Can Cory Ondrejka Save The Music Industry?

From serving aboard a nuclear submarine to caretaking a virtual world as a mass of flying noodles-- to joining a record label that counts Radiohead, Pink Floyd, and Frank Sinatra in its library.  A few weeks after a tantalizing hint, my pal and fellow ex-Linden Lab alumni Cory Ondrejka has finally revealed his new career direction, and it's a decided "proverbial left turn at Albuquerque", as he described it in an e-mail, then elaborated on his blog:  Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy at EMI Music.  In doing so, he follows his friend Douglas Merrill from the Internet industry (Merrill was Chief Information Officer at Google, before EMI lured him away.)   

This is, of course, a dire time to join the music industry, a point where the Net has undermined its traditional revenue models so much that the big five record labels are not just competing against each other, but Starbucks and Walmart, too.  Then again, while the traditional MMO industry besides World of Warcraft collapsed, thanks to Cory, Linden Lab went on to make an estimated $50 million in annual profit.  Now he's aiming to "generate sustained, ongoing innovation around music".  To do so, I have to think he'll be looking at ways Second Life musicians have innovated music, such as Grace McDunnough's Musimmersion, Arabesque Choche and juliet Heberle's Chouchou, Komuso Tokugawa/MoShang Zhao's SynaesthAsia, or Dizzy Banjo, Chase Marellan, and Eshi Otawara's Parsec.  In any case, I can't wait to see how the music industry changes after his arrival.

Comments

[Dizzy Banjo]

Potentially fascinating! I'm really looking forward to seeing what Cory's lateral thinking abilities can do with this one!

[skribe Forti]

I think the whole push media model needs to be rethought. People want choice and now have the means to route around the middle men and go straight to the source. The music industry in particular needs to come to terms with the fact that they're no longer the only mass distribution channel for artists and that their competitors do it better and cheaper - even ignoring piracy.

[Johnny Alton]

heh, can you post this article to Blue Linden....

He seems to disagree heavily with your figures past reported.

Thanks :)

[Adam Rakunas]

Whatever his strategy, I hope they involve more than 16K of memory.

[Adam Rakunas]

...it involves more than 16K...

Apparently, I need a parsing upgrade.