums as they want from Universal's catalog.

The music will be in the MP3 format, meaning it can be played on the vast majority of music devices, including the iPod and mobile phones.

The service, which would compete with Apple's iTunes, is set to launch later this year.

Unlimited MP3 downloads. For a flat monthly fee. Say it again. All of a sudden, the entire model of consuming music is flipped on its ear. Just like that, the primary consideration is no longer the cost or illegality of acquiring music, but the cost of storing it digitally. The ownership issue might even be rendered moot by a new breed of consumer--one who is probably also intimately familiar with the streaming-download model--that doesn't need to own the music to enjoy it pretty much whenever and wherever.

While I couldn't reach Lars Ulrich of Metallica for comment, one has to wonder how this model can adequately support the payment of artist royalties. Moreover, one has to wonder what this portends for all manner of copyright-protected media. Are subscription services the future of other forms of media as well? With this media increasingly consumed via digital device and stored on hard-drive(s), "ownership" in the sense defined by the thousands of LPs I currently have in storage may be headed out the door. We'll just pay some set amount, borrow what we want, in whatever degree of permanence we desire, and then press delete when we're done.

It's hard to believe, but it has been scarcely more than 100 years since the mass marketing of gramophones began and with it the era of the consumption of recorded music. Before that time, the only way to consume music was to see in performed live by someone else, or to play it yourself. With not everyone being talented in this capacity, the world of live performance was where the music really lived. As the record industry matured and American consumerism grew up alongside it, the propensity to maintain large music collections flourished. Now, perhaps the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction. If you can listen to or own virtually any piece of recorded music anytime you want, maybe the thrill and value of ownership is diminished. And paradoxically, perhaps this will return the original form of consuming music to greater prominence. I'll have to ask my trombone-playing former Virgin employee friend in ten years or so.

Daniel Turman