Original post by Laura Grivainis Thorne via themusicvoid  

TMV’s Laura G Thorne was in London taking the collective temperature at Internet Week Europe. Here’s the upshot:

The streets were alive in London as the pied pipers of tech arrived on November 7th for Internet Week Europe, a one-week-long celebration of innovation and everything web. Headquartered in Covent Garden’s swish Hospital Club and across dozens of satellite sites in the whimsically named “Silicon Roundabout,”150 events were presented by sponsors including Yahoo, LinkedIn, Wildfire, Sapient Nitro and Skype, culminating in Friday’s Closing Night Blowout Party-slash-Awards show,The Lovies.

Some IWE events considered the big-picture philosophical and creative aspects of the Internet revolution, while many others focused on practical aspects related to apps, internet marketing and advertising. Indeed, though the “World Wide Web” sprang from relatively humble origins as an internal communications channel developed by academics, it is now so dominant in business that everyone from the mom-and-pop corner store to the local bin boy feels compelled to maintain aFacebook page and LinkedIn profile if they are to be competitive.  If there was any doubt that this was so, the large number of ad agency creatives and strategists who were IWE panelists would make this point quite well: virtually all business of whatever kind resides to one extent or another in the digital space.

Of course the music industry understands this story more than most. We all know the history – digital represented piracy, the scarlet letter, the harbinger of doom – rather than an opportunity. Now however the creators of technology, the Apples & Spotify’s, are seen as the guiding light.

Whether this is true or not however may depend on your position as we’ve seen by recent events. If you are a tech company, you are well-positioned and the value of your company shares are growing. If you are a major label, you aren’t as pleased as the digital revenue is still not enough compared to the glory days of multi-platinum selling albums and CD’s. However if you are an emerging artist, you may be Oliver Twist, pleading in vain to have some more while you live in the poorhouse.

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