Like the Phoenix, the automotive industry has had ups and downs in its recent existence. Business was awful just a couple of years ago, but seems to have rebounded in 2010 and flourished so far in 2011. Will the trend continue?

This graphic by our awesome owners at TK Carsites [...]]]>

Like the Phoenix, the automotive industry has had ups and downs in its recent existence. Business was awful just a couple of years ago, but seems to have rebounded in 2010 and flourished so far in 2011. Will the trend continue?

This graphic by our awesome owners at TK Carsites breaks it down for us nicely. Click to enlarge.

Via: Automotive SEO

Soshable | Social Media Blog

Since the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, it has become the go to source when it comes to research. Whether you are a professional, a student or simply trying to quench your thirst for information, Wikipedia tends to be the answer to it all. This infographic lists some fascinating information [...]]]>

Since the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, it has become the go to source when it comes to research. Whether you are a professional, a student or simply trying to quench your thirst for information, Wikipedia tends to be the answer to it all. This infographic lists some fascinating information related to Wikipedia. For example, did you know 96.6% of Wikipedia pages rank in Google’s top 10 search results?! Check out the infographic for more.

Click image to enlarge

Embed this infographic on your blog/site

<a href="http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/the-state-of-wikipedia"><img src="http://www.singlegrain.com/wp-content/2011/05/StateOfWikipedia.r5.600px.jpg" /></a><br /> Via: <a href="http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/">Single Grain</a>

Soshable | Social Media Blog

OK, so it certainly sounds like I’m ranting today, but I’m really not. We post articles on several different blogs and publications ranging in size from a few hundred visitors a day to hundreds of thousands. As a result, we get to see what works and what doesn’t. The trend [...]]]>

OK, so it certainly sounds like I’m ranting today, but I’m really not. We post articles on several different blogs and publications ranging in size from a few hundred visitors a day to hundreds of thousands. As a result, we get to see what works and what doesn’t. The trend seems to have shifted further towards the Twitteresque way of broadcasting messages – shorter is sweeter.

Sigh.

Soshable | Social Media Blog

Nick Crocker is MD of Native Digital and co-founder of We Are Hunted.

It seems as though the first era of digital music may have come to an end. Napster died, P2P lived in some black market twilight zone, streaming services on ad-supported revenue were suffocated by [...]]]>

Nick Crocker is MD of Native Digital and co-founder of We Are Hunted.

It seems as though the first era of digital music may have come to an end. Napster died, P2P lived in some black market twilight zone, streaming services on ad-supported revenue were suffocated by unsustainably high licensing fees, and subscription services sputtered along, never quite capturing the imaginations of music fans. 2009 ended in a flurry of acquisitions (LaLa, iLike), launches (Vevo) and shutdowns (iMeem), which dramatically rearranged the digital music landscape. When the dust finally settles, expect digital music to begin anew.

With that in mind, here are my five predictions for music in 2010.

1. Labels Will Get Smart

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It’s been coming for more than a decade, but major labels are starting to grasp the digital opportunity. They’re licensing music on more sustainable terms, diversifying their business model, investing in new technology and, most critically, understanding more than ever what it means to be truly consumer-led.

As market leaders, major labels have the resources and the networks to profit most from the changes currently taking place. The move from physical to digital hasn’t been as fast as many people might have wished, but that’s because digital still doesn’t pay like physical does.

CDs, when they sell well, still mean big money. Digital isn’t like that. But that’s changing, and as major labels have shrunk, their capacity for change has increased. Expect 2010 to be the year that the bad press on the major labels starts becoming more favorable.

The promises of the digital age — deeper understanding of the music consumer, integrated ticketing and merchandise, direct-to-consumer sales, and fans as marketing teams — are all about to become a reality, and major labels will lead the charge.

2. Physical CD Sales Will Continue to Decline

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To ensure at least one of my predictions comes true, I’m going to forecast that globally, sales of physical CDs will decline in 2010. That’s one thing you can definitely count on.

3. Release Strategies Will Evolve

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The traditional model of building buzz through radio singles followed by a carefully timed album launch will still be the norm for commercial pop music. But at the edges, we’re going to start seeing a new model for releasing music that’s more attuned to the diverse community of music consumers.

The new model, pioneered by Topspin Media, will be the multi-tiered, staggered release. Artists will offer free, full streams and selected downloads early to the curious and the devoted, building their fanbase as they grow. Traditional release schedules will follow, in tandem with more innovative products, at more diverse prices, to more accurately segmented groups of fans.

Rather than just a plastic CD, we’ll start seeing multiple tiers of music product: free streams and low quality mp3s, simple digital and physical packages, enhanced audio and packaging on digital and physical releases, and then levels of premium products including vinyl, merchandise, and increased access to the artist.

We still think of music in its physical form as a CD on the shelf. Increasingly, we’re going to understand it as a suite of music products — T-Shirts, mugs, books, framed art, signed lyric sheets, USBs, and once-in-a-lifetime music experiences.

4. Music Will Live Legitimately in the Cloud

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It’s been talked about for a number of years, but 2010 could be the year we start thinking of music less as a finite product and more as an infinite, on-demand reservoir to be accessed at any time for a fee.

This process will roll out in tandem with the evolution of music “products.” Even if music is universally accessible, it’s still key to people’s idenity. We still need something to put on a coffee table, something to pass to friends, something to put under the Christmas tree and something to signal to the world that “this music is part of me and I want you to know it.”

iTunes, as ever, is in the driver’s seat to make the most of this change. Its acquisition of LaLa could see them own the streaming market as it currently owns digital music.

Spotify’s buzz seems to have cooled, but it’s still the best-placed streaming service to take advantage of the cloud’s potential.

Grooveshark’s growth, if it continues, is going to make it a serious player in the streaming game.

