Music downloads have been widely blamed for the record industry's sales declines. Popular thinking holds that every free download is a lost sale. And while downloads may indeed diminish music sales, I wonder if lost sound presents the greatest threat.
The advent of the MP3 not only changed the way we record, store, and distribute music, it also changed the way we listen to it. When music was recorded on records, tapes, and CD's or played on the radio, people listened on large home and car stereos with speakers that broadcast the music to its owner, but also to anyone else in the vicinity. Consequently, people were routinely exposed to other people's music and, as a result, discovered songs and artists they might have otherwise missed. Overhearing someone else's music was a form of word-of-mouth that spurred sales.
But with the MP3 file came the iPod and the iPod came with ear buds. Suddenly we couldn't hear other people's music. I heard my music, you heard yours, but the ambient sharing stopped and with it, the passive word-of-mouth recommendations it represented.
One of the keys to fanning the flames, the third step in the PyroMarketing process, is making other people's choices visible so they can be copied by the crowd. Ear buds make it more difficult for people to know what music others have chosen and harder for trends to develop that transform songs into hits.
Want to make your song or product popular? Make it easier for your customers to broadcast their choice to their social network. Spread the fire. GS
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