I distinctly remember hearing Jim Griffin give a speech on his vision of the Celestial Jukebox 10 years ago at a conference in LA. He was eloquent, provocative and ahead of his time. I particularly remember his analogy with cash: in most parts, cash is available to me 'on-demand'. That is, I don't need to carry nearly as much around given the acceptance of credit/debit cards and other payment mechanisms (mobile phone, etc). Indeed, I usually fly into a new country with no travelers cheques or local currency as I did in the past, given the 'on-demand' nature of cash.
The celestial jukebox is the concept of being able to listen to music on-demand without having to carry the physical files around.Services like Spotify, Lala, Rhapsody, Playlist.com and even YouTube are trying to make this happen, which is now being picked up by non-industry press (like this article in Portfolio). It has taken a good decade and, as noted, the concept is just about there.
I have reservations about these services as viable businesses, especially the ad-supported ones, given the licensing agreements they have with the labels -- something I've noted before and TechCrunch just commented on. But I could see them being part of value-added services or subscription services provided by, say, an ISP or cable provider. I also think Sirius should offer this as part of their 'premium audio' value proposition.
As usual, the challenge now is less on the technology front and has more to do with business model and consumer behavior. It seems that consumer behavior is changing; hopefully business models will enable some of these services to survive and provide a great service to consumers.
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