Startup Idea #96 (Part II): Topspinmedia for the mobile

Image via WikipediaThe concept of a mobile publishing platform for independent musicians becomes more and more sensible as I look around how the music industry is shaping up. Let's look at some numbers:

Mobile music was worth 9.1 Billion dollars in 2007 (source Netsize Guide 2008). Contrast that with the 30 billion dollar global music industry, and we find that 31% of the total worldwide consumer spend on music, is already consumed on mobile. The biggest part is ringing tones, obviously, but there are other billion-dollar markets already in full-track MP3 files and ringback tones sold to mobile. Karaoke, music video, welcoming tones, background tones and music streaming services round up the numbers. (from the communities dominated brands blog).

As the music market moves to mobile, musicians will need an easy to use publishing platform where they can connect with fans. This platform can and should be built on top of Twitter APIs, to both take advantage of network effects as well as to focus on the extra stuff that Twitter does not provide but is needed for a music publishing platform. For example, a mobile commerce engine is clearly needed as part of the platform to allow the selling of music.The Twitter platform allows for easy community building and is ideal for building a musician's fan base.

This platform will allow musicians to post updates on their daily activities as well as to post their music in the form of ringtone, mp3, live recording, sample music et al. These different forms of tweets should be marked by different icons as well as different dynamic action buttons. When user scroll down the tweets, different actions will appear on the mobile button. For example, when user scoll to the mp3 tweet, the button changes to 'play', 'purchase' et al.

This is my tentative product idea. I am sure more can be done. If you have any feedback, I will love to hear them.

See part one here:Startup Idea #96: Topspinmedia for the mobile

Posted in: community,mobile,music,startup business ideas