The year 2005 - a few years ago, but eons ago in the digital age. Sony Ericsson introduced the W800i (prior to the almost identical k750i) - and cellphones were changed forever. At the time, brilliant specs - 2 mp camera w. auto-focus and flash, even today that's god specs - the iPhone cant muster that specs 4 years after the w800i/k750i were introduced. It held the at the time massive 512 MB on again at the time tiny Memory Stick Pro Duo. Since it were the first of the Walkman phones it came with the first instalment of the Walkman Player software with MegaBass. These are just words - the hands on experience back then were no less then a technological revolution - I fell in love - here were a cellphone non only with a brilliant camera (i have printed several of the pictures taken w. this phone) but we had a phone that sounded and felt like a mp3 player, the sound were (and am) crisp and it even had a flight more option were you could turn of the phone ability. I would call that a mobile music revolution - after the w800 - it became "normal" to make a music phone - and the race is still on - the walkman brand is a very strong brand for SE today.
Generally speaking the hardware race is raging as ferociously as it ever had. A lot of hardware producers are spitting out high-end handsets in a very high speed, but at the same time, the market is getting saturated by even more handset producers. New as well as old, eg. palm has rethink their whole existence and come up with a handset that is the first one so far I have seen that is being called a iPhone killer all over the board, besides the imminent HTC Hero (I started this blog so "long" ago that the hero has emerged as more the just a concept- and regarding the pre - unfortunately only an American handset so far, because of the net it uses). The main point is that the profit margin is shrinking for the produces, and i guess the quality of the musicplayer in the handsets have reached a level of such high quality that in order to improve it, we have to totally rethink the concept mobile handset music player, if I knew how, I wouldn't be sitting here.
But there is another aspect to mobile music, which we are seeing being created right now, this time spearheaded commercially by Nine Inch Nails (earlier praised in this blog for their amazing ability to be innovative in the music business). If you haven't heard of their iPhone App - it is in due time you march over there and see what it can do (http://bit.ly/yE619) - before NIN ends their tour and is defunct.
What we are experiencing here is the mobile revolution part 2 - now it is the form of the music that is negotiable from the content owners point of view. You can give your fans your own platform with the content you want them to see - you can give the fans much more then the music or the (quite boring) wappage push. This is yet another medium in which the artist can take up the conversation with the fans. Which is the future of music, quite simple - not only the power and control to give (emphasize here - the power to sell is dead, if not that - then dying) content to the fans - but also make a dialogue with them - see my blog about the death and life of the album http://bit.ly/11f6Gv for more on this.
With over 91% of all the population having their mobile device within a meter of them 24/7 and 95% never leaving home without it - this is not only a music revolution - but also a quite natural evolution, when the handsets become more and more powerful - and easier to adapt to the demands of easy consumable and accessibly content that the fans demand.
