Subscription music is taking off (to overtake Itunes in a few year) what about ebook?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

So long as I have access to it via my pc with my Polk TL3 speakers and CSW subwoofer I'm happy.

Monkey's super fantastic stereo system is an iPod touch 4, JBL speaker-dock, and Pandora (free)

[4691mls]

I'd have to see how much the library subscription service cost, and what the selection was like, before deciding if I were interested.

As for music, I listen mainly to my local public radio station, and I am a contributing member, so I suppose in a way that is a subscription.

[Joykins]

I can hook my iphone up to my home stereo system (or really anything with an audio in) to listen to pandora. The only issue is if someone tries to call me.

[Top100EbooksRank]

Pandora has 1.5 million paying subscribers ($36 a year). That's not a bad # considering their free service is also available on mobile devices.

The on-demand music side like Spotify doesn't allow free music on mobile devices (in hope to tempt listeners to switch).


http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/perm...k1gfgJzwEVjE8Q



Muve Music should be at around 1 million right about now since the number above isn't up to date. It is poised to overtake Rhapsody and Spotify in USA paid subscribers in the very near future. Because every Android phones you buy with Cricket (a regional prepaid carrier with 6 million customers) will come with Muve Music bundle along with your smartphone service ($50 a month for unlimited music download + unlimited talk/text and 1GB of data).


Not sure why Sirius XM is on the list because they only pay 8% of their revenue as music royalties. They are a subscription service but music is only a part of their overall subscription.

eMusic is another interesting player and has been stagnate (maybe even decline) ever since the streaming took off.



p.s. Just waiting for the IFPI to announce 2012 subscription # worldwide. Even a modest 35% increase would bring it to over 18 million subscribers worldwide.

2010: 8.2 million paying subscribers
2011: 13.4 million paying subscribers (growth of 63%)
2012: ?----------(18 million if the growth rate slow down to 35%)
2013: ?
2014: ?
2015: ?
2016: ?

Just the biggest 2 (Spotify and Deezer) right now combined for 8 million paying subscribers.

[cromag]

Hmmm ... those are good numbers for Deezer. I used to be a member but they apparently kicked me off when they dropped service to the US.

[Yves Gorat]

Very interesting discussion. Staying with music portals: Isn't it so that the revenue artists are making from music sales these days is decreasing, while they push merchandise and of course gigs? Maybe that is something that will need to be thought about for eBooks as well. If one day all eBooks are "out there" either for free or for a subscription price (or both), total industry income will likely go down. How can the book industry do what the music industry is in the process of doing, which is creating full-on experiences (live gigs, merchandise, clothes, ...)?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Yves Gorat

How can the book industry do what the music industry is in the process of doing, which is creating full-on experiences (live gigs, merchandise, clothes, ...)?

It can't.
The music business is about performances and transient experiences whereas books are more about specific ideas.
With music, even recordings (audio or video) can't capture all the value of a live performance, whereas a book's value is completely encapsulated between the book and the reader. There is no subsidiary value to be monetized.
That is one of the reasons ebooks are so effective; they strip away the material encumbrances without stripping any of the ideas that define the narrative--in techie terms, they are a lossless encoding of the full experience. (Unless you are a smell fetishist. )

[Barty]

I've tried spotify and pandora and they don't sound very good. Even 192k mp3 sounds better. No way I pay for that. FM is better.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Barty

I've tried spotify and pandora and they don't sound very good. Even 192k mp3 sounds better. No way I pay for that.

When you pay for Spotify it's at 320 kbps.

Graham

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Barty

I've tried spotify and pandora and they don't sound very good. Even 192k mp3 sounds better. No way I pay for that. FM is better.

You have to enable 320k on the mobile and desktop apps and subscribe. On desktop it's "high quality streaming" and on mobile something similar.

There's another reason some people have said Spotify sounds low quality though. What was originally thought to be poor compression/conversion of the tracks, turns out to be DRM watermarks applied by UMG (which despite alternatives that are not) is audible.

Even worse, UMG have been applying this to lossless tracks they sell via 3rd parties. The lossless tracks have audible noise, not really what people are expecting when they buy a lossless track.

edit: source http://www.mattmontag.com/music/univ...ible-watermark

[Ninjalawyer]

I really love Rdio on the iPhone, I get access to a huge collection of music for $9.99 a month that I can stream or download (the downloading is the main reason I love it, aside from it being available in Canada that is). I can't really see myself paying for an ebook subscription though, my consumption of e-books is just different. With an ebook, I'm investing a lot of time into one item, with music I'm looking for quick experiences and a lot of them in short order.

I guess the closest parallel for me would be Audible for audio books. I had a subscription to Audible but ended up cancelling it after a few months, preferring to just buy an audiobook every once in awhile rather than paying a monthly fee to download one audio book a month. Aubible isn't a great example obviously since you don't get the option to stream their entire audiobook library.