technogoggles

Music Moves Place

3 accounts for 20 percent of UK digital music sales, originally uploaded by lynetter.

Lynetter keeps up the good work finding that 3 accounts for 20% of all UK digital music sales, second only behind iTunes.  Considering 3 is one of half a dozen mobile service providers [others being Orange, Vodaphone, O2, T-Mobile, Virgin], I'd say that's a hell of a lot of 18-24 3 users buying downloads.  Students perhaps without a broadband connection in rented accommodation using mobile to mange their music collection? Odd, Interesting. 

Do people not mind having their music 'stuck' [getting tracks off the 3 network phone isn't easy - I've tried]?  How is the experience shared, if at all?  What are the cues for buying if, as she says they're travelling when most of the downloads are bought at around 10pm: public radio, noise, boredom, communications [txts from mates, referrals]? And it points the way for 3 to design a service that exposes some of this mobile consumption data for friends, buddies etc. to create systems around, or perhaps create an app that ties into lastfm and work with them to create playouts for music trial or ping friends with 30sec promo tunes [30 sec are deemed to be promos and you don;t pay royalties, which in this instance is a nice way to kick of short almost synchronous comms]. 

Moreover, if 18-24 audiences are you audience on public transport, then that offers some great opportunities for the brand to communicate... perhaps by exposing most popular downloads in a given area or in another area - i.e. give it a geographical dimension to push navigation into the 500+ tracks; have a location based system of tracks ["you've just entered ** service area and the recommended tune is **** based on what others have downloaded here"] which would be great if, as we're led to believe downloads are on public transport routes - nodes of music consumption.  The route to Chelsea vs the route to Holloway?

Event marketing courtesy of flickr app

A cafe in amsterdam allowing customers to pull up flickr tags by sms using a neat flickr app and then they're displayed on screens around the cafe together with the tag.  Great.  An extension of the "sms walls" from a few years ago.  It works especially well in Restaurant 11 in Amsterdam because the place is vast and the images are humungous.  I looked into doing something similar to this at the BBC with an outside event but unfortunately Flickr and its open API weren't around.  As Adpulp state, designing experiences that brings the 'virtual' into the physical social network / space you are now in has so much potential for event marketing.  I'm sure festivals are ripe for this kind of thing and wouldn't it be great if it could somehow be games based...  either in the form of finding people, or a 'clue' to get you to action something, allowing a narrative or narratives to develop.