How can entrepreneurial musicians use electronic social networks to diffuse their music

Principal Topic: ''In less than ten years music labels will not exist anymore.'' Michael Smelli, former Global COO Sony/BMG MCA/QUT IMP Business Lab Digital Music Think Thanks 9 May 2009, Brisbane Big music labels such as EMI, Sony BMG and UMG have been responsible for promoting and producing a myriad of stars in the music industry over the last decades. However, the industry structure is under enormous threat with the emergence of a new innovative era of digital music. Recent years have seen a dramatic shift in industry power with the emergence of Napster and other file sharing sites, iTunes and other online stores, iPod and the MP3 revolution. Myspace.com and other social networking sites are connecting entrepreneurial artists with fans and creating online music communities independent of music labels. In 2008 the digital music business internationally grew by around 25% to 3.7 Billion US-Dollar. Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded music sales, up from 15 % in 2007 (IFPI Digital music report 2009). CD sales have fallen by 40% since their peak levels. Global digital music sales totalled an estimated US$ 3 Billion in 2007, an increase of 40% on 2006 figures. Digital sales account for an estimated 15% of global market, up from 11% in 2006 and zero in 2003. The music industry is more advanced in terms of digital revenues than any other creative or entertainment industry (except games). Its digital share is more than twice that of newspapers (7%), films (35) or books (2%). All these shifts present new possibilities for music entrepreneurs to act entrepreneurially and promote their music independently of the major music labels. Diffusion of innovations has a long tradition in both sociology (e.g. Rogers 1962, 2003) and marketing (Bass 1969, Mahajan et al., 1990). The context of the current project is theoretically interesting in two respects. First, the role of online social networks replaces traditional face-to-face word of mouth communications. Second, as music is a hedonistic product, this strongly influences the nature of interpersonal communications and their diffusion patterns. Both of these have received very little attention in the diffusion literature to date, and no studies have investigated the influence of both simultaneously. This research project is concerned with the role of social networks in this new music industry landscape, and how this may be leveraged by musicians willing to act entrepreneurially. Our key research question we intend to address is: How do online social network communities impact the nature, pattern and speed that music diffuses? Methodology/Key Propositions : We expect the nature/ character of diffusion of popular, generic music genres to be different from specialized, niche music. To date, only Moe & Fader (2002) and Lee et al. (2003) investigated diffusion patterns of music and these focus on forecast weekly sales of music CDs based on the advance purchase orders before the launch, rather than taking a detailed look at diffusion patterns. Consequently, our first research questions are concerned with understanding the nature of online communications within the context of diffusion of music and artists. Hence, we have the following research questions: RQ1: What is the nature of fan-to-fan ''word of mouth'' online communications for music? Do these vary by type of artist and genre of music? RQ2: What is the nature of artist-to-fan online communications for music? Do these vary by type of artist and genre of music? What types of communication are effective? Two outcomes from research social network theory are particularly relevant to understanding how music might diffuse through social networks. Weak tie theory (Granovetter, 1973), argues that casual or infrequent contacts within a social network (or weak ties) act as a link to unique information which is not normally contained within an entrepreneurs inner circle (or strong tie) social network. A related argument, structural hole theory (Burt, 1992), posits that it is the absence of direct links (or structural holes) between members of a social network which offers similar informational benefits. Although these two theories argue for the information benefits of casual linkages, and diversity within a social network, others acknowledge that a balanced network which consists of a mix of strong ties, weak ties is perhaps more important overall (Uzzi, 1996). It is anticipated that the network structure of the fan base for different types of artists and genres of music will vary considerably. This leads to our third research question: RQ3: How does the network structure of online social network communities impact the pattern and speed that music diffuses? The current paper is best described as theory elaboration. It will report the first exploratory phase designed to develop and elaborate relevant theory (the second phase will be a quantitative study of network structure and diffusion). We intend to develop specific research propositions or hypotheses from the above research questions. To do so we will conduct three focus group discussions of independent musicians and three focus group discussions of fans active in online music communication on social network sites. We will also conduct five case studies of bands that have successfully built fan bases through social networking sites (e.g. myspace.com, facebook.com). The idea is to identify which communication channels they employ and the characteristics of the fan interactions for different genres of music. We intend to conduct interviews with each of the artists and analyse their online interaction with their fans. Results and Implications : At the current stage, we have just begun to conduct focus group discussions. An analysis of the themes from these focus groups will enable us to further refine our research questions into testable hypotheses. Ultimately, our research will provide a better understanding of how social networks promote the diffusion of music, and how this varies for different genres of music. Hence, some music entrepreneurs will be able to promote their music more effectively. The results may be further generalised to other industries where online peer-to-peer communication is common, such as other forms of entertainment and consumer technologies.

