The future of the Record Business

The other day over a rock shrimp tempura roll at Sushi Roku I had lunch with a a friend of mine Mark who works for a company called Colligent. I like this company he works for because it's built upon a smart premise. They have developed a way to scour every single MySpace page for information pertaining to bands. They then sell this information to labels so they can market to those kids directly about the music they've already shown affection for. No longer will labels have to "guess" whose those kids are. In the past they mainly relied on conventional media to get the word out about their bands. Colligent is changing the landscape.

That said a couple things have to happen for this to have a profound on the record business. Firstly, Colligent has to sell it. They have to come up with a way to pitch this idea to labels so they will understand it, and secondly the labels have to come to terms with this new way to market music to their consumer. Too often labels don't look at their consumers like Proctor & Gamble does. We've spent the better part of the last 50 years trying to get radio to like the music, or trying to get Best Buy, WalMart etc to buy it. Those days are over. Colligent and companies like it are changing the landscape and for the better.

Colligent

Idol's Top 3 for Season 7

Here is my guess as to who will finish in the Top 3 on American Idol.

3.  David Cook

2. Jason Castro

1.  David Archuleta

Let's see how close I am.