Digital or Die Follow Up.

Remember this post - digital or die? Well I want to direct your attention to the following information post - Everything in the Music Industry is Up. The take away piece is –

Indeed, it appears that every single part of the music industry except the sale of compact discs is up.

• Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
• Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
• Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
• Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
• Even vinyl singles (think DJs): UP (more than doubled in the UK)
• And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I’d argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)

Only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.

(please note that external links above are disabled)

Well so what? Well in the broader scheme of things, when you hear the RIAA screaming to Congress how bad things are, remember that they are suing their own customers so why shouldn’t business be bad for them? But on the ThirdPipe front it is just a continuing confirmation of why pipe will be king but presentation a wanker. Over time the dollars and efforts that Comcast and Time-Warner use in developing home page frontends will be a waste. The digital home layer that Verizon and AT&T are developing will be money down the sink.

The UGC will be drilled for without a single use of any of these platforms.