The Music Industry

When talking about the music industry, there are a number of key concepts which should be considered.

• Convergence - The process of multiple technologies being brought together to form a new product. When talking about the music industry, you could use the term when talking about mobile phones which enable users to download music straight to their phones. 
• Personalisation - A characteristic of many NMTs is their ability to offer users a personalised experience. It is about variety, and choice. When talking about the music industry, iPods and the iTunes store allow music to be more personalised than ever, with users enjoying the ability to buy just the tracks they want from an album and then listen to them anytime, anywhere.
• Digitisation - At its most basic form all digital material, whether it is a picture, plain text or a movie, is made up of a (long) series of 1s and 0s. This means material can be reproduced perfectly by a computer (or computer system e.g a sky+ box) and transported more effectively. In relation to the music industry, digitisation has created a massive decline in profits for a number of companies as audiences are now able to access singles and albums for free with illegal downloading software or file sharing programmes.