Carbodiimide-mediated synthesis of poly(L-lactide)-based networks

Poly(L-lactide-co-succinic anhydride) networks were synthesised via the carbodiimide-mediated coupling of poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) star polymers. When 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine (DMAP) alone was used as the catalyst gelation did not occur. However, when 4-(dimethylamino)pyridinium p-toluenesulfonate (DPTS), the salt of DMAP and p-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA), was the catalyst, the networks obtained had gel fractions comparable to those which were reported for networks synthesised by conventional methods. Greater gel fractions and conversion of the prepolymer terminal hydroxyl groups were observed when the hydroxyl-terminated star prepolymers reacted with succinic anhydride in a one-pot procedure than when the hydroxyl-terminated star prepolymers reacted with presynthesised succinic-terminated star prepolymers. The thermal properties of the networks, glass transition temperature (Tg), melting temperature (Tm) and crystallinity (Xc) were all strongly influenced by the average molecular weights between the crosslinks ((M_c). The network with the smallest (M_c )(1400 g/mol) was amorphous and had a Tg of 59 °C while the network with the largest (M_c ) (7800 g/mol) was 15 % crystalline and had a Tg of 56 °C.

Cities in the airports 'shadow' : underlying interests and discretionary power in airport-region development

The previously distinct boundary between airports and their cities has become increasingly blurred as new interests and actors are identified as important stakeholders in the decision making process. As a consequence airport entities are more than ever seeking an integrated existence with their surrounding regions. While current planning strategies provide insights on how to improve and leverage land use planning in and around airports, emerging challenges for implementing and protecting these planning ideals stem from the governance shadows of development decisions. The thesis of this paper is that improving the identification, articulation and consideration of city and airport interests in the development approval process (between planning and implementation) can help avoid outcomes that hinder the ability of cities and their airports to meet their separate/mutual long-term objectives. By applying a network governance perspective to the pilot case study of Brisbane, analysis of overlapping and competing actor interests show how different governance arrangements facilitate (or impede) decision making that protects sustainable ‘airport region’ development. ---------- Contributions are made to airport and city development decision makers through the identification and analysis of effective and ineffective decision making pathways, and to governance literature by way of forwarding empirically derived frameworks for showing how actors protect their interests in the ‘crowded decision making domain’ of airport region development. This work was carried out through the Airport Metropolis Research Project under the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (LP0775225).

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The challenge for all educators is to fuse the learning of information literacy to an academic education in such a way that the outcome is systematic and sustainable learning for students. This challenge can be answered through long-term commitment to information literacy education bound to organisation-wide, renewable strategic planning and driven through systemic reform. This chapter seeks to explore the two sides of reforming information literacy education in an academic environment. Specifically, it will examine how one Australian university has undertaken the implementation of a rigorous strategic, systemic approach to information literacy learning and teaching.

Towards compatible and integrated airport and regional land use planning in Australia

Over the past decade privatised capital city airports in Australia have planned developed a range of non aviation commercial and retail land uses on airport land. Many surrounding municipalities consider this development in conflict with existing regional land use planning. Conversely airport operators are alarmed at continued urban consolidation and encroachment of incompatible regional development. Land use planning within and surrounding Australian capital city airports does not support compatible and integrated land use. It is currently a fragmented process due to: 1) current legislative and policy frameworks; 2) competing stakeholder priorities and interests; and 3) inadequate coordination and disjointed decision-making. This paper will examine privatised Australian airport development and consider three case studies to detail the context of airport and regional land use planning. A series of stakeholder workshops have served to inform the procedural dynamics and relationships between airport and regional decision-making. This exploratory research will assist in informing the knowledge gaps between aviation, airport development and broader urban land use policy. This paper will provide recommendations to enhance approaches to land use planning for airports and adjacent metropolitan regions in Australia and overseas.

Planning for survival

When the global financial crisis has its own acronym (the “GFC”), you know its going to be around for a while. This article looks at some of the risk/opportunity assessments you should take into consideration if you are planning for your property development business to still be around when the GFC is a thing of the past.

Data muling over underwater wireless sensor networks using an autonomous underwater vehicle

We present algorithms, systems, and experimental results for underwater data muling. In data muling a mobile agent interacts with static agents to upload, download, or transport data to a different physical location. We consider a system comprising an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and many static Underwater Sensor Nodes (USN) networked together optically and acoustically. The AUV can locate the static nodes using vision and hover above the static nodes for data upload. We describe the hardware and software architecture of this underwater system, as well as experimental data. © 2006 IEEE.

Krill: An exploration in underwater sensor networks

While sensor networks have now become very popular on land, the underwater environment still poses some difficult problems. Communication is one of the difficult challenges under water. There are two options: optical and acoustic. We have designed an optical communication board that allows the Fleck’s to communicate optically. We have tested the resulting underwater sensor nodes in two different applications.

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In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in combat, and their potential applications in civil and commercial roles are also receiving considerable attention by industry and the research community. There are numerous published reports of UAVs used in Earth science missions [1], fire-fighting [2], and border security [3] trials, with other speculative deployments, including applications in agriculture, communications, and traffic monitoring. However, none of these UAVs can demonstrate an equivalent level of safety to manned aircraft, particularly in the case of an engine failure, which would require an emergency or forced landing. This may be arguably the main factor that has prevented these UAV trials from becoming full-scale commercial operations, as well as restricted operations of civilian UAVs to only within segregated airspace.