MySpace, with iMeem and iLike in its back pocket may also consolidate its place in the land of the streaming.

And finally, Google –- who owns the bridge over the moat, digitally speaking –- could pull the rug from everyone and facilitate properly integrated music streaming into its search platform.

Whoever emerges at the front of this pack will be in new territory, providing access to the world’s music, anytime, anywhere on any device.

5. Who Knows?

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There’s some as-yet untested consumer models building momentum.

Guvera is promising the world, not just to the music industry, but to advertisers as well. Whether consumers buy into its advertisement for content exchange remains to be seen.

Rdio, with serious pedigree and some big money backing it, hasn’t poked its head up completely yet, but you can be assured that whatever it offers isn’t going to be lightweight.

Lost in all the buzz is the fact that some legacy digital music companies — Last.FM, Pandora and MySpace to name a few — still have the established brands, the existing customer base, and the revenue streams that preserve their lives beyond the froth of the tech/music blogosphere.

And of course, there’s Facebook. The biggest country in the world (or soon to be), Facebook and music have always been awkward bedfellows. If Zuckerberg and Co. can figure a way to integrate music with the Facebook platform, the existing user base would guarantee a big chunk of the market overnight.

It all adds up to create a big void of uncertainty, one that will be filled in the way the web knows best — by its end-users. What those end-users decide they love will ultimately determine the winners and losers in the digital music economy. As a passionate music fan, I can’t wait for the competition to heat up. For those on the digital frontier, music really is better than it’s ever been.

More music resources from Mashable:

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- Top 10 Facebook Applications for Music Lovers
- Social Music: Top 5 Sites to Build a Playlist
- 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
- Free Music Monday: Hip Hop Edition
- 18 of the Best Music Tumblelogs
- Social Music: Top 5 Recommendation Services

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alengo, enot-poloskun,cinek20

Tags: digital music, grooveshark, guvera, ilike, imeem, Lala, Last.FM, music, myspace, pandora, rdio, spotify, vevo

One of our favorite Google tools, Google Translate, not only talks and translates in real-time, but it’s been integrated in a wide variety of Google services, including Google Reader, Gmail, and most recently, Google Toolbar.

Now Google has announced that it has integrated Translate with [...]]]>

One of our favorite Google tools, Google Translate, not only talks and translates in real-time, but it’s been integrated in a wide variety of Google services, including Google Reader, Gmail, and most recently, Google Toolbar.

Now Google has announced that it has integrated Translate with yet another one of Google’s many products. This time, it’s Google Sites, a tool for creating simple but useful web pages. All of the pages within Sites can be translated just by clicking a floating “translate” button on the bottom right of the page.

Simple, but useful. You can try it out for yourself if you’d like, then let us know what you think in the comments.

Tags: Google, Google sites, google translate

We are sure you’ve heard all about crowdsourcing and how businesses are utilizing the power of the “crowd.” This infographic takes  a look at different aspects of crowdsourcing along with some interesting facts and numbers.

Click on image to enlarge

via: MakeUseOf and

We are sure you’ve heard all about crowdsourcing and how businesses are utilizing the power of the “crowd.” This infographic takes  a look at different aspects of crowdsourcing along with some interesting facts and numbers.

Click on image to enlarge

via: MakeUseOf and oBizMedia

Soshable | Social Media Blog

The strength, quality, and amount of content posted on a company’s site has long been known as important. “Content is King” is arguably the most overused and generalized cliche for marketing 101, particularly when search is taken into consideration.

Those who use content for SEO purposes alone are missing things… [...]]]>

The strength, quality, and amount of content posted on a company’s site has long been known as important. “Content is King” is arguably the most overused and generalized cliche for marketing 101, particularly when search is taken into consideration.

Those who use content for SEO purposes alone are missing things… a lot of things.

Content marketing has been around since the birth of marketing. Using content that can be popularly spread and shared goes much further back than the internet. Now that we do finally have this thing known as the world wide web, content marketing now has the ability to rise on its own merits (with a little coaxing by the promoters, of course).

If it’s so strong, why aren’t all businesses (particularly B2B) using it? The answer is simple. They are. Some don’t know for sure what they’re doing or how they’re doing it, but they know that it works. If you aren’t doing it, you’re missing out.

This graphic by our friends at Marketo breaks it down for you (and may embarrass you a bit if you are not doing it – yes, you’re probably alone, but luckily for you many other  businesses are as well).

Click to enlarge.

Soshable | Social Media Blog

When genuinely pleased or angered, customers express their feelings in a variety of ways. As someone who works for a large company, I’m accustomed to seeing tweets, blog posts, videos, photos and even entire sites built to convey a strong reaction.

But how [...]]]>

When genuinely pleased or angered, customers express their feelings in a variety of ways. As someone who works for a large company, I’m accustomed to seeing tweets, blog posts, videos, photos and even entire sites built to convey a strong reaction.

But how many use poetry to make their points? Last week, Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout) approached a group of bloggers with the notion that we should create haikus of brand experiences we’ve had. And while we debated whether these should or would take the form of positive or negative brand experiences, it quickly became clear that most of us would likely be writing on positive experiences.

One of the reasons for this would seem to be that it takes quite an effort to compose poetry, therefore it’s more likely that a brand loyalist would take the time to go to that length. It’s probably summed up a little more eloquently by William Butler Yeats who wrote, “Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”

Since I’m associated with a fairly well-known brand, I’ve decided to create my haiku for Ford:

Customers love tech.
Ford’s solution? Hands-free SYNC.
A great mobile app.

In the multiple blogger batting order, my post was preceded by Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear) and will be followed by Sydney Owen.

Do you have a haiku of your own? Feel free to share it below.

Image credit: funkandjazz (Flickr)

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