Now,
arguably, for up-and-coming generations, the first medium they are
exposed to is the Internet and possibly sites such as iLike.

Q: 
How do you believe the way relational development towards a medium
alters when the user is actively involved in the experience they create
for themselves?

Ali Partovi: 
Consumers have more influence not only on getting a “personalized”
experience for themselves, but also impacting what gets “programmed” to
other people with similar tastes.  A social network is a very natural
mechanism for this: if I discover a new artist that I love, I have a
natural desire to share that with my friends on Facebook.  This is
exactly what iLike facilitates, providing tools for me to send that
music to the friends who have similar tastes to my own.  In addition,
the consumer is also creating “new content” in the form of commentary.
Seeing what normal people (especially your friends) have to say about a
song is just as much part of the experience as hearing the music.

Mass
broad-casted radio enables a generalization of interests and assumed
‘known artists’ between crowds of people.  Many of us have listened to
the same music simply because there wasn’t enough airtime on radio
stations to give everyone exactly what they wanted. Therefore, we had to all agree on listening to music that everyone ‘kind of wanted.’
 
Whereas
discovery sites, such as iLike, are fueled by recommendation engines
that specialize interests and expose the individual to potentially
‘unknown artists.’  Now, airtime is infinite and everyone can listen to
different variations of music patterns and find something that they
‘really want.’

Essentially, moving from ‘broad-casted culture’ offline to a ‘narrow-casted culture’ online.

Q: 
What does this potentially change about the concept of popular music
being considered as ‘the sociocultural superglue of the masses?’

Ali Partovi:  There
will always be superstars.  In fact, the internet can create even
bigger stars than traditional broadcast media.  What will be harder is
trying to transform someone with marginal talent into a superstar, or
to force the content you own down other people’s throats. But human
nature thrives on shared experiences, and great talent will spread
faster and wider than ever on the backs of people sharing it.

For a really
long time the music industry has had the mindset that they would pay
money to be on Clear Channel or MTV.  The modern day equivalent to this
might be where sites like Jango and Grooveshark have recently and
openly embraced the model of ‘pay for airplay.’

Q: 
What are your thoughts on the ‘pay for airplay’ business model and what
implications might arise for the services that implement it?
 
Ali Partovi: 
I’ve actually always been a fan of “pay-for-play” as long as there are
two things: first, disclosure so that the consumer knows what’s
editorially selected and what’s not, and second, a feedback loop so
that it gets more and more expensive to promote something that nobody
seems to like (and cheaper to promote something that everything seems
to like).  This is exactly how Google Adwords works.  At iLike, we’ve
implemented a self-service model where tons of artists, labels, and
promoters, are now paying us to promote their new releases and their
local events.

The CD-Release
Complex is a term I’ve used previously to describe the symbiotic
relationship between the fans and the corporate institutions they
relied upon to deliver new music.  It is the backbone of the modern
Recording Industry, one built around the idea that music fans discover
music through the same mediums that records labels use to promote music.

However,
throughout the mechanization of this industry, what used to be
“extensions of fan” undoubtedly transformed into “extensions of man.” 
Meaning that, the mediums themselves, such as broadcast radio, have
progressively become less beneficial to music fans and no longer
operate within their best interest.

Q:  How does iLike model itself as an “extension of fan” and maintain a symbiotic relationship that benefits everyone involved?

Ali Partovi: The
consumer is king. The only way to succeed on the Internet is to put the
fans’ interests first. We’ve aimed to build a service that represents
the interests of consumers, artists, and labels.  And at the end of the
day, the labels or artists who succeed on iLike and elsewhere on the
internet will be the ones that put the fans’ interests first.  For
example, we let the artist (or label) choose whether to make their
music available as a free MP3, a free stream, a 90-sec stream, a 30-sec
stream, or not at all.  The artist/label gets 100% control of how their
music is used, and the consumer tends to reward the ones who are most
fan-friendly.  We consistently see that artists who make their music
available as full-song streams sell more downloads and more tickets
than those who restrict it to 30-sec samples. As I like to put it, “The
love you take is equal to the love you make.”