Looks like MyMusic is going to disrupt digital music distribution in Nigeria after all

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To be honest, I haven’t bought music online before. But the only incentive for me to do so is organisation. I do not want to see notjuskok.com as song art or hear it on the track. I want to easily put a song on my device and have it organised properly under the right artist, album, genre etc.

I have mostly foreign songs and some years back I spent hours reorganising my songs with special software just so my iTunes looked good! For album downloads however, organisation is less of an issue.

Now, I don’t know why MyMusic is already charging for music downloads, maybe they’re going revenue first which is strange for a music related startup trying to disrupt. I don’t know when they started charging, but maybe they have enough data on hand to determine that this model will work for them. I do think a monthly unlimited plan is better though.

But why are there ads on the site ? Why would you sell music and still have ads ? Doesn’t seem right.

I think Spinlet and MyMusic should stop trying too hard to change consumer behaviour just yet. They should explore other options. Why can’t they offer up music for free and upsell tickets and merchandise ? Do Nigerian artists even have merch ?

Oh well, wish them luck.

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Please stop trying to be “Steve Jobs” and who told you SIR, that any Nigerian wants to download music legitimately

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Speak for yourself though. I don’t know about downloads, but I certainly want to stream legitimately. The key word here being “legitimately”. Who told you SIR that there’s no Nigerian that wants to consume music legitimately?

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:pray: Well Said!

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He has a point. I pay for my streams. But there are just too many free alternatives for downloads that I don’t think I’ll ever pay for it. It has nothing with me being a bad guy, I’m just seeking path of least expenses. And that’s natural for anyone with limited cash.

If I can’t get the download link, and I must get the song. I get a YouTube link, and convert to mp3. Then download. Streaming with offline option like Deezer especially for its organisation and discovery, no wahala. But pay for just raw mp3, hell no.

Any Nigerian with good knowledge of the Internet, where to look for things and what’s available won’t buy mp3. It’s the Internet unless the individual has some coins to burn any way.

In my opinion, I believe we are off the download raw mp3 for Nx era. This isn’t 2004.

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i pay monthly for spotify… you know why ? because its cheap and has array of MUSIC

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Lol. Somehow you think you’re committing some sort of crime by cheaply streaming a vast array of music, which is kinda cute. But streaming is not only legal, artistes actually make money every time you stream. It’s not a lot right now, but it’s something, and it’s growing. So, well done.

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If people can pay for IROKO TV, Netflix, Apple Music and all, why shouldn’t they pay for a good music?

Considering Sound Cloud rolled out a subscription service despite the saturated market, taking on Spotify and Apple Music. So it’s not a problem of services like Spinlet and MyMusic, there is more work that needs to be done with the artist and how they choose to release their songs.

Once exclusivity with artist gets managed with these platforms, then consumers will know that there are no alternatives such as free.

Making your music free isn’t the only way to promote yourself as an artist either. So it’s really beyond building a platform, the ecosystem needs to be sensitised and there is need for anyone who want to win the pay per stream market for Nigerian music to get their hands dirty. It’s too early to declare failure.

Lastly, to @wkyo consumer behaviour can be changed over time. IROKO TV is a proof of that. People pay once they can see why.

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To be fair, all this doesn’t sound to me like what ‘Average Joe’ will do. Average Joe is whom they’ve expressly stated they’re targeting. Of course maybe you’re right, that this is what a ‘Nigerian with good knowledge of the Internet’ will do…but that’s not their target market.

I think they’ve have a good simple idea of how they can monetise (based on telcos ringtone business), but I genuinely feel downloads is not the way to go. So if I like Olamide, do I have to buy one album rather than have access to his whole library knowing he’s prolific? Maybe of course, they’re correct that the average joe doesn’t want to stream…only time will tell.

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The more internet becomes cheaper and accessible, the better for Average Joe (streamers). Download a whole album just to listen to Olamide? I’d rather find other options online or wait till it gets on Spotify.

I think even if they have data that shows people are downloading, it will drastically decrease in the coming years, so going on that direction is just risky business model.

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You’re wrongly focusing on the “legitimately” bit of @wkyo’s post when he was only using it to qualify “downloads”, which (versus streaming) is the subject of contention on this thread…

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I totally agree with this. At the end of the day, one always has to build for the future. And from the little I know, downloads is not the future.

Of course the music business is notoriously hard. After solving the technology aspect which allows you do fancy stuff like lossless compression, search & curation etc, then you start handling the hard ones; like distribution & marketing, dealing with the big labels, pandering to artistes whims etc. This obviously takes time. But to do that and build your technology stack on the wrong bet…

EDIT: Broadly evolution could be said to be Vinyl > cassette player > CD Player > Downloads > Streaming. The key point to note is even Vinyl records still exist.

