It’s been almost 3 years coming but it looks like the problem of digital music distribution is going to be finally solved by the team at MyMusic.
By problems I mean:
profitability on the part of the artist
accessibility, availability, and pricing on the path of the user (Average Joe)
Meeting with Tola Ogunsola (co-founder, MyMusic) twice, first at the WebSummit in 2013 and a few weeks ago in a coffee shop in Dublin, has made me less sceptical of this venture and here’s why - http://bit.ly/mymusicng
No mention of how they intend to compete with notjuskok free music. Every song on mymusic I can get for free, a Google search away.
Nigerian music artiste model is biased to fame/publicity over music sales. Fame brings endorsement, shows and more, which represents a better chunk of their revenue. Point is, artistes are willing to give out their music for free. Some even pay Linda Ikeji to publish their songs for free. And some wants their songs pirated. Forget they complain about it.
The main thing that struck out for me is whether they built for the future consumption taste of the user. Their business model appears to heavily depend on the assumption that users want to download music. Whereas it appears that users prefer to own ‘all music’ i.e. Streaming (for a flat rate) vs. purchasing (even as cheap as N30). Or better still, get it free.
The assumptions of the goals of the artiste is also questionable, which makes me agree with @akindolu points.
Might be uncommon insight on MyMusic which allows them to build for the future. Or could be that the music business is so hard that cracking it, takes a long time and consumption tastes changes dramatically while solving it.
The plan is to show the artist (and management) that you can actually make money from distributing music. The consequence of that happening, is the artist will still promote the songs with music blogs such as notjuskok but will sell via MyMusic.
The bet is when music becomes accessible, affordable, and available, there will be no need to give it out for free, and if people already pay N50.0 for caller-back-tunes (billion naira monthly revenue for telcos), then this same ‘average joes’ and [not tech savvy-radar commentators] who will rather own than stream will pay N30.00 for a track.
Only time will tell if this bet plays out well, so we wait
Sure looks like the team is building for now while looking at what comes next.
That’s why you can pay with your airtime now as the average Joe already does for caller-back-tunes. For we the more 250,000 tech-savvy folks that have used our card to pay online, I’m sure we’d be fine - and it’s not like paying with our airtime is not even more convenient.
Download vs Streaming is an interesting issue but I’d rather go for downloading in Nigeria as that’s better ownership when it comes to being able to access the music - wouldn’t want MTN taking me hostage for days that I can’t touch music I’ve already paid for
There we go again with the rain on “Radar commentators”. How’s it going for Spinlet? Wasn’t (Isn’t) it the same promise? Heck, they come preinstalled on phones.
You can pretend people aren’t just gonna keep downloading the stream from notjustok as they are doing right now, but the number of times I hear songs starting with “not just ok dot com” kinda say otherwise.
For this to work, any song being sold via Mymusic has to be exclusive to them. They also have to track all songs exclusive to them and make sure once any blog uploads it for free download, it is taken down immediately
I don’t want to sound pessimistic but even in countries where piracy is at its minimal and the culture of free music isn’t entrenched, the pioneers of music streaming services aren’t having it easy at all. Spotify is struggling, Apple Music is sinking in more funds from the parent company, Tidal is being laughed at, others have folded and are asking me to by their office furniture
However, you can’t discount the power of vision and commitment. It sounds like the team at MyMusic has seen some vision and are working towards it. If people are already paying for Caller Tunes, then I think there is a large market for this.
In my opinion it would remain a stretch , until content owners start valuing their material. I like the fact they have tried to ease the payment bit. Lets see how it plays out, wish them the best of Luck
How do you stop online publishers from publishing free music? The Music bloggers in Nigeria have no chill. They can do anything to get traffic. So even if you stop the “Big Guys” , the “Small Guys” will still find a way to put it online for free.
It amazes me how Spotify has every Nigerian song but local alternatives don’t feature some artists. But i like the VAS angle of this, telcos are making billions daily from VAS and most of we startups just shy away from it like its the plague.
Music has always been distributed and promoted for free. Radio and MTV and channel O exist for this purpose. It didn’t stop companies from successfully selling records or downloads which is the point made about caller tunes.
But music is marketing and distribution. Spinlet and iroko music to me do not fundamentally understand marketing and distribution. They focus on the app and not how to reach the user or the ecosystem. Spinlet had a two year headstart on MTN Music but zero marketing or smart partnerships saw that opportunity wasted. Now MTN Music is spending billions to advertize their product.
MyMusic has a chance to succeed if they come up with novel marketing and distribution not just a download business.
People who are motivated to “steal” music will continue to do so. But if you make “stealing” more trouble than it’s worth by making digital music easy to find and purchase, and you price it reasonably, the vast majority of people will choose to buy rather than “steal” - this quote by Steve Jobs is the premise upon which MyMusic was founded.
A-List artistes give out their music for free because currently there is no legitimate alternative. Currently there is no easy way for majority of 97m Nigerians who are actively connected to the internet via mobile to download music legitimately. But the music has to be heard and thats why the free blogs solve that problem for now. If MyMusic fills up that void, that will not happen again.
For upcoming artistes, they give out their music out for free because they want to get discovered and blow. This will continue to happen and that will become a major function of the blogs. Since they don’t have access to the promotion methods that the big record labels have access to such as Radio, SoundCity/Hip TV etc.
BTW. artistes don’t blow because they give out their music for free, save for a very few exceptions. They get discovered from Radio, TV, DJs, Clubs, Parties etc. and that’s how they promote their music.
