Technology

The literal music technology refers to the way in which music is made, the technology is used to create the music: playback, recording, composition, storage and performance. A key institution that has developed the new media technologies develop is Apple with their development of iTunes and the iTunes Store and especially the iPod. The iTunes Store allows its members to buy and download music albums, singles and EP's for cheaper than stores such as HMV: £7.99 compared to £12 for a chart album. The iTunes Store has provided consumers with a cheaper and simpler way to buy music, their iTunes Store motto states "Instant gratification means never having to go to the record store or wait for a CD to arrive in the post. For just 79p (UK) / 99c (Ireland) each, the iTunes Store gives you high-quality songs that won’t disappear at the end of the month or ever. What you buy is yours to keep," provides the technology that gives consumers what they want: easy, legal and cheap downloads. The technology used in the iTunes Store has developed music buying, when a consumer has opened their iTunes, it automatically connects to the iTunes Store and signs in as their user so that they can buy and download songs and albums which automatically download onto the user's iTunes and then charge the registered account the amount of money spent. This new technology has transformed the music industry bringing about more customers and, importantly, the combination of the singles music chart and the download chart into one to chart where the favourites in music from both single buyers and downloaders. The only negative of this technology introduced by Apple is that it is limited to Apple users.

Through Apple, the link between the music industry and the internet has been made stronger by the introduction of the iPod Touch with developed technology to enable owners to access photos, videos, music and podcasts as well as wireless Internet, access to youtube, GPS and access to maps. All this and the "extra-special" touch screen and the ability to change videos, pictures etc. from portrait to landscape just by turning the iPod.

Companies like Apple have helped to transform the music industry from a push technology to a pull technology. Music used to be controlled into either one disc or into the radio and invariably had no controlover what they were listening to. Nowadays, a listener can mix their CDs onto one CD with different selections of songs on it and they can play their iPod through speakers and, most importantly, choose what they are listening to.

"The UK music industry has rejected the Government's proposal to legalise the transfer of music from CDs to MP3 players without a levy. It has asked for a tax on devices like Apple iPods which it says should compensate artists for the transfer." (guardian website). This was reported on by Jack Schofield and is the Government presenting the idea of legalising the transfer of music from a blank or copied CD onto a normal MP3 player without taxation but keeping taxation on iPods. This proposal shows that the Government is wary of Apple iPods and their increasing amount of technology which is monopolising that part of the music industry and losing the music artists money.

Podcasting is another technology which is important in the new media of music. Podcasts are normally radio shows that are broadcasted via the internet, the idea of podcasting was brought about through the iPod and that' s how it was given its name. It is a downloadable file, normally on MP3 which can be stored on a portable digital player, such as an iPod or MP3 player. It is different and more convienient than normally listening to a radio show because it can be listened to wherever the consumer wants to and only needs an internet connection to download it. As with many new media technologies, podcasting has democratised the music industry with broadcasting, consumers can listen to any show whenever they want.