As Simon was saying below, I have been doing some thinking about how the classical music world has been making use of the web recently, but perhaps more importantly how everyone seems to have come up with a different answer to the same question. What do our users want?  

Is it to get involved? Is it to get access to the impossible? Is it Hi-Def? Experience or product? Do classical music fans want to be part of a community with other classical music fans?  

Is it to be part of Tan Dun's...'first collaborative online orchestra' a global talent search developed by Google? Or, perhaps for most users, an opportunity to vote who's in and who's out of the world's first collaborative online orchestra.  

Yo-Yo Ma is thinking of an even deeper level of participation than simply watching videos and voting - he is thinking remix, collaboration, music making. As the website says - users can now 'Collaborate virtually with Yo-Yo by adding your own counter-melody or record an entirely new set of variations.' Of course this is also has to be a competition and the winner will get to record a piece with Yo-Yo Ma 'in a special one-on-one collaboration!'.  

So these two classical big hitters are firmly in the Web 2.0 mode when they are thinking about what users want. They want to do stuff, they want to be seen, they want to join in.   What about the users that just want to sit back and soak it all in? Those that want quality broadcasting, but on the web. Well yes there are quite a few 'answers' for that kind of user too. The main fault lines seem to be 'live' vs 'on-demand', 'free' vs 'quite expensive' and 'available forever' vs 'one time only spectacular'. So on the one hand our good friends at the Royal Opera House offer the opportunity to watch Don Giovanni, whenever you want, with director commentary and online notes for free. Or the quite different calculation that the Bayreuth Festival 2008 made - watch Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg live, once, for about £50. Or perhaps something all encompassing in the middle with the Berlin Philharmoniker's flash based and flashy Digital Concert Hall. This is for the user who wants everything, live-ness, on-demand-ness, high quality concerts at around 10 Euros a pop or splash out for the season ticket.  

These examples are just a few of the responses that have been created in response to the question - 'what do users want?', but already we can see that this is a spread betting game. I think this is great news - the fact that there is still a game, that the market hasn't collapsed around one overriding business model and that there is so much willingness to test ideas, learn from them and refine them.  Just take a look at the mindblowing medici.tv website to get a sense of the unbridled ambition that seems to be awash in the classical media world right now.
Justin

Leave a Reply