Wednesday, March 7, 2007

I Liiiiiiikkke Good Music

“I liiiiiiike” is no longer just an overquoted phrase from a popular movie. It is now also a social networking service. iLike is a music-focused site similar to last.fm that allows users to create profiles online and share music with friends (real friends or those with similar musical tastes through thier high compatibility ratings). The program also caters free downloads according to musical taste. The site recently hit half million users and ticketmaster.com has also invested $13.3 million in the company, giving Ticketmaster 25% of the shares in the company in hopes to promote concert ticket purchases.

iLike is growing, and their lack of wariness about working with other companies is part of their appeal. Not only is iLike Ticketmaster-friendly, there is also the incorporation with the iTunes software. The program has a downloadable sidebar that directly connects to the iTunes library to offer recommendations and also has a wishlist where users can place songs they enjoy and directly connect to the iTunes music library. The system is so easy to use—so easy, that in fact people are actually buying music. The company released a statement saying that “more than 50 percent of logins result in a purchase, or the filing of a song in a wishlist for purchase consideration later.” This means that half of the time a user signs on, that user either buys or considers buying a song from iTunes.

While there hasn’t been data released yet that I could find about ticket sale boosts for Ticketmaster after their iLike partnership, I’d like to predict that ticket sales will grow from this affiliation. Clearly the iTunes sidebar has made it quick and easy for consumers to purchase the music that they find on iLike, and a similar venture with Ticketmaster will make newly-discovered artists’ concerts just a click away. The fact is that people aren’t unwilling to pay for music so long as the music is good and easy to purchase. By assisting people to find this good music, using easy-to-use formats, and working with other corporations not against them, everybody will benefit in the end.

No comments: