How to play online music? The electric quotient game social mix, or appear "millet" kind of company

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How do you listen to music now?

This is a piece of cake for all users who touch the Web, as long as you open a search engine to search for a song's name, or simply search for "online music," and a lot of the songs that carry them will be reflected in your eyes. Looking back, it is now a "golden age" for music lovers to buy tapes, CDs, and downloads of MP3 before listening to music.

The market for wireless music is also exploding in the presence of various music platforms pouring into mobile terminals. AI Media Consulting Earlier this year released data shows that 2013 China's wireless music market size of 39.71 billion yuan, an increase of 6.1%, is expected to 2014 wireless music market size will reach 42.16 billion yuan. At the end of 2013, China's wireless music market user size reached 912 million, an increase of 9.6%. The 2014 is expected to reach 928 million, and the real golden age of the online music market is coming from industry value.

Listening to music is one of the basic needs of the human spiritual life, and these huge numbers are enough to reflect this. Logically speaking, the advent of the Internet, should let the relevant industries, the practitioners are smiling. But we regret to see that, over the years, the key words between the internet and the music industry are always wandering between the words "the tangle" and the "game", the piracy, the division, the shrinking of sales, and the record companies, after years of running-in and Metamorphosis, the music industry is slowly adapting to the new rules, The internet's search for digital music continues. In this change, the future of this market, will be a picture of what?

The memory of the whale

In the early days, the network music acquisition generally has two kinds of way, one is the music website to play online, the second is downloading. Speaking of music websites, some senior netizens may know the whale Music network. The site's performance in the music search market was once exciting, thanks to Google's investment.

August 2008, Google launched a free MP3 search service, the relevant pages are online. The page shows that this free service was launched in conjunction with the giant whale. When the Google Greater China CEO Lee said, "Google is very much agree with the whale has been advocating the practice of downloading authentic music ..." Through cooperation with the giant whale, together in the integrated search published music function experimental version, to achieve the interests of users, related industries, the interests of the good balance of Google.

At that time, the whale has spent many years to accumulate genuine music library. Chen, the CEO of the Great Whale Music network, once said that the giant whale network has signed a strategic partnership agreement with four big record giants Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony, and that, in addition, thousands of independent record companies at home and abroad are one. "We used the pattern of guaranteed advertising revenue to be divided into 55 proportion to record companies." At this point, we have become the only one in the world with music download authorization, and can do free download of the company, which is why Google to invest in us why. And after the copyright issue, Google is one of my partners and channels. ”

The idea of the whale is also practiced. At the start of the site, Chen's idea was to follow a route similar to Apple's itunes: buying copyrights to record companies and paying for them. But soon realized that music products and Internet channel cooperation must find a free business model, and then have the hit with Google. And Google's goal is, "then Google analysis down that year, Baidu accounted for so large market share, largely because of the 2003 and 2004 launched the Baidu MP3 Channel," a former Google technology director said.

From the following 2009, the IT giants represented by Apple set off a wave of "music cloud computing". Apple bought the music website Lala in December, laying the groundwork for a cloud-computing version of itunes; in May, Google bought simplify media, the mobile streaming music service, and Hewlett-Packard bought music service providers Melodeo in June.

The giant whale, with its rich copyright resources, also swims in the ocean of Web music by Google's trend: In Chen's view, the business model of the whale is built on the cloud: The music cloud takes up only a small amount of traffic, saving costs. This will not only solve the problem of time-saving, but also solve the problem of saving money. After the music Cloud's product launches, "We will launch a lot of block, have pay and free, the user can choose freely." Fees must have the value of the charges, such as in our service of more than 100 million free users, we will only for the 5%~10% of those who charge, this a small number of people are willing to get higher quality music and pay the monthly 5~10 yuan. "For this, Chen even wrote a subtitle" Why Google chose us "book.

At that time, Kai-fu Lee for Google's Music search project for a long time, this is because from the internal resistance: for Europe and the United States, to the genuine music is not to accept money is difficult to understand things. Kai-Fu Lee not only overcome the resistance, but also to give Google music a lot of policy tilt, generally in 35 people can form a team of Google, music channel but has more than 20 people, including when Google China Chief strategic officer Guo to disease, Google Global Engineering director Lin, Product Manager Flood peak.

But as Google has changed since then, the 2010 has been more out of the mainland market, the whale's flow began to fall rapidly, although later also tried to work with happy network and other social networking sites to increase traffic, but with the words of Chen GE is already "symptoms not cure."

