Review from Michael Stevens

On the way back from Indy Friday, I switched the iPod over
to the podcast, The Future of Music : Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution by
Dave Kusek, Gerd Leonhard. I only made it through the first hour or so
but let me recommend this title to all librarians who want a glimpse of
what the future of music and content dlelivery might be! The more I
think about it, the more I discuss it with my colleague Joe Sipocz (who
gets stuff like this) and the more I read articles like this one about
Yahoo! Music: http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/todayatplaylist/2005/05/yahoodamn/index.php? — and how music services might meet folks’ needs.

Then, I discover this: http://www.stretta.com/~matthew/resources/music_server/.
A music server for the whole house, most cool! To take it further,
then, Kusek and Leonard propose by 2015 a huge jukebox of all
music..available anytime and virtually anywhere as an inexpensive
monthly subscription… music flows to ear phones, receivers,
everywhere…like water!

In their vision of 2015, Music streams to you via wifi wherever you
are… your "TasteMate" remembers your favorites and keeps those songs
in rotation in your personal playlists…news and entertainment are
available as well…and the music companies have a model of business
that is fair and profitable!

Where do libraries fall in this mix of the ubiquitous jukebox
connected to subscribers? For one thing, the CD collections will slowly
fade away like VHS is now. I wonder if the next step will be vendors of
digital content offering a subscription to libraries — like many
vendors do now. In this vague "Music like Water" future, will the
public library pay yearly for streams or downloads of stuff to their
patrons devices and home media servers? I want to see this future!

WOWZA! I need to continue listening. Please let me know what you think if you have read the book!