I have been reading Steven Johnson’s fabulous “The Invention of Air” which has made me aware of many connections I had never previously known existed.  In a funny way it also provided a really useful perspective on something I have been thinking about recently: the future of music.  Steven writes at length about what spurs “runs” of new ideas in science and identifies advances in technology as one contributor (in the case of Priestly notably the ability to pump air).  What happens then is that new observations can be made which in some cases don’t fit with the existing scientific paradigm, ultimately shattering that paradigm and replacing it with a new one.  During such periods of transition runs of ideas are likely to occur.

There seems to be a parallel to what is happening in the music industry (and in many other other industries for that matter).  First, there is a new technology: Internet distribution.  The vast initial activity is in using this technology within the existing business paradigm, in particular selling music (essentially same as selling physical media) or ad-supported (essentially same as radio).  Apart from a few successes (notably Apple with iTunes), most online music startups fall in one of two categories: illegal or unprofitable.  The reason is that in the existing paradigm a lot of content licensing is controlled by only a few entities (the four majors).  There is some movement here:  for instance, Imeem is in the process of renegotiating its deals and Last.fm has just announced that they will charge in all but three countries.

Then, however, there are new experiments that may portend a different paradigm.  In music, there are at least three services that take quite new approaches.  First, there is