Roaming With...Wireless Number One on Music Industry's Hit Parade

With the recent release of “The Long Tail” by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, there’s been a lot of speculation in the entertainment industry particularly by record labels about the future of the hit.

The Long Tail theory posits that the days of big hits are numbered, and that the future of business is in selling a broad range of niche content. Sounds great if you’re a fan, but if you’re a music industry exec whose marketing machine is build around blockbusters, it’s a little worrisome.

Which is why the music industry loves mobile phones.

You see, a key element of the Long Tail is the ability to let fans discover content free of the marketing machine of the major labels. They buy one song online, and the service then lists off a number of other songs that are either similar in genre to that purchased or were bought by other users with the same tastes. Online music services are designed to let users browse for ages discovering new music, sampling clips or even full songs, and sending friends on the same service playlists of what they’ve discovered.

Meanwhile wireless phones and entertain-ment services, in their current form anyway, are not part of the Long Tail equation. They are not designed for discovery. They’re designed for promotion. They’re designed for hits.

Look at the bestselling ringtones week after week. They’re generally the ringtone of whatever song happens to be topping the music charts at the moment. The same goes for the full-song downloads offered by Sprint or Verizon.

Wireless devices have small screens and limited user interfaces, relative to computer monitors and keyboards anyway, making it very challenging to create a workable browsing experience. To make up for this fact, carriers include recommendation features that generally list the best-selling content.

Going further, carriers are now offering recommendations, either through SMS messages or prominent deck placement, of new music offerings. Generally, the carrier gets exclusive access to the content in return for this marketing outreach on behalf of the label.

As a result, wireless content services primarily serve users who already know what they want to buy, and content owners who have something to sell. The Long Tail, it seems, just doesn’t apply to wireless.




 


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