The whale's "stranded" is very representative, it can even be said that the PC Internet era of the entire online music web site development in miniature. The whale's closure, of course, has backers of Google's exit, and the more important reason is the copyright issue, which is still plagued by the problem of the industry today.

New exploration of beneficiaries

Over the past few years, as mobile internet users have surpassed PC Internet users, mobile internet-derived wireless music products have also begun to change strategically. 2012, Baidu MP3 renamed Baidu Music, early last year, Alibaba completed the acquisition of Shrimp Music network, the same year in April, NetEase high-profile release "Strategic mobile Application Products"-NetEase cloud music, June, including shrimp nets and so on a number of music sites to try a full fee ... In the wireless music industry, the internet giant's voice is getting higher.

At the same time, the music industry has changed. The leader is no longer the SP and CP, but the internet big guy. There is analysis that, with the internet socialization, mobile, cloud services three characteristics of the rise, music sharing and cross screen management threshold is also declining. This means that the way users consume music will change, and Internet companies can capture users in a "cloud-side" way, which will bring about changes in the digital music business model. So, they must now exert their force to keep up with the wave of music consumption change brought about by "mobile". These internet companies have a large number of users, and their habit of paying for content and experience is forming. While the mobile internet is expanding rapidly, if paying for experience becomes a mainstream user habit, it will not only minimize the damage to the industry, make the cake bigger, but also may redefine the distribution pattern of the music industry.

This is reflected in many ways, one of which is to change the user's pay model and income distribution model, which makes the music company in addition to selling records, singer business performance and endorsement, a considerable amount of music advertising revenue. such as Baidu music-oriented business fees, Baidu Music in the home page and the user's personal music boxes are implanted ads, and music companies to carry out ads. After the integration of Baidu music platform a major selling point is from the PC to mobile device synchronization, which is also the QQ music to solve the problem. Once the traffic and bandwidth problems are resolved, users will gradually connect to the cloud to listen to music, reduce local storage, reduce the probability of piracy spread.

Now Baidu and Tencent and other internet giants have been on the internet music harvest quite abundant. Some data show that China's music paid network is Tencent and Baidu. They earn as much as hundreds of millions of a year on music. However, whether it is Baidu, or Tencent, their online music revenue sources, lies in advertising, from consumers pay services revenue, is far from the formation of climate. Some analysis points out that the digital music industry still has a greater integration potential, and from the perspective of industry development, mergers and acquisitions integration or network music out of the predicament of the road. Stand in this angle, cannot but mention Ali to buy shrimp.

Last January, Ali was split into 25 business departments, including a new music division. After that, Ali completed the acquisition of the shrimp net. Ma Yun chose with shrimp nets to open up this "money" King Unlimited market, the industry is generally believed to be due to Wang Hao's platform of Ideal and Ma Yun coincide.

Ma Yun's business philosophy is "first to help the poor rich, and then to distribute their interests," this from the business logic of Taobao can be seen: In addition to Taobao merchants, but also parasitic community shopping guides, models, photography and other people, they in the Taobao Communist Party Rong symbiotic. And Wang Hao also has been likened to the shrimp net "Taobao in the music industry", it connects musicians, platforms, consumers, with professional services to promote consumers to pay, and then the music and copyright party to obtain good returns, this and Taobao logic almost completely coincide. It is also worth mentioning that, in the five founder of the shrimp net, there are four of Ali's old employees, they have a profound understanding of Ali culture, which also for the two sides in the follow-up integration to remove a lot of obstacles.

In Wang Hao's conception, he wants to build the shrimp net into a full industrial chain platform to accommodate the Internet music. This platform can gather a large number of grassroots musicians, when the size of this group is large enough, enough prosperity, brokers, songwriters, musicians and other groups have a parasitic space accordingly. Musicians can pass songs on the web and set their own prices, and the authors, the composer and the songwriter can get the corresponding benefits. and musicians will own account binding Alipay, by the shrimp net will be settled to the parties. In this way, the shrimp net can be music products production, promotion, sales all through to form a complete industrial chain. Wang Hao believes that when positioning in the music platform of the shrimp network and the most conditional online music distribution Ali combination, the two will not be limited to "like selling clothes to sell music", but will derive more business model.

Wang Hao believes that the shrimp net can be used as a sales channel Taobao, sellers in the sale of other goods attached to the album, but also with Taobao, cat shop background music system, so that sellers for their own shop settings background music, in addition, in the Shrimp Net music platform development and expansion, Sellers can also find the right music on the platform for their own brand endorsement.

