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By Panos Panay, on December 22nd, 2010 | Musings You’ve probably read all the reports about Google TV. And you’ve probably read how it was supposed to have this big launch at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas but it’s now been delayed due to bad reviews.
I am not surprised. Yeah Google wants to be everything to everyone. Your search engine, your ad provider, your ad buyer, your cell phone carrier, your cell phone operating system, your map Sherpa, your social network, your productivity booster, your email program, your music jukebox, and the list goes on and on.
As an entrepreneur and a business owner, there’s much that I admire about Google. As a consumer, I find its search engine and maps grudgingly useful (and better than anything else out there by a long shot) — but I can’t claim that this is a company that “gets me”.
If this was a date, Google is the kind that comes prepared to evaluate the success of the evening based on a set of pre-determined parameters plugged into a black and white spreadsheet that she . . . → Read more
By Panos Panay, on December 17th, 2010 | Musings Fine. I am being overly dramatic. But, if I can accurately predict the future then I belong in the same pantheon as John the Baptist, Nostradamus, and Cassandra.
Here’s my latest attempt at predicting the future of the music business, circa 2011.
- Consumer brands investment in new music talent will overtake record label investment. Just today I was reading in the Wall Street Journal that investment by US consumer brands in music related activities will top $1 billion. This doubled in the past 6 years. By contrast, global investment by record labels in new artists was $5 billion. Remember, for one this is a core activity, for the other, this is a fraction of their marketing spend. With record sales declining and consumer spending finally picking up, you don’t need to be Nostradamus to figure out this one. Companies to watch: Diesel and Red Bull.
- More artist-fan funding collaborations ahead. The RIAA likes to treat consumers like they’re thieves. Don’t touch this, don’t steal that, it belongs to us, not you . . . → Read more
By Panos Panay, on December 13th, 2010 | News & Announcements Offering predictions for the year ahead is a fun game and one in which I fully intend to partake for the third year running. But it’s even more fun in hindsight.
Looking back at predictions that one makes with the benefit of 365 days having passed is kinda like watching Back to the Future (my favorite movie by the way): you know how the story ends but it’s still fun to see how naïve/prescient your one-year-ago self was.
As Part 1, I’ll take a look at how I fared with my predictions last year. Here are some that I got more or less RIGHT:
- Consumer brands will play an even bigger role in talent discovery. Just at Sonicbids alone in the past year we’ve launched programs with Diesel, Midas, Universal Pictures, Converse, and many, many others. Consumer brands poured over $2 billion in branded entertainment programs last year, most of it around music. Check out this article about Coca Cola’s $300 million World Cup bet with emerging artist K’naan.
By Panos Panay, on December 11th, 2010 | Musings  I know. It’s a great Muse song. It’s also how I feel about guitars in general – I love ‘em, I’m just not good enough to play at the level that I’d want to (yeah, yeah, I’m a Berklee grad — my standards are high).
Anyway, so yesterday I was in Medford, OR attending the holiday party of our good buddies at Musician’s Friend. Great hang, the nicest people, awesome music (all employee bands I should add), greasy bar food, bowling lanes, the whole works.
But the highlight of the evening for me was talking with MF’s Keith Brawley about guitar design (did I mention that I love guitars)? He’s the guy behind the new BB King Lucille replicas as well as the Eric Clapton ES 335 and Blackie replicas. I coulda talked the whole evening about Floyd Rose tremolos, pre-CBS Fenders, rosewood vs. maple fretboards, humbuckers vs. singlecoils…
Anyway, I digress. My not-so-secret wish is for one day to become the . . . → Read more
By Panos Panay, on December 10th, 2010 | Musings  In case you haven’t heard, NARAS announced last week its nominations for next year’s Grammys. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t hear a peep because nowadays not that many people care about the Grammys.
For a million reasons, award shows just aren’t what they used to be (one of them being that there’s just too damn many; even the Nobel Peace Prize is not as cool as it used to be).
The big story is that NARAS finally got religion and out of their total of over 540 nominations, about half (273) are for “indie” artists. I use the word in quote marks for a reason. If you want to read more, you can check out my buddy Dave Cool’s blog post on Hypebot. But, I am not a cynic. This is a good thing.
Here’s my take on why indie music is finally claiming its fair share of the Grammy mindshare (it remains to be seen if it also grabs its fair share . . . → Read more
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“Panos’ Brew” is Sonicbids founder/CEO Panos Panay’s weekly (or more) post about whatever happens to be on his mind. Look for musings and observations on entrepreneurship, the state of the music business, his experiences with members, interesting things he’s seen in his travels, or just about anything else.
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