About the blog
Hey and welcome to the Music 4.5 blog. We're covering the latest trends and topics in the music and tech industries.The blog is run by writer and journalist Charlotta Hedman. Join the discussion and send your ideas, feedback or comments to lotta @ 2pears.com
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Conquering mobile music – streaming or downloads
Charlotta Hedman Let us start with the mp3, because that is really where the story begins. The mp3 is a compressed audio file that was developed sometime in the late 80s and released in 1993. At that time most of … Continue reading
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Tagged itunes, mobile music, mobile phones, mp3, Spotify, streaming
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Music 4.5 @ Midem: Marketing and social engagement start-ups
By Charlotta Hedman We joined the music industry crowd at this year’s Midem. The session of marketing and social engagement music-tech start-ups offered up some interesting newcomers and one old acquaintance. Userdata and metadata were the keywords for many of … Continue reading
What we can all learn from Murdoch’s Myspace failure
By Charlotta Hedman Last week disgraced media mogul Rupert Murdoch admitted that News Corp had failed when it came to Myspace. His exact words were ”we screwed up in every way possible”. Nice. Now as with any big failure there … Continue reading
Guest post: COADEC & Mixcloud Host Richard Hooper, Propose Digital Copyright Exchange to Foster Innovation in Music Tech
By Ryan Sommer Yesterday evening at TechHub — a shared office space utilized by many London digital media startups — entrepreneurs and stakeholders surrounding IP in the digital age gathered to address Richard Hooper, a UK government appointed official, who … Continue reading
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Tagged clive gardiner, COADEC, DMCA, Hargreaves Review, Ian Hargreaves, Intellectual Property Office, mixcloud, pandora, Soundexchange, Techhub, UK IP, we7
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Predicting the top hits of 2012
Charlotta Hedman As some of us (Simon Cowell?) are waiting excitedly for the song that will top the charts this Christmas, others are already predicting the top hits for next year. Mobile discovery company Shazam has released its list over … Continue reading
Music 4.5 The social live industry – a recap
Charlotta Hedman There were plenty of lively and exciting discussions at yesterday’s Music 4.5 event ”The social live industry – where is the money?”. Here’s a quick recap of the day for those of you who couldn’t make it. The … Continue reading
Bridging the gap between major acts and indie artists
By Charlotta Hedman According to Jon Mansfield the changes in the music industry are good for smaller artists. Mansfield has over 20 years’ experience as a successful entertainment executive and is now using his background to help people set up … Continue reading
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Tagged gigs, live industry, musicconnex, social media, ticketing, venues
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Glamming up the start-up scene in Cardiff – by pitching
By Charlotta Hedman – The start-up scene in Cardiff is terrible, there’s not enough investment. We have a great SME culture, but I just don’t see where Wales’s equivalent of Twitter, Tumblr, Groupon etc is coming from. There just don’t … Continue reading
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Tagged cardiff, dizzyjam, merch, music techpitch 4.5, start-ups
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Crowd-sourcing and how to work with big brands – a Nokia ringtone follow-up
By Charlotta Hedman A while ago I wrote about Nokia’s new crowd-sourced ringtone, which got a mixed reception online (by mixed I mean it was heavily criticised). Behind the competition was Finnish music tech-start-up Audiodraft. I got hold of company … Continue reading
Why artists should care about emerging markets
Charlotta Hedman Zak Biddu is an ambitious man. During the last two years he’s been bringing western artists to India. He’s slowly breaking into a market that has so far mostly been interested in Bollywood. – Few international artists have … Continue reading