I want to start by saying how grateful I am to be moderating a panel/blog featuring such thoughtful individuals. This is the first of its kind, this blog/panel mash-up, and what is being talked about is so…what music biz folks need to be talking about. And with South By Southwest a little more than a week away, it is great to be going there with the ideas presented being in the fore-front of our yet-to-be-damaged-by-Austin minds.

We are talking a lot about THE FUTURE…the Internet…how to lasso this wild west beast and how to make it a friendly emissary for an artist. We are talking about the survival for the bankrollers of the music, and a wonderland where they are able to continue to work and develop artists and their art without feeling like idiots (Jon put it very nicely…and he is turning fifty this month, fyi). We are talking about empowering fans and giving them a cut of revenues earned from record sales. We are talking about how to support the artist, the label, the writer and the community. If everyone is supported, everyone survives.

I would like to step back from the future and talk a little bit about THE NOW (since we need to survive in order to reach the future)…and I focus the conversation on PRESENT opportunities and ideas.

One of the NOW concepts is the 2.0 phenomenon bubbling-up here in the great city of San Francisco, and how it might be able to be utilized to help connect some of the dots we are discussing. The initial internet bubble burst in the early part of this century, but as of the last year or so, it is growing again…in a more sober way. Gone are the days of 50 million dollars being thrown at late-night gacked-out concepts and the big blow-out launch parties that ensue.

This new “bubble” entitled 2.0 (to correspond to a condition when a tech company releases the newest, better version of a beta product (blah blah blah)) finds hundreds of companies that are ultra-focused on very specific concepts. And yes, there are many music-related companies growing like weeds in fields sewn with gold: iMEEM, Mog, Snocap, Goodstorm (Now is the time to let it be known, Yobie), SPOTDJ, Mozes, Revver, Live2Nite, Fuzz, Musicgy, Soundflavor and on and on and on. There are the digital distributors like IODA who offer new internet marketing tools as well as “traditional” digital distribution, and others like TUNECORE that have a more cut and dry digital distribution model.

There is a major opportunity here. There is an opportunity to very cheaply utilize all of these new music sites to help promote the artist and the label. Each site has a different function. SPOTDJ allows anyone (incl. the artist) to leave comments about songs, albums, influences…whatever…and plays the commentary in between music being listened to on one’s computer. Mozes is all about community development over the cell phone. iMeem: myspace community building on a hyper-music-meets-blog level.

It is up to the label/rights holder to spend time learning about these platforms, and developing a strategic plan for each. These sites all want content, and exclusive content: exclusive remixes, blog entries, top ten lists, photos, videos…will many times be rewarded with proper positioning and promoting on the site. These sites are new, some without much traffic yet…but hitting them all at once could be very powerful.

What is interesting in this modern age of the Music Internet Industry is that each site is, in a way, a magazine, radio station, record store and fan club all rolled into one. Each site promotes the direct relationship between the artists and the fan; each site is geared to educate, excite and enhance the music listening experience (and hopefully pay the rights holders, dammit!). Some of these sites will work, many will vanish into quiet digital dust. It is my humble opinion that out of the 2.0 phenomenon, a new paradigm might be created that will bridge the gap that Scott was talking about between the growing Internet world and the shrinking world of music sales; the tools are being manufactured right in front of us, and we need to struggle and experiment with them in hopes of building a new, successful aspect of the industry (note: an ASPECT of the Industry).