Having majored in economics, I’ve been a fan of Swivel from the start. They’re solving the problem of easily displaying data online, which I had to deal with myself as an intern at an economic development office back in college.
I’ve been perusing the site and came across this particularly striking graph that shows the gentle rise and fall of sales of vinyl, cassette, CD, and iPod sales as one format replaces the other (unfortunately itunes sales were not pegged). CD sales seem to have peaked after a steep rise out of the eighties and into the nineties. But the more interesting part is the decline in sales. Looking at the slopes and peaks for each of the formats, you can see that the peaks are becoming steeper and the transitions quicker. People are continually choosing the more portable format.
The decline in CD sales is happening, and it’s only a matter of time before CD’s are the domain of audiophiles (At least DJs still use vinyl). Eyeballing it, CDs seem to have another 10 years till they’re phased out of the mainstream, although it could come sooner.
I’d be interested to see how the same data compares for video sales.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Full quality, open (no DRM), play anywhere, rip-able to any audio format you like, built-in back-up…and cheap (when you buy used). CDs are the best thing going right now. I will buy them as long as they make them. I see no reason right now to stop buying them. Are they selling DRM-free full quality AIFF files yet for download? Well, maybe in 10 years we;ll see that and I’ll switch.
Cds are much better than crummy DRM’d downloads that can be lost with a hard drive crash or break when the company decides not to support them anymore (see Google Video). I can share my music with my friends. I can even GIVE my music to my friends if I no longer care for it. I can SELL my music back to the store if I like. Can you do any of this? Oh, that’s right, your songs are locked to YOUR computer! Oh well.
Long live CDs!
November 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Interesting post.
It makes me wonder when each of the technologies that took over for the previous was in the lab being developed, and if the next technology that will replace digital music/ipods is already being developed, or if the cycle will slow down?
November 14th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Steve, I think consumers are making the choice to not necessarily buy, but rip and trade on their own. Warner’s been pretty up front about how they completely ignored the online music trend. (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/macuser/news/138990/music-boss-we-were-wrong-to-go-to-war-with-consumers.html). The DRM wall is coming down quite quickly too.
I think what’s going on the music market is predominantly a story of distribution, not on storage methods. MP3 won’t be entirely replaced if it doesn’t need to be replaced in order to make my music consumption easier. Look to advancements in how music is stored, in the cloud, to see what’s going to happen.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
The real issue here isn’t music tastes,distribution, etc., but readability/retrievability. The entire data base of one of the U.S. Census reports was almost lost because there were only two computers left that could read that format ,one being in the Smithsonian in pieces. Print books are still around because people want a guarantee that their vital information/culture will be available in thefuture, no matter what advances come along. That’s why vinyl records still have a presence today. Chasing after the latest fad/’convenience is a sign of cultural decadence, because cultural/organizational memory is destroyed-witness the attitude of younger citizens that they shouldn’t know about something because “that was before my time”. What if the Magna Carta, the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, etc., had been on CDs? Think About it. GERRY
December 6th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
[…] thought I’d hijack a post by Nick Gonzalez, of the Running with Foxes blog. Having majored in economics, I’ve been a fan of Swivel from the start. They’re solving […]
January 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m surprised to see vinyl flat around 0. It’d be interesting to see if there has been any movement, but it’s difficult to tell from the graph. I’ve definitely seen a revival of record stores, and more and more people I know are buying vinyl. Granted, I do DJ quite a bit, but its always surprising the huge percent of music that is still released on vinyl. BTW, I agree Swivel is pretty neat!