Probabilistic world modeling for distributed team planning

This paper describes an application of decoupled probabilistic world modeling to achieve team planning. The research is based on the principle that the action selection mechanism of a member in a robot team can select an effective action if a global world model is available to all team members. In the real world, the sensors are imprecise, and are individual to each robot, hence providing each robot a partial and unique view about the environment. We address this problem by creating a probabilistic global view on each agent by combining the perceptual information from each robot. This probabilistic view forms the basis for selecting actions to achieve the team goal in a dynamic environment. Experiments have been carried out to investigate the effectiveness of this principle using custom-built robots for real world performance, in addition, to extensive simulation results. The results show an improvement in team effectiveness when using probabilistic world modeling based on perception sharing for team planning.

Contesting ‘sustainability’ in infrastructure planning : The debate of the public interest in Brisbane’s Boggo Road Busway development

Sustainable infrastructure demands that declared principles of sustainability are enacted in the processes of its implementation. However, a problem arises if the concept of sustainability is not thoroughly scrutinised in the planning process. The public interest could be undermined when the rhetoric of sustainability is used to substantiate a proposed plan. This chapter analyses the manifestation of sustainable development in the Boggo Road Busway Plan in Brisbane, Australia against the sustainability agenda set in the South East Queensland Regional and Transport Plans. Although the construction of the Busway was intended to improve public transport access in the region, its implementation drew significant environmental concerns. Local community groups contested the ‘sustainability’ concept deployed in Queensland’s infrastructure planning. Their challenges resulted in important concessions in the delivery of the Busway plan. This case demonstrates that principles of sustainable infrastructure should be measurable and that local communities be better informed in order to fulfil the public interest in regional planning.

Single-layer decoupling networks for large circulant symmetric arrays

In this paper, the authors propose a new structure for the decoupling of circulant symmetric arrays of more than four elements. In this case, network element values are again obtained through a process of repeated eigenmode decoupling, here by solving sets of nonlinear equations. However, the resulting circuit is much simpler and can be implemented on a single layer. The corresponding circuit topology for the 6-element array is displayed in figure diagrams. The procedure will be illustrated by considering different examples.

Water sensitive urban design : landscape planning and design to improve water quality in Shijiazhaung and Yueyang

Water quality issues are heavily dependent on land development and management decisions within river and lake catchments or watersheds. Economic benefits of urbanisation may be short‐ lived without cleaner environmental outcomes. However, whole‐of‐catchment thinking is not, as yet, as frequent a consideration in urban planning and development in China as it is in many other countries. Water is predominantly seen as a resource to be ‘owned’ by different jurisdictions and allocated to numerous users, both within a catchment and between catchments. An alternative to this approach is to think of water in the same way as other commodities that must be kept moving through a complex transport system. Water must ultimately arrive at particular destinations in the biosphere, although it travels across a broad landscape and may be held up temporarily at certain places along the way. While water extraction can be heavily controlled, water pollution is far more difficult to regulate. Both have significant impacts on water availability and flows both now and in the future. As Chinese cities strive to improve economic conditions for their citizens, new centres are being rebuilt and environmental valued

UAS mission path planning system (MPPS) using hybrid-game coupled to multi-objective optimiser

This paper presents the application of advanced optimization techniques to unmanned aerial system mission path planning system (MPPS) using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). Two types of multi-objective optimizers are compared; the MOEA nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II and a hybrid-game strategy are implemented to produce a set of optimal collision-free trajectories in a three-dimensional environment. The resulting trajectories on a three-dimensional terrain are collision-free and are represented by using Bézier spline curves from start position to target and then target to start position or different positions with altitude constraints. The efficiency of the two optimization methods is compared in terms of computational cost and design quality. Numerical results show the benefits of adding a hybrid-game strategy to a MOEA and for a MPPS.

Optimal mission path planning (MPP) for an air sampling unmanned aerial system

This paper presents advanced optimization techniques for Mission Path Planning (MPP) of a UAS fitted with a spore trap to detect and monitor spores and plant pathogens. The UAV MPP aims to optimise the mission path planning search and monitoring of spores and plant pathogens that may allow the agricultural sector to be more competitive and more reliable. The UAV will be fitted with an air sampling or spore trap to detect and monitor spores and plant pathogens in remote areas not accessible to current stationary monitor methods. The optimal paths are computed using a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs). Two types of multi-objective optimisers are compared; the MOEA Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms II (NSGA-II) and Hybrid Game are implemented to produce a set of optimal collision-free trajectories in three-dimensional environment. The trajectories on a three-dimension terrain, which are generated off-line, are collision-free and are represented by using Bézier spline curves from start position to target and then target to start position or different position with altitude constraints. The efficiency of the two optimization methods is compared in terms of computational cost and design quality. Numerical results show the benefits of coupling a Hybrid-Game strategy to a MOEA for MPP tasks. The reduction of numerical cost is an important point as the faster the algorithm converges the better the algorithms is for an off-line design and for future on-line decisions of the UAV.