When I explain my philosophy behind starting this site, I run into an uncomfortable situation. I spend too much time talking about the cataclysm going on in the music industry, then immediately jump into geekspeak about the specific tools to implement. Occasionally, I’ll throw in a tidbit from sociology or neuroscience, which really sends my companion into boredom. Remember Han Solo frozen in the carbonite? Yeah, I can do the same thing, only without the carbonite.

The goal is to add enough details to communicate my ideas, yet not be so specific to cause a mental stupor. I’ll try again in this post. Here we go.

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The music industry is, and has been, going through a change. The root cause of this change is part technological and part consumer. I discuss the technological drivers in this post.

The consumption part is more difficult to explain. Here are several concepts defining it:

1) The new consumer is always connected. Email. SMS. IM. Cell phones. Facebook. MySpace. YouTube. All of these things keep people very close to each other. This interconnection has occurred so completely over the years that we’ve integrated this ‘closeness’ into our lives. What is the best illustration of this phenomenon? This stat: 91% of cell phone users keep their phone less than 1 meter away all day, all night, 7 days a week.

2) The new consumer is participatory. When someone finds your music (or your book or your art), they no longer just listen. They absorb the music, they create new things with your music, they send your music to all their friends. Not only do they start talking about it, they start creating their own works with it.

3) The new consumer is on the edge. The web has disintermediated the distribution channel, which is just a fancy of way of saying that there is no distribution channel. Consumers will go straight to the artist. Distribution will exist, but it will be mainly a marketing effort. Production efforts are disrupted also.

Where does this put bands? Here’s what I spend my time researching and thinking about:

1) New business models - There is a growing list of methods to create revenue. The way for a band to maximize their earnings is to incorporate and integrate these models together.

2) Marketing - Always a staple in any business. The big question - How do I get my music to reach more people?

3) Building a community - The more I think about this topic, the more complicated it becomes. Building a community involves not only esoteric things like graph theory and sociology, but also traditional music activities like A&R.

If you are from the tech world (like me), these concepts aren’t new. If you are in any other industry(including music), these ideas are going to revolutionize your industry in the same way they did to the tech companies. You should be ready to take advantage of them.