Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

YouTube's secret weapon for overtaking Spotify

22 Sep 2022

YouTube has not been quiet about its ambitions to overtake Spotify as the music industry’s top revenue driver by 2025. The clock is ticking, and although YouTube is the most popular platform for music...

min read

Web 3.0 is a lane, not a highway

Mark Mulligan

2 Sep 2022

web 3.0

metaverse

Blockchain

Facebook was not the first web 2.0 company, but it was the one that took it mainstream to a global audience. Consumers’ digital lives would never be the same again. Whereas web 1.0 had enabled them to...

min read

Hybrid shock
How ads will change SVOD

Tim Mulligan

August 2022

Video

Amazon

Apple TV

The combined effects of market saturation for subscription video on demand (SVOD) alongside a growing cost-of-living crisis are forcing pureplay SVOD services to modify their ad-free propositions. Disney-owned...

What happens when content supersedes the creator?

Tatiana Cirisano

25 Aug 2022

social media

creator tools

Creator Economy

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the user interface looks like a TikTok feed. Companies from Meta to Spotify and Amazon have tested TikTok-like feeds that are focused on discovery,...

min read

Has Blizzard’s mobile gamble paid off?

Perry Gresham

11 Aug 2022

mobile games

diablo

microtransactions

Blizzard was once perhaps the most loved game developer – with a devoted fanbase built on the back of iconic titles like Diablo and World of Warcraft. However, over the past few years there has been...

min read

If the future of entertainment is niche, how does the Meta approach fit in?

Hanna Kahlert

3 Aug 2022

Instagram

Kim Kardashian

Reels

The last week has undoubtedly been a hectic one for the developers of Instagram, which recently began trialling a TikTok-esque, video-first focus on its app to some users. The update was not well received,...

min read

With Meta’s revenue share program, can rights holders and platforms finally agree?

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Jul 2022

Streaming Music

user generated content

Content Creators

Over the last week, Meta made headlines three times in relation to music on its platforms (Instagram and Facebook). First, royalty-free music provider Epidemic Sound sued Meta for allegedly allowing users...

min read

Music IP as video content
Why music fandom is strategically important for D2C

Cover image for Music IP as video content

Tim Mulligan

July 2022

Spotify

Video

Vevo

Music rightsholders are keen to leverage artist IP in an increasingly competitive direct-to-consumer video landscape, where appealing to silver streamers is a strategic play to minimise churn in an era...

Beatport’s LabelRadar acquisition is the latest sign of the platforms era

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jul 2022

Beatport

record labels

music industry

This week, online music marketplace Beatport acquired LabelRadar, a service that streamlines the demo submission process for artists and labels. Following previous strategic acquisitions, the deal represents...

min read

Why Top Gun: Maverick defines peak film in the streaming era

Tim Mulligan

12 Jul 2022

Paramount

Top Gun

The film industry could be forgiven for thinking that the COVID induced disruption of the previous two years could be written off as an aberration in the long-term dominance of the live theatrical view...

min read

Samsung is becoming an important games distribution player, as the ‘gaming TV market’ comes to life

Karol Severin

4 Jul 2022

Samsung

Smart TV

Games

Samsung is establishing itself as a serious player in the distribution part of the games industry’s value chain through its ‘Gaming Hub’. Having already partnered with GeForce Now and Stadia games...

min read

Reflections on the music industry at NFT.NYC

Tatiana Cirisano

23 Jun 2022

cryptocurrency

NFT

record labels

At the fourth annual NFT.NYC conference in New York, the sentiment fell somewhere between faint excitement and “so this is still a thing, right?” Unlike this time last year, when the music industry...

min read

Quick take: Why Xbox All Access could be the ultimate recession winner

Karol Severin

17 Jun 2022

Inflation

global recession

cost of living

Xbox All Access has been around for a while now, though with a limited reach (currently only available in 12 markets). While it was always going to play an integral part in Xbox’s cross-platform (and...

min read

The future of entertainment innovation lies in exclusive experiences, not content

Hanna Kahlert

15 Jun 2022

Media and Marketing

Innovation

content

In the age before digital engagement went mainstream, entertainment had clear access channels and multiple price points. Video was able to rely on movie tickets, (expensive) TV sets, and the individual...

min read

Burning out and fading away: the exhausting job of marketing new music

Keith Jopling

31 May 2022

Streaming

Marketing

Online video

The recent protests by music artists about the pressures of keeping up a constant presence on social media are disconcerting in an age when many artists are struggling with mental health issues and wellbeing....

min read

Is TikTok becoming a record label? The question misses the point

Tatiana Cirisano

18 May 2022

Music Streaming

music industry

Fandom

Every time TikTok does anything that seems to hedge on record label territory, someone inevitably asks the question: is TikTok turning into a record label? Cue the eye-rolls from the music industry. No...

min read

Why increased competition and the cost-of-living crisis add up to a new Netflix

Tim Mulligan

17 May 2022

Online video

Video

Audience Insight

15 years into Netflix’s subscription video on demand (SVOD) pivot and the entertainment disruptor is poised to pivot again. According to press reports, Netflix is considering re-inventing itself as an...

min read

Xbox Cloud Gaming expansion heralds a cross-platform future

Perry Gresham

13 May 2022

xbox

cloud gaming

Fortnite

MIDiA has been writing about Xbox’s cross-platform future for years, and Microsoft is bringing this closer to reality with each step they take. Ultimately, Xbox gamers may soon not need to own consoles...

min read

How the iPod changed everything

Mark Mulligan

10 May 2022

ipod

iPhone

ipad

Apple just announced that it is finally ending production of the iPod . At 21 years of age, it outlived many of the dramatic changes it witnessed and triggered. In this age, dominated by streaming (and...

min read

What Snapchat is getting right about the future (and why music should pay attention)

Tatiana Cirisano

6 May 2022

music industry

social media

snapchat

The music industry has spent the last few years studying the ins and outs of new platforms like TikTok and Twitch, with good reason. But the decade-old Snapchat increasingly appears to be social media’s...

min read