Online music company execs consider Webnoize99 one of the top conferences to attend this year.
Attendance is expected to double over last year, and the roster reads like a Who's Who in digital music.
"This and the Summer Jupiter shows are the events for the digital music industry," said Steve Curry of Emusic.
Only a handful of small MP3-based companies like Xing, MusicMatch, Diamond Multimedia, and GoodNoise attended the first Webnoize99, which took place last year. The Recording Industry Association of America had just filed suit against Diamond a month earlier over its MP3 player, and tensions were high. Some execs were fuming, telling conference organizer Ted Cohen they wouldn't be on the same panel as Michael Robertson, a vocal MP3 advocate and founder of MP3.com.
"I took a lot of heat from my [consulting] clients at the time," Cohen said. "They said, 'Why are you giving credit to MP3?'"
But the conference went on. Robertson spoke on a panel with representatives from competing technology makers Liquid Audio and a2b, and had his "coming out party," as Cohen called it. Representatives from MP3-based businesses met each other face-to-face for the first time, said Joeli Yaguda, vice president of marketing at MusicMatch.
"There was excitement of us all being in this tiny booth, knowing we were right on the verge of breaking," she said.
Participants hope this year's conference will be more than a bickering session and result in some real ideas.
Ever since music files could be sent over the Internet, record labels, artists, and businesses have argued over what the new distribution system should look like. MP3 is the de facto audio standard on the Net used to compress and send music files. The recording industry has launched its own initiative to create a technology standard with added security to ensure files are not pirated.
Since that first conference, of course, MP3.com has gone public and raised US$344 million. MusicMatch got an investment from consumer electronics giant Thomson, RealNetworks bought Xing, and GoodNoise changed its name to Emusic and signed up the likes of They Might Be Giants. And a ton of online music startups have sprung up to vie for their place in the market.
But most are still trying to figure out how to turn a profit.
Traditional record retailers and labels have been experimenting with selling and giving away digital music downloads, and thinking about how to retain their market share online.
Webnoize, an online daily publication for the music and technology industries that competes with the likes of Billboard and Variety, is growing, too.
The site features 10 to 15 new stories every day and attracts about 20,000 readers, according to founder and CEO Joanne Marino. The company has been funded by angel investors and is closing its first round of funding, she said. Webnoize will also expand its research division, issuing reports on things like the downloading habits of college students.
This year's three-day Webnoize conference, which begins Monday, attempts to go a bit further in its analysis of how the music industry is changing because of the Net. Panelists will discuss music rights online, the fate of indies on the Net, and new pricing schemes for digital music. It will also attract newer Net music poster children like artist Ice T, indie label Grand Royal Records, music sharing software-maker Napster, and yes, venture capitalists. Major labels' reps like Jay Samit of EMI, and tech CEOs like Rob Glaser of RealNetworks also will attend.
Ted Cohen used to work at Big 5 label Warner, so it's no surprise the attendance list is packed with big names.
Cohen runs a consulting business as part of Webnoize's parent company Digital Music Network. His clients include everyone from the RIAA, to record labels like DreamWorks, to technology companies like Microsoft and Liquid Audio, to online retailers like Amazon.com. But Cohen stresses there is a strict separation between his side of the business and the editorial focus of the publication.
MP3.com's Robertson will not be attending this year. "This year, he's not available to speak," said Cohen. "He says it's not a good use of his time. It's too valuable. Last year his time was not as valuable."
