The social network Lady Gaga launched last month -- Littlemonsters.com, a place for tour tickets and Gaga worship -- isn't just where "Mother Monster" connects with her fans.
As the first public showpiece for Backplane, a Gaga-funded startup, it also represents another music-industry trend: the ongoing diversification of revenue streams.
Gone are the days when album sales provided a firehose of cash, alongside the occasional licensing deals and tour revenue. Instead, fragmentation rules.
Artists and labels have scrambled to cultivate new cash streams, from investing in tech startups to e-merchandising to doing what everyone else does online: advertising. (Licensing, recording sales, and live tickets haven't gone anywhere, though, and some investors even believe those revenue sources could get bigger than ever.)
So what's the future of music? Who will profit in a splintered world? And what will it mean for consumers?
Find out at Business Insider's IGNITION: Future of Digital conference this November 27-28, 2012, in New York. Industry heavyweights will share with us the future of music, including:
- Rio Caraeff, CEO, VEVO
Three major labels, EMI, Universal, and Sony, banded together in 2009 to created VEVO, an online video portal for their musicians, which would capture ad revenue and fight piracy. VEVO has since expanded to selling live-streaming concert tickets and creating custom promotions with artists.
VEVO is now the third-biggest video site behind Google and Yahoo, ahead of Facebook and nearly double the size of Hulu. It's also the top channel on YouTube, with just under 50 million viewers consuming about 675 million videos, according to ComScore.
How will music and the music business model continue to evolve? Hear from Caraeff at IGNITION. Reserve your ticket here.
- Bob Pittman, CEO, Clear Channel
Do you want your MTV? Pittman helped create the original music video channel, and now runs the US' biggest radio outlet, which reaches 237 million listeners monthly. For his work on MTV, Pittman was dubbed one of the top 10 marketers who transformed American culture by AdAge in 2010. Pittman also has serious CEO chops prior to Clear Channel and in addition to MTV, including AOL, Six Flags, and Century 21 Real Estate.
You can get his insight on the future of radio and music at IGNITION in November.
In addition to the above music innovators, industry heavyweights and executives speaking include:
- Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn
- Jill Abramson, Executive Editor, New York Times
- Jeff Bewkes, CEO & Chairman, Time Warner Inc
- Carolyn Everson, VP, Facebook
- Bradley Horowitz, VP Product Management, Google
- Check out the full roster here.
Check out the agenda, and follow @BI_Events on Twitter for IGNITION updates. See you in November!
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