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Apple Radio started this week. The new music streaming service comes from the folks who kick-started the digital music frenzy with the introduction of their iPod back in October of 2001. Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey” may have been prescient back then with its view of the future, but even Hal the computer could not have predicted the impact that Apple and its iPod would have.
Apple has proved a major disruptor to consumer technology in many arenas, but they have truly transformed the process of obtaining and listening to music. I often think of my old friend Bert, an avid music collector back in the day, and his thousands of vinyl records. When the CD caught on, Bert thought it was a terrific thing: the same amount of music in even less space, and harder to scratch, to boot. Of course, the full-size album art was to be missed, but nonetheless, Bert kept on buying even more recorded music in CD format.
Bert’s knowledge of his record collection was encyclopedic: he could launch from his living room, swing past the row of vinyl albums lining the hall, execute a right turn into the guest bedroom, grab hold of Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica and be back with it cued up sooner than his guest could say ‘Ella Guru.’
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You did not want to play Trivial Pursuit RPM edition with Bert.
When he got married, Bert got a lot of grief from his spouse about how much space his music occupied, and the amount of money he spent expanding his collection. Today there is an internet meme that could easily apply to Bert:
“My greatest fear is that when I die my wife sells my records for what I told her I paid for them.”
Today, thanks to Apple, Bert could have every song he ever collected available via his iPhone, stored on the iCloud, and could add whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, via iTunes. Plus not only all the album art, but occasional music videos and other goodies—all part of the package. No real question of space limits, though the credit card bill might be another story.
The recording labels caught on much slower than many of the artists they represented, and got caught flat-footed. Today the big question is not how music will be consumed— it will be digital— but whether a label will be involved at all. There are lots of streaming services for music, similar at least in theory to Apple Radio, and no doubt some fans will decide they’d rather stream music for a fee, instead of actually owning their own cuts. For those who do want to buy, they will again perhaps bypass the record label: many artists, like Radiohead have been selling direct to consumers via the web for years.
And finally, there’s the nagging query of whether it is completely uncool to call a downloaded song a ‘record.’ Hint: if it’s good enough for Radiohead, it’s good enough for me.
Digital music caught on in a big way for consumers.
Small wonder: today, anyone housing their music collection on the cloud can cue up any track they have almost instantly. No lengthy search and definitely no need to leave the room to find it. Playlists can be created for every mood of any day. Favorite albums—except for that one song—can be stored without that one song. And, once uploaded, the music is available anywhere there’s an internet connection.
Now: imagine having this same kind of service for the important data your business uses. The crucial data that your business needs, available when your business needs it, not after someone—anyone?! is able to find the document, email, or file.
5i Solutions, Inc. can make that happen for you. Instead of paper pile-ups, much like Bert’s old albums, 5i Solutions can give you clean data digitized and stored in our secure cloud vault. Anything and everything available with one search—instantly. Ready for you to arrange, rearrange, and analyze—it’s like a playlist option for your data, and it can suit your business needs.
5i Solutions, Inc. One single, secure point of intake, access, and storage. One singular solution.
Visit http://5iSolutions.com
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