Technology

What is your chosen technology? Music technology

How is it marketed? Who to? Music is marketed in several different formats and both digital and analogue formats are available still. Mp3 formats are the most popular file type around at the moment draining the CD market down more and more as the formats are made better and smaller in file space. Digital files are produced on to disk space and sold through Cd's or through digital files on legal Internet sites such as iTunes. Sites such as iTunes have proprietary software grants attached to their files so the files may not be modified or put onto other music devices than the iPod or iPhone when purchased. This is one way in which digital music is stopped from spreading illegally from computer to computer.

Which companies provide it? How much does it cost? Most music providing companies now distribute it through both the Internet and shops such as HMV also have there walk in stores. These stores obviously need grants from all the music and record labels. Online stores such as iTunes sell each song for around £0.79 and an album for around £7.99. On a CD you would not be able to buy individual tracks and the album would cost around £9.99.

Hot/Cold media? Push/Pull technology? McLuhan explains that the radio is a hot media in that it uses a particular sense over the others but also explains that cold media emerged from jazz and popular music. Therefore i would put music technology in the category of cold/cool media because it requires more active participation rather than a less complete involvement. Push technology on the Internet refers to a style of communication protocol where the request for a given transaction originates with the publisher, or central server. It is contrasted with pull technology, where the request for the transmission of information originates with the receiver, or client.

Is it a new media, or an old media that is undergoing radical transformation? An old media; music production, distribution and consumption was around a long time before the Internet, and there has been lots of methods such as cassette and vinyl before the introduction of the internet and the heavy public use of the internet. The introduction of digitial music rather than analogue in the late 1900's, early 2000's has faced its advantages and its disadvantages.

Who has been responsible for developing it? Why? The article on my blog featuring iTunes highlights iTunes heavy participation in bringing music into a digital age. As well as iTunes though, smaller artists who are less known to the public have used digital files which are distributed over the internet to get their music known to the public as their albums are less successful and cannot find record deals without large numbered facts about their sales.