Music in the Age of Social Media

Music has always been one of the most important forms of media. As technology advances with new forms of media, the face of the music industry is changing dramatically. In Joe Pignato's lecture, he talked about how the classic model for the record industry is becoming obsolete, and the music industry is now becoming a distribution industry as opposed to an ownership industry. The convergance of technologies, including the open source of the internet, is allowing consumers to get access to all the music they want with a couple clicks of their mouse.

If the music industry is to survive this onslaught of new media, I believe they have to follow the Spigot Model, just as Pignato mentioned. This model involves the consumer purchasing a subscription from a provider for some type of internet service, and through micropayment surcharges the downloading of music becomes "free" consumption for the user. This model will work because it will seem to be "free", and thus far new media's main impact on the music industry has been the illegal downloading that really made music free.

In conclusion, I believe that the initail impact of new media on the music industry was negative, and it caused music companies to loose money because of illegal downloading. Now, the industry is adapting, and eventually it will be alright. With media like iTunes and Pandora, the music industry is taking the first steps to saving itself, and eventually I believe the Spigot Model will be the ultimate savior of music.