Sometimes it's shocking how bullheaded the music industry has been about progressing technologies. Filesharing started long before Shawn Fanning bought a hand full of programming books and hacked out Napster. By 1999 (the year Napster hit the internet), the average college student was broadband enabled through university tech infrastructure and busy downloading all sorts of files through newsgroups and private filesharing networks. Suffice to say, the industry had a good heads up that their most lucrative target market was busy pillaging songs through the internet.

The record industry has finally decided to combat dropping album sales with innovation, by offering an incentive to purchase the hard media they so love to peddle. The new technology is called dual disc. And, it seems awfully lame. Rob Thomas will be releasing his solo album dual disc, and Bruce Springsteen will release his latest on this format as well.

It remains to be seen if the recording industry will be able to morph into a value business model. Gaming and movie companies learned to increase bottom lines in a world where "borrowing" their product had become very simple and inexpensive. Now, the music industry has finally started to consider that their product may need to compete for attention in a marketplace saturated with cheaper alternatives. Their success remains to be seen.

Posted in music jasonn's blog