Recently, "Shrimp music + Taobao Merchants" on a new business model to explore. Shrimp independent musician, the network engineer Shijin in Shanghai held the "Night Piano" the first piano recital. The performance was led by Shrimp music, cat business "October mummy" to provide sponsorship. According to the introduction, independent musicians will receive 100% full benefit, the shrimp music does not participate in the partition. Shrimp music, said the hope that the business through music to create a more distinctive brand, while encouraging more musicians to join the creation.

According to media reports, shrimp music and Taobao business cooperation include: the use of the paid background music provided by shrimp (15 yuan/month), the purchase of Shrimp VIP equity cards to give consumers, musicians to provide soft endorsement for businesses and other ways. In addition, the previous Taobao shop "if aquatic flowers" and musicians Liu Ruiqi, Liang, a restaurant and other musicians to join hands, the introduction of the healing system of "music mask", in the product packaging has a shrimp music app two-dimensional code, consumers can apply mask while listening to songs.

The industry generally believes that with the advent of the music free era, as well as the revision of the new copyright law, the Chinese music industry will usher in a new era, and the music electric business model is undoubtedly the most imaginative space. But there are also music industry veterans have said that consumer pay will not strong, the copyright issue is prominent in the development of the elbow music industry two major problems, this will not be because of Ali's intervention will be improved.

Since the birth of the network music, the music site has always been unable to make money from the music itself, can only rely on advertising, games and other means to maintain operations. Cool, Dom and other music sites are trying to high quality fees, but the effect is not ideal. Even if the music products of the shrimp net can be sold with the goods of Taobao, most consumers will not buy it, compared with the free music.

The change of telecom operators

In addition to the Internet giant, the development of mobile Internet, but also let domestic telecom operators to eat a lot of food from the network music. In the domestic digital music industry, operator-led wireless music business is a large proportion of the scale of output value.

The carrier SP model, which has been represented by China Mobile wireless music base, has made the music industry love and hate. Because the operator's discourse power in the industrial resource allocation is too large, the industry has a larger rent-seeking space. For a time there are a large number of operators internal business unit managers outside the registration of related companies and participate in their own business operations. In 2010, Lixiangdong, general manager of China Mobile Wireless music base which shocked the whole country, fled the case with huge sums of money and pushed the model to the cusp.

The operators then improved and the business model changed. Last year, the multi-meter music and China Unicom launched a joint Vaux Dommy "packet Flow Chang Listen" business, the rate is 8 yuan/month, designed to save users traffic, enhance the user experience. For example, China Telecom in 2012, has proposed mobile phone app album, was once considered to be the most innovative, the industry may be the largest one model. Last June, China Telecom set up a wing love music company, try the virtual Equity Incentive mode and internal marketing, etc., plans in the mobile internet, cloud music, music and video, music media and other innovative fields, to become a sufficient influence of digital music cloud distribution platform.

But it remains to be seen to what extent Chinese consumers, already familiar with free downloads of music, will be able to accept the pattern--at a time when users can easily enjoy music from other sites and apps.

Where is the online music going?

Although as mentioned above, the online music industry chain still has such or such problems, for the outside world, but the various attempts to music products, but also to the future of "music omnipresent" prospect full of anticipation. Online music the industry chain, in addition to internet companies, telecommunications operators, in the future may also flip the network music may also have SP and CP Fusion body. For example, the Bandcamp of the United States is such a fuzzy music sales platform for SP and CP boundaries, independent musicians can sell their music through the website to get a higher sales revenue, the rest is Bandcamp. In addition, with the maturity of bandwidth and network technology, online listening will become increasingly common, with media thinking that "the resulting shift in user choice is followed by a search for singers, albums, and styles that are replaced by search patterns, concepts, and details."

For ordinary consumers, the possibility of "paying" for music, the future will become smaller, the music industry chain will continue to appear a new business model, for example, some operators say, now some independent musicians, have begun to sell cooperative products, operating cafes profit, through these means to meet with the audience interaction, is also a kind of fan economy. Perhaps in the future, this dependence on the emotional fans of the economy is the driving force for consumers to pay, but also can not exclude the online music industry will appear on the existing rules to subvert the "millet" possibility. This kind of "millet" company, in addition to being familiar with how the Internet and the fan economy can bring benefits, new technologies and applications may be used to introduce innovation, such as opening music source files, inviting enthusiasts to participate in creation, such as opening downloads of artists ' albums, which fans can use to recreate their preferences, Even if you don't have music theory, you can get into the habit of composing and arranging. And like electric dealers, games, social, wearable devices, can be integrated into the online music products ...