Introduction
Since the early nineties, the way users consume music has become almost completely digitized. This has greatly changed how the industry learns what music is popular in order to create new music, make sales, and guess the next big songs for radio. The music industry is now able to use big data taken from software that extracts music and listener data based on very small details involving mp3 downloads, streaming services, and social media. This can lead to a lower cost in the production of music and ultimately a lower cost for consumers.
History of Music Sales
The most popular ranking system for music is the Billboard Hot 100, which is the standard chart for singles and was first introduced in 1958. Before mp3 downloads, streaming services, and social media, the music industry could only determine the popularity of songs by radio stations, stores (based on record, tape, or compact disc sales), and jukeboxes when they were still popular. This method wasn’t very accurate for many reasons. Labels would
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“The story is an indication that big data is a useful resource to analyze the preferences of millions of listeners in order to develop apps for all mobile devices, including iPads, iPhones, and Android devices. With newly developed apps, it indicates that music will be heard at an infrequently frequent pace, either in private or public settings.” Access to the internet has changed the course of the music industry forever. Digital downloads and big data allow for a progression of technology that will permit the music industry to expand in new and exciting ways. (Birkett, 2014) Despite the huge increase in online sales, packaged music still holds more than half of the market for music purchases in 2013, but this is down six percent from 2012. Online music is expected to increase by seven percent this year. See chart