Referring to Trent Reznor's talk to digg.com, he also mentioned Topspin Media, surely one of THE cutting-edge music and media companies these days and in future.
“…These guys helped us out with our digital delivery for a while and are in my opinion the best option out there for artists to deliver their goods to their audience on their own terms. Keep an eye on them - they are leagues ahead of everyone else in terms of infrastructure and philosophy.” Trent Reznor – Nine Inch Nails
Topspin Media is a media technology company focused on musicians to build their business directly with the end consumers, the fans. "The recently upgraded Topspin software offers artists and managers more options to improve and optimize workflow around marketing, manage content, and distribute effectively in a seamlessly integrated platform."(Business Week)
However, this might sound kinda vague. This is due to the fact that the company is just little by little releasing details on their actual products. What's certain is that the company plans and tests a customer relationship management sofware for musicians. This involves "a back-end technology and e-commerce service that allows artists to sell music and merchandise directly to fans via subscription services, digital downloads of albums and individual songs, and other bundled plans." (TheDeal.com). So at the moment they are working just with a handful of selected artists and managements in some sort of a test drive, but they're planning and developing a self-service platform for artists to be released later this year.
CEO and former Yahoo! Inc. music chief Ian Rogers on their long-term goal and mission:
"Our main thesis is that by turning the music world from low margin to high margin from a musician's perspective, a middle class of artists can make a living,"
Noble and aspiring, but at the same time pretty realistic. So much happening right know in this business and I'm excited as hell. Moreover, it's an interesting issue to also keep in mind that music industry is pretty much the first to deal with such a severe crisis. Other media industries as movies, games or print media are to follow and it will be a crazy trip how the whole media industry will continue to drastically change in the upcoming years. The internet is completely democratized. So will the media industries? Mind game, mind war, mind fuck!
Geeting back to Topspin Media. Check also their website: www.topspinmedia.com .
Besides interesting information on the company and their founders, there's also a very interesting blog and in the "for artists" section you'll find many useful links to other visionary music sites and publications. A must, check out!
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