Hanna Kahlert | MIDiA Research

AI, dead internet theory, and why analogue is a future-proof business strategy

Hanna Kahlert

8 Oct 2024

The internet is abuzz over Google NotebookLM’s eerily realistic-sounding podcasts. Last week, MIDiA wrote about how it will disrupt primarily information-driven podcasting, rather than entertainment podcasts with human flair (for now).

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TikTok’s creator subscriptions point to the future of social platforms

Hanna Kahlert

1 Oct 2024

TikTok

Subscriptions

Creators

It’s been a big week for TikTok. On the heels of shutting down its music streaming service , the platform has announced an expansion of its creator subscription program. In addition to existing LIVE Subscriptions, the paid subscription offering for livestreams, TikTok has announced that creators c...

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TikTok may be shutting down its music service, but it will still compete with streaming

Hanna Kahlert

24 Sep 2024

Social

Streaming

TikTok

TikTok has announced that it plans to shut down its music streaming service, TikTok Music, at the end of November (per Bloomberg ). The company has cautioned users that they should migrate all their playlists to other streaming platforms.

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The digital generation wants to go offline: the roots of an analogue revival

Hanna Kahlert

17 Sep 2024

analogue

Vinyl

Social

In March of 2020, the world went largely virtual. With no way to go out and live normal day-to-day lives in the physical sense, the digital world took over – from Zoom calls with family members to social storms around Netflix shows, replacing the workplace ‘watercooler moment’.

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Analogue revival
A cultural pendulum swing

Hanna Kahlert

September 2024

Cultural trends

From the dumb phone trend to a vinyl revival, analogue has been back on the rise in the cultural zeitgeist. This could shake up the digital ecosystem and unlock potential opportunities for entertainment –– but the 'why’ behind the trend needs to be better understood to action the opportunity to its full potential.

BlueSky benefits from X’s Brazil ban: a fragmenting social ecosystem is shaky ground for incumbents

Hanna Kahlert

10 Sep 2024

market

Brazil

Bluesky

X has long been the social platform of ‘on the pulse’ news updates and cultural happenings. Its users over-index for using social platforms to keep up with news and culture (as outlined in our social platform user behaviour report ), and its high-profile posts often make it into the broader news...

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From ubiquitous bird app to banned in Brazil: what happened to X (and will it happen to others)?

Hanna Kahlert

4 Sep 2024

X

TikTok

Twitter

Early in August, Elon Musk was vaguely threatened with extradition to the UK for his role in spreading misinformation that resulted in riots. Three weeks later, X was banned in Brazil, following unpaid fines and allegations that the app was being used to spread politically threatening misinformation.

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Who wins the social spiral? Consumers’ relationship with social platforms is changing

Hanna Kahlert

28 Aug 2024

Social media

X

There is no shortage of takes on the role of social platforms in our daily lives, from former influencers lamenting the end of Twitter’s golden era to researchers studying social media’s impact on teens’ mental health .

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Instagram and the download-delete cycle: a cultural shift for social platforms

Hanna Kahlert

13 Aug 2024

Social

analogue revival

ecommerce

Forget the tech-centric sci-fi future promised by the early 2000’s; the new aspiration is going offline. Analogue is the new ‘cool’, and it is not just about nostalgia. Audiences are searching for authenticity, connection, novelty, experience, and tangible ownership of the things they love, al...

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Algorithms, AI, truth, and trust: why social platforms should be worried about the riots

Hanna Kahlert

6 Aug 2024

Social

Cultural trends

Social platforms have had a rocky history with misinformation, from US election cycles to social unrest . Over time, platforms have alleged new restrictions and guidelines intended to help reduce the risks.

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Social is the new entertainment; enter MIDiA’s new social vertical

Hanna Kahlert

24 Jul 2024

Social

Audience behaviour

AI

Social platforms are now inextricable from the digital world and every aspect of entertainment. Fans and A&Rs alike discover new music on social platforms. Marketing strategies for artists and concerts are dependent on ads side-by-side with user stories.

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Social platform user behaviour
Q1 2024

Cover image for Social platform user behaviour

Hanna Kahlert

July 2024

Marketing Strategy

The social platform marketplace is mature, with user growth stabilising, and the established platforms now fiercely competing for shares of a finite amount of available time. This report analyses the behaviours of the audiences engaging with social platforms; including daily active use market shares, monetisation aptitude, social video time spent, ...

Is this the post-social era? The state of the social platform user in 2024

Hanna Kahlert

16 Jul 2024

Social

TikTok

Daily Active users

The social marketplace is mature, with available consumer time having peaked and new growth for platforms coming at others’ expense. New platforms are emerging but remain small, while the biggest platforms, like Facebook, are seeing losses to their overall share of daily active user penetration co...

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The make-or-break of live in 2024

Hanna Kahlert

9 Jul 2024

Fandom

Superfans

Digital

The music industry has a culture problem. An overabundance of data –– from streaming services and social platforms alike ––has fostered a dependence on digital performance that does not reliably translate into fandom and cultural value.

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Who asked for AI? Why its future is more boring than you think

Hanna Kahlert

2 Jul 2024

AI

ChatGPT

Sora

Henry Ford famously once said, “ If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse” . This quote is often trotted out by ‘innovators’ when defending a new piece of technology; consumers do not know that they want it, because they don’t have it yet.

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The state of music AI
The consumer opportunity lies in modification, not generation

Tatiana Cirisano and Hanna Kahlert

June 2024

Consumer behaviour

music industry

Music publishing

MIDiA previously predicted that generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) would accelerate music’s “Instagram moment”, where consumers could create and remix music as easily and often as they post photos and videos on social media. However, just because everyone can do these things does not mean everyone will want to.

'BBL Drizzy’
The eye of the storm for generative music AI

Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

June 2024

Business Strategy

Read the case study …

Commodification’s kickbacks: trends emerging in the pendulum swing back from content overload and AI

Hanna Kahlert

18 Jun 2024

Fandom

monetisation

trends

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the state of entertainment (and culture more broadly). AI generated content is taking up ever-larger swathes of the internet. Passive consumption drives high numbers that don’t translate into value, and remuneration for music creators is low while profits at label...

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Death of the town square
Social fragmentation and a decentralised digital future

Cover image for Death of the town square

Hanna Kahlert

June 2024

Cultural trends

Social platforms have long ‘civilised’ the online world by providing common gathering grounds, but internal disruption and proliferating competition threaten this status quo. While the dominant players are unlikely to change substantially, competition, on-platform feature fragmentation, and algorithmic ‘filter bubbles’ will dilute social pl...

Another Fake Drake? AI is decoupling artists and their voices (and there’s no coming back)

Hanna Kahlert

12 Jun 2024

AI

Drake

heart on my sleeve

Drake has had perhaps one of the most publicly up-and-down relationships with generative AI. There was the AI Drake music generator, which he was dead set against. Then there was ‘Heart on My Sleeve’, the AI-generated mix using the voices of Drake and The Weeknd by a creator known as ghostwriter...

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