There was another trend discussed at Tuesday night’s dinner I forgot to mention, but was reminded to share with you today when Seth Godin wrote about it.
Technology is quickly replacing humans in many areas… But human capital as a resource is irreplaceable in many aspects of creation. More importantly, it is essential to curation.
Platforms can be built upon a “system grinding away” as Seth calls it – The algorithm feeding the audience what they want to hear. But when it comes to an artist’s rise, the human element of their community is the key deciding factor.
Furthermore, established artists (or anybody with influence) will have an increasing role in providing spotlight to the next generation of artists.
The right collaboration or feature has always been imperative to establishing credibility and introducing new acts. As superstars now have hundred million plus followers, these endorsements will be even more critical to the development of younger artists by replacing “the industry” in providing exposure. Seth wrote,
“Facebook, Linkedin, Google, Apple and Amazon have very little ability to promote a specific idea or creator… It doesn’t matter if you know someone at Google or if Amazon promises that they’re going to heavily promote your new Kindle book. The people who work at these companies don’t have a dial to turn. Amazon is good at selling everything, but they’re terrible at selling a thing.”
The way the streaming companies have built their playlist presence does hold significant weight. As they can see what is bubbling based on user behavior, they can respond fast.
While algorithms and machine learning tell much of the story, it’s the human interpretation of this data often making the difference. In fact, let’s not forget, it’s this human direction that powers the algorithms in the first place.