As much as I love movies, when I am asked the question “if you were
stuck on a deserted island, what movies would you take?” I ask if I can
take music instead. The best relaxation I get is when I am listening to
great music on headphones. The funny thing is, I’ve been doing this for
as long as I can remember. My parents raised me with music. It was
always playing in our home. I got to know Bruce, Elton, a great band
from Boston named… well, Boston.
There is a great digital music timeline at

http://www.dilanchian.com.au/ip-tech-e-biz/digital-music-technology-and-…

which, as I read, brought back a lot of my own memories about how my
music has evolved right under my nose. My parents had vinyl, the old
standard, but I was a child of the Sony Walkman. I had the yellow
water-resistant, supposedly unbreakable (later found to be untrue)
version. The cassette was supposed to ruin music’s ability to make
money because you could copy it. Does this sound similar to the cries
that downloadable musics would kill the recording industry?
In 1986, I got my first cd player. I was told it was a miracle disk
that would never degrade and never skip. This was later proven to be
untrue. The disks skip and the lyrics are tiny. Records skipped too but
at least I could read the lyrics.
CDs stayed the standard in my life for about a decade until I got my
first computer. That’s when I discovered the Internet. The Internet
changed the way music was presented as well as distributed. Napster was
really the start of it and it is funny to think of how much bands like
Metallica and The Beatles fought the revolution of digital music
distribution. Ironically both of these bands have since embraced
internet marketing.

In 2001 the same year Napster’s website went black,
Apple introduced the Ipod and the I Tunes store and the response was
enough for Microsoft to follow suit two years later with the release of
the Zune. Apple not to be outdone followed the Ipod up with the I Phone
which does audio as well as video.
The lessons that groups in the music industry have learned (and are
still learning) are good examples for the rest of us. Every one of the
technological advances have benefited those who took advantage of them,
while the ones who were kicking and screaming got left behind. The same
is true for Online marketing for small businesses. The ones who embrace
the Internet will flourish, while the ones who discount it as “useless”
will get left in the dust. If you need help or don’t know where to
start, contact us today.