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I have found, and you or anyone may have noticed, folks only want to hear whatever support their own position, no matter flawed the thinking may be.

A sort of bias to reject opposing views almost unknowingly. It’s hard to think oneself of being wrong. And when we seek advice or opinions, what we merely want is reinforcement of our own ideas.

I saw one of the founders liking the Irokotv analogy comment, I just shook my head. I don’t have stake in this. It’s just Radar, do you! And wishing the enterprise all the best really.

I will just drop this here. http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong

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It’s a logical fallacy called confirmation bias - Confirmation bias - Wikipedia.

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Yes. And I suspect this is very common among smart folks(or folks that think they are smart) because being smart(or consider oneself) and having thoroughly considered a position, makes you think anyone with opposing idea is stupid or just have inadequate knowledge or information.

Which is why I think conversations go on and on here, over something very clear. Remember the cityname.com guy.

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What I see here is that the guys at MyMusic have succeeded in brokering a great deal with all the telcos, where they get as much for themselves as well for the content creators, kicking some of the remaining to the telcos, or is it the other way around?

Either way, it’s no small feat, but it’s has nothing to do with revolutionalizing music, nor will that turn back the trend. No sir.

On a side note, i think they should have focused on building a thriving music community then try to layer their mobile-credit payment on any number of service offerings they can churn out from the platform. I wager they are passionate about the tech, not so much about the art!

All those months (years?) since the CNN feature should have been spent finding an angle into the entertainment content space too.

On the argument surrounding downloads, truly I don’t see much of a future for downloads for contemporary music, but for movies, well the jury is back on that one and they don’t think they are throwing that case out just yet. Infact as far as Africa is concerned feature length movies may continue to enjoy patronage as downloads for plenty more years.

My advice: I think you guys can do something not with music in mind, but with the deal you have with the telcos.

You can leverage on the payment option to sell other original contents like short movies, talks…etc. Sell the gateway to the churches for billing for download; sermons and special sessions. Just pushing my drift.

However, strongly looking at the music angle, I personally may still indulge downloads if I was laying my ‘bits’ on some African classic, good oldies. I found a folder of some oldies, I mean, vintage old raggea songs on a friend’s hard drive and I had to just ‘steal’ them. You dont find these kind except you’re lucky with Classic FM timing.

If you let people upload samples of vintages oldies they have and users paid to access them. Now they are not paying for the content, you don’t have the rights. They are paying for access to someone’s folder. P2P. Your seamless mobile creidt payment will make for instant, tieless transactions.

Just My 50 cents folks (a radar joke).

Cheers.

PS: If the mobile credit billing is restricted to just MyMusic then ignore everything said so far about taking advantage of the the telco agreement outside your platform. It’s really a no brainer!

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A lot of people say streaming is the future and I agree with that. but before the future comes, some people must take advantage and make money off the current situation. The current situation is that the average Joe in Nigeria will more likely download than stream music. We don’t know when the future where streams > downloads will come in Nigeria so let mymusic enjoy and make money from the situation right now.
Having said that, will the average Joe pay 30 bucks for a track? well, I don’t know but It’s a convenient way of getting music especially because the link is sent directly to your phone. The average Joe isn’t necessarily broke. A lot of people would not pay because they don’t care about organisation in their music library, they just want to listen to the song. converting YouTube isn’t also what the average Nigerian Joe would readily think of.

In the era of the Internet and music I’ll say the progression is Download free music -> Pay for music on itunes/others -> stream music. I believe the average Joe is still trying to transition from the first to the second as at today. Streaming will not become mainstream here until we have affordable unlimited Internet data. I also don’t think transitioning to a streaming platform will be soo difficult if they’re successful with what they have now.

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The issue is why didn’t Spinlet and the rest think of mobile prepaid credit billing? Perhaps because the law does not allow it. Mobile billing falls into the draconian laws of mobile money the CBN has rigged in favor of banks.

May I quote from the CBN guideline on Mobile Money 2015 edition: “The telco shall not allow the use of the airtime value loaded by their customers for purposes of payment or to transfer monetary value”

Which makes you wonder how mymusic pulled this off.

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Just ask iroking // spinlet

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Only takes forwarding mymusic URL to Dipo Fatokun and wait for CBN’s hammer come down hard on the telcos. The folks at mymusic didn’t think through this one…