What’s on your iPod playlist? Well, there are probably a dozen playlists on my portable, and that portable is not always an iPod. I have a Nomad playlist, a Rio playlist, an Archos playlist….you get the idea. But these days any activity dealing with digital audio gets the iPod moniker thrust upon it, fair or not. This is the type of branding that every marketing professional drools over.

I do agree on one thing about the playlist. It does reveal a bit about your soul and who you are. This is not meant to be some sort of personality psychobabble. Rather, it validates a belief I have that the average consumer is not indifferent to variety.

Several years back the average person only bought six CDs a year. That meant that unless some of those CDs were compilation albums, the average consumer limited themselves to the music of only six artists a year when it came down to actually make a purchase. As the average consumer listens to far more than six artists a year via other sources like radio, I recognized back in 2001 that there was a tremendous opportunity for digital singles here to address pent up consumer demand. A mechanism to more affordably expand the variety of artists and music styles purchased by the average CD buyer, who is now down to five CDs a year, but might hold over 1000 digital singles on his or her iPod. Of course, the major labels mostly missed this opportunity for numerous reasons. Opportunity cost is a bitch.

Maybe there is limited variety in the brand of the portable device most of us actually possess, but our music tastes are expanding. My tastes certainly have, though even years back I was frustrated with FM radio’s tightly targeted playlists. I was bored with classic rock as a teenager, yet that’s all many of my non-iPod toting friends still listen to.

What’s on your iPod playlist? It’s a valid cultural question, not a silly reflection of early millenium kitsch. For me my iPod playlist illustrates an evolution in my music tastes. More important, such music is more accessible to me thanks to artist websites, MySpace, Net radio, the playlists that fans post, and other Internet distribution/introduction mechanisms.

The four big record labels continue to cry about lost CD sales, but the independent labels are selling more CDs than ever. Apple proved you could sell a billion dollars worth of digital music downloads, despite the fact that free file sharing is huge and continues to grow. There is a shift in the market - it began even before Napster appeared - and those artists and labels that can best adjust to it will do thrive not suffer. Fans touting their favorites on the Web is just one of several burgeoning means to offer balance for those artists who can’t get visibility through traditional ways.

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/6002/ipod-playlist.html