Sony raises the curtain on new classical music service – Ariama.com

Oct 5, 2010 by Dan Taylor    1 Comment     Posted under: Music

Sony Music Entertainment has officially launched Ariama.com today. The new portal is an online store dedicated solely to classical music. Harnessing the power of today’s web (and algorithms) Sony promises that Ariama will revolutionize the way consumers discover and acquire classical music on the web.

As with all things Sony, when they do something – they do it right! They’re kicking off the service with over 50 major and leading independent labels, all designed to provide consumers with an elegant, one-stop destination for CD’s, high quality MP3s (320 kbps), and lossless digital downloads (FLAC).

One of Sony’s boasting rights when it comes to Ariama is via their powerful search engine. Search and discovery tools are designed allow users to expand their current classical pallet. Extending beyond track, artist, title, or album filter options, Ariama’s tools also include composition, period, instrumentation, conductor, ensemble, and soloist.

“We are thrilled to announce the beta launch of Ariama.com,” said Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, US Sales, and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “We think classical consumers are an important under-served segment of the music buying population, and we have designed Ariama as the answer for fans experiencing an increasingly difficult time finding compelling retail options for classical CDs and downloads. As a company that is home to one of the world’s richest classical music libraries, Sony Music understands the unique requirements of the classical music consumer, and we have tailored Ariama to meet them.”

My Ariama experience

As of today, Ariama is in beta, and still has a few kinks to be worked out. For example, I received a “Ooops, something’s broken,” message upon creating my account at Ariama, however, jumping back to the home page revealed that I was in fact logged in.

The search functionality is neat, but nothing groundbreaking. Yes, the have conductors, performers, orchestras’, etc. listed, but it’s really nothing more than a nice way of saying that they’ve categorized the items in their site nicely, read: tags. I do like how they’ve provided a bit of background for each artist, orchestra, work, etc. as it gives the end user a bit more knowledge about what they’re viewing – but wouldn’t they already be a halfway educated consumer? I.e, I’m not going to go looking for Steve Reich’s music, if I didn’t already know a bit about Steve Reich? With that said, I did learn from Ariama today that Reich played jazz on weekends while studying at Cornell.

The feature that I found most helpful was the “Recommendations” section. There’s obviously been a lot of listening going on at Sony, and while searching Herbert von Karajan, I am in complete concord with Ariama’s recommendations, as I believe his 1956 recording of Der Rosenkavalier to be one of his very best – so hats off to you Sony.

The one thing that I found missing from Ariama was a bit of social features. Again, Sony’s recommendations, at least with von Karajan and Reich were spot on, but if they’re touting the platform as a revolutionary new way for lovers of classical music to discover new works – why not let users tell other users’ about it? For example, when searching Eduard Elgar, Ariama does serve up the 1932 EMI recording of Elgar himself conducting his violin concerto and enigma variations, but doesn’t list it as a recommended recording. However – if there was a user to user connection, I’d love to see a note in there that points out that Sir Eduard Elgar was 75 years old at the time of recording, AND the violin concerto features a 16 year old Yehudi Menuhin.

All in all, I applaud Sony’s move to give classical it’s own platform, specifically targeted to classical music buffs. Now if they’d only give me a way to interact with all those other fans….

One final drawback that I saw to the service is the availability formats. While Ariama is keen to point out that they’re offering 320kbps MP3′s and FLAC lossless audio – as well as CD’s that usually ship within a day, the vast majority of the recordings I was interested were offered up sans MP3 or FLAC formats. In other words, what makes the service so convenient failed me on numerous occasions. If I’m hunting for the 1991 John Eliot Gardiner recording of Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem Op.45, I’d have to wait 24 hours before the CD ships. Then wait the 5-7 business days it would take to get to me (more like 2 weeks, as I live in Austria), and then spend the time ripping the file to a 320kbps file in iTunes – where I may or may not have to tag it myself.

With that said, I don’t want to be too hard on the fledgling music service, as there were plenty of other searches that I did where I could (and did) easily download a beautiful high quality MP3. In case you’re wondering, it’s the 1930′s recordings of Maestro Pablo Casals’ Bach Cello Suites. Go buy this. You’ll thank me.

And I can’t let this review in without mentioning the other classical music service on the block, Passionato, who’s been doing some really neat things since their launch in late 2008. Two competing classical music outlets you say? I don’t see anything wrong with it, so long as one has what the other doesn’t and vice-versa. Either way, at the end of the day both services are sure to provide a win for today’s digital downloading classical music lovers.

The Power of Three

Jun 21, 2009 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: Productivity

I caught this video the other day via a mention on twitter.  Naturally, I had a good laugh and that moment of ‘that’s awesome!’-ness, but then filed it and moved on to the regular day’s activities.  Later that night I sent it over to a few friends, and watched it again.  Again a smile came to my face, but something else happened.  I started thinking about group dynamics, and how this example could apply to the marketplace.

At 20 seconds in, the guy in the green t-shirt joins (possibly crazy) guy number one, and we’re not quite certain if he’s a 100% participant, or a 99.44% mocker.  My guess is that we’re probably a bit closer to option 2 than 1.  At 54 seconds in, guy number three enters the picture and joins the dance.  He’s our key figure here.  Notice that it only takes another 15 seconds for not just one, but two additional participants to join the what will soon become an all hillside dance party.  For the next two minutes festival goers continue to add to the frenzy, until just about everyone in the shot is dancing like it’s 1999.

While dancer number one may have started the craze, and dancer number two’s commitment is questionable at best, it’s dancer number three that started the tipping point here.  He’s the guy that was clearly not mocking, saw something that he liked or enjoyed, and decided to unabashedly commit to it.  Couldn’t we draw the same parallels between your product or marketing message?  You would be dancer number one (again, possibly crazy), dancer number two may represent your competition, naysayers, the popular media, etc., but  dancer number three is the one that you need to be on the lookout for. He’s the one that received the message, and made it ok for everyone else to join in as well.

Naturally, it’s scary and challenging being the leader, the initiator.  It’s not quite as scary to have dancer number three’s role, but that doesn’t make it any less important.  A good lesson to be learned in the seemingly comic video.

Always be on the look out for dancer number three.