Video killed the radio stars
With pop video channels on TV, people watching music on their mobile phones, and sites like YouTube and MySpace being great ways to showcase new talent, the demise of old-fashioned radio has long been predicted, especially amongst teens and youth. Fortunately, radio hasn't been listening.
Research by Nielsen amongst 3,000 smartphone-owning teens in the US has found that radio is still by far the most significant way that they discover new music. They are nine times more likely to hear new songs on a radio station than they are to hear it on an internet website. Radio stations have certainly helped themselves here by embracing the internet as a streaming platform. Around half of the sample surveyed had a radio player app on their smartphone.
If you've heard the visions put out by the Web 2.0 evangelists, you will surely have thought that social networking was important for sharing notes about upcoming bands, but the survey finds that real life word of mouth suggestions from friends and family are valued much more highly than tips coming out of social networks. However, YouTube is an increasingly popular way for people to listen to music, and one factor here is that it just works. Whilst other platforms might seem better suited to delivering audio tracks, and arguably look better, YouTube is easy to use, works on just about everything, and crucially its free to use and largely free of adverts, (for now at least).
One of the great things about YouTube is that encourages exploration and lets people discover things they might never hear on any sort of mainstream radio station. For instance, few people in Britain will have heard of AKB48, an all-girl pop group and dance company which is huge in Japan. No less than three of the all time top ten most viewed videos on YouTube Japan are AKB48 videos, with one having in excess of 78 million views. This video is AKB48 performing one their most popular hits, "Ponytail to Shushu" at a Buddhist Temple.
But my favourite video of the month has to be this awesome piece of improvised visceral dubstep violin by The Mad Violinist, played as an accompaniment to Ellie Goulding's Lights.
17th August 2012
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.