I Want This Music, by This Artist, in This Place — NOW!
God that sounds cheeky. Sounds like the little rich spoiled kid. How self-centred and narcissistic can someone get, that they think they should be able to command the soundscape of every room they occupy?
That’s what is happening in some Uber cabs over in LA. The revolutionary cab service which is based on custom call-ups through your smartphone, has identified some saleable “consumer whitespace” in the form of the listening environment in its cabs.
The service allows the client to play music from their Spotify playlist inside the cab. Undoubtedly some sort of wireless bluetooth connection is being put to use.
Check this out: http://www.completemusicupdate.com/andfinally/
“Britney’s Cabs: Singer premieres new single in Uber cars
Now, I’m not one of these people who’s getting Ubers left right and centre, but I’m yet to see one with the option to let me listen to my own Spotify playlists as I travel. I’ve heard anecdotally that a lot of drivers don’t like it, which might explain why. But the taxi app’s music partnerships continue, with Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea’s new single ‘Pretty Girls’ premiered in a number of branded Uber-repped vehicles in LA.
Yeah, you’re right, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but for six hours on Sunday, LA residents could request a van with Britney’s name painted on the side to pick them up and play the track to them for up to 30 minutes.
So that’s something. The other big Britney news to come out of the weekend was that Spears favourited an Instagram picture of the single’s cover art which featured Azalea replaced by a bag of trash.
So that’s also something. But don’t think about it for too long, instead listen to ‘Pretty Girls’ here and think about what it would have been like to spend an afternoon driving Britney fans around listening to it over and over again.”
Consumer white space. The example above is basically a record company that’s force feeding content to a particular audience. We also saw iTunes do this when everyone suddenly had U2's new album stuck at the top of theri playlist.
However, the real opportunity of white space is being able to make your own choice, and to have music you love playing in places and at times where you never imagined.
Like a cab, for instance!
To find out more about consumer white space, read this piece I put together a while back. Very compelling.
http://musicbizbites.blogspot.ca/2013/01/gone-fishing-2-what-is-consumer-white.html
~ Glen Brown writes about music and musicians in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. http://hamiltonmusician.com Twitter @ghmusician
