Blue NoteWhile may people say that Web 2.0 is fading (at least in its glitter), to me this is an indication that it’s still just starting. Now, I am not sure what Blue Note is going to do is a good idea, but it does say something interesting. In short, Blue Note is creating a Social Network/Download store for it’s Jazz and Blues catalog. The download store is fine - although music download store proliferation is definately becoming a problem. The two more interesting things are the demographic and the social networking part. Apparently the challenge for downloading within the Blue Note demographic is one of age. Meaning their customers are “too old” - where too old = 35+ (as an aside, our focus has also been 30+). The risk is that they are not going to leverage the site and in the past they wouldn’t download music. They now believe they will (and I agree). Far more interesting than that to me however, is that they are implementing some type of social network to drive sales. I don’t know what that will look like yet of course, but let’s assume it’s something like: Meet a friend, see what they bought or are listening too, or what are their favorite artists and see their picture. Maybe chat about an artist, or something like that. Of the many interesting aspects of this, to me the most interesting is the “nicheing” of social networks and here is the thing the fundamental shift away from a retail store front model for selling music. We know that 30% of music sales come radio discovery and 20% come from personal referral. That begs the question of what percentage might from from a less personal referral - a social network referral. Lots of people are banking on it - Blue Note is starting to and we certainly are.

Originally published on WordPress on August 13, 2007. Migrated to this blog on May 29, 2025.