Music has always been social. Music is just as, if not more, social (and emotional) than photos. Photos capture an experience. Music IS the experience.

After the firestorm that was music entrepreneurship early in the last decade (see: Napster), my sense is that innovators fled from the field. Early "music apps" necessarily had to deal with the record labels - and we know the labels to be the third rail of innovation. The threat of lawsuit and the straightjacket terms imposed by the recording industry were huge obstacles to success. The scar tissue from these early endeavors (and mostly failures) persists to this day.

Additionally, early music apps could not be inherently social. Facebook was not around in 2001. "Social" was something new ventures had to grow at home, if at all. (I'm chuckling now trying to imagine a social WinAmp.) Now, however, the social infrastructure is built out and nearly mature (see: Facebook, Twitter). If you were to consider an OREO, you might call this social layer one side of the cookie.

The other side of the cookie would be the music retail channels. These are also now finally mature. There is finally a place to point users to for content acquisition that is cheap, legal and more convenient than piracy. They are the a la carte experiences of iTunes and Amazon and the subscription offerings of Pandora, Rdio, etc. This side of the cookie manages the relationships with the music industry, and, most importantly the issues of legality.

With these two sides more mature than ever, we are left with the (now relatively de-risked) creamy middle - the space where these social music apps can now play freely.

These apps can now capitalize on two trends:

1) Oversharing. Music is intensely personal. Once upon a time, so were your family vacation photos. In a post-news-feed world, people are more comfortable sharing more of their lives with their friends. Music is the next shareable frontier.

2) Choice. More and more content available for sale makes it harder and harder for consumers to “shop” for content - - navigating iTunes or Amazon to find the needle in the music haystack is a PAIN. Adding the social layer to the discovery/shopping experience makes it faster, less painful, and may actually increase the amount consumers spend overall (win-win!). iTunes and Amazon have faltered with social strategy in their shopping experiences primarily because they can only leverage the data they can get their hands on. Apps that are channel agnostic and can capture data from any channel/platform to enhance shoppers’ experience stand to gain a great deal of momentum. Users don’t care where/how their friends are listening to music, they just care about what they are listening to.

It’s an exciting time to be playing in this space and I, for one, am thrilled by the innovation that comes around the corner on an almost daily basis.

I've tried to summarize the following:

1. Turntable.fm - An online music parlor, where users can create "rooms" to hang out and various DJs cue and play songs and the audience can move from room to room according to their tastes. This site stands out b/c it presents a digitization of real life online, where users can comment on/around various songs. It is incredibly social in nature, and I don't mean "sharing," but there is actual engagement. Real engagement. I can see how Pandora maybe "ran in the background" on many computers, and now I can see how this site could actually move closer to the foreground and capture more attention of people at work. My 1st impression is that this is a brilliant creation. I think this will catch fire.
2. SoundTracking - More mobile in nature, requires signup through iOS first and allows users to share/broadcast what they're listening to at the moment in the same we one could broadcast their location on Foursquare. The mobile interface is very slick and looks much like Instagram, in a good way. On the app, you can follow what people are listening to and then dig deeper if you'd like to, though I'm not sure if you can hear an entire song. This is a very well-designed app and I like it very much.
3. SoundCloud (product): This company has been around for a little while now. Incredible team and mobile application. They present social music (and sounds) in a slightly different way, with the option of creating and sharing your own sounds -- not just music.
4. SoundHound & Shazam (music identify): These have also been around for a while, but just got into social sharing features, but are also likely to already be on many peoples' phones, perhaps inactive. Great tools for music discovery based on song/lyric recognition.
5. Last.fm - Application that helps you keep track of what you listen to from various sources and then recommends new tracks, live events, etc.
6. Instant.fm - Create and share new playlists.
7. Spotify (product): Huge European gorilla that has been written about often, so I won't do it here -- but, rumor is that their deal with Facebook and the involvement of advisor Sean Parker will be an incredible force, linking Facebook users' "music interests" which are already explicit to back catalogs of libraries.
8. Grooveshark: Sort of like Rhapsody and Rdio.
9. Rdio (product): Subscription-based web/mobile library that users can pay for month, kind of like Rhapsody, though you can take your collection offline, too. People seem to be willing to pay $5/month for access to these catalogs.
10. Rexly: This is new service that helps integrate Facebook interests/music with iTunes libraries, largely based on an interesting assumption that people really discover music through fewer closer/trusted sources, not through random crowds or serendipity in the way we think of it. They launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC in May 2011 and one of the judges complimented by saying this is what Apple's Ping "should have" been.
11. 8tracks - Create and/or listen to personalized mixes of 8 tracks and then follow various people to discover new music.
12. SongKick - Service that scans your music library and gives you a dashboard to find those acts performing live, as well as to share them and invite friends and others to go. They just launched their iPhone app this week.
13. GigLocator - Somewhat analogous to SongKick, where you can "follow" your favorite bands and artists and get alerted to concerts, gigs, and festivals. I believe they are also working on mobile apps.

I have no idea where any of this is going to go, and I have a sense that more startups are in development and will launch over the year. If you have ideas or comments, please share here. Finally, it's kind of ironic that this is all happening during the year that the most successful music upstart (Pandora) is set to go public - a company with a great story and cool technology, that helped us create stations according to existing tastes, and now there's enough technology and social data that we can get to more discovery by virtue of being connected to others through various social networks.

I don’t know but ahhhhhh I’m feeling the need to share one right now!!

I think it's been less of an explosion and more of an active volcano that erupts every now and then. Perhaps right now, because record labels are softening but also because new innovations are fostering creativity and new ideas.

Social music sharing has been around since the early days and a lot of startups have come and gone. MySpace even started as a social-music experience. But the simple fact is it's really hard to make money in this industry and that's been the downfall of a lot of great startups.

With that said, I agree that we're seeing a lot more of it. As the social web expands, companies like Vevo or Soundtracking have done well building on top of Facebook or Twitter. As mobile apps takeover, cloud streaming services like Rdio, Spotify, and now iTunes, Google, Amazon, are enabling access to a jukebox in the sky. As the creative web grows, sites like Aviary, Indaba, and Audiotool are enabling new ways of creating it. But I think the most interesting improvement has is open APIs. Soundcloud and behind the scene companies like Echonest, are enabling developers to create new experiences with their data. Openness fosters innovation.

Sure a picture tells a thousand words but music is different. With a photo you can comprehend it right away, whereas a song is complex and can get stuck in your head (until you let it out). A jog can go from boring to fun when the right track is played. Or a memory can be reawakened when you hear an old song. I love photography but music and photos can't be compared neither in reality nor on the web. Photography captures a moment in time but music transcends it.

Some of the greatest musicians in history are the ones who have messed with new technology. Who would Jimi Hendrix be without the electric guitar? We're living in an age where the innovation is happening on the web, and for music it's going to adopt these changes and continue to expand over time.

Because the mobile phone camera is coming of age:

the cameras on phones are no longer garbage;
the phones they are attached to are easy to use and (importantly) might even have an app ecosystem attached to them;
mobile internet speeds are fast enough to send these big (3, 5, 8, 12 megapixel) photos.
mobile phone cameras even have some candy that normal digicams don't: gps (important) and motion sensors.

mobile phone cameras are burying the compact digicam market alive and the past year and next year or two will seal it.

meanwhile, the social web, including the location-based kind, is also coming of age.

Hence, photo sharing apps on your phone :)

Photo is the next check-in for experiences.

There is a big shift in the photosharing area. As our lives are increasingly in a space between online and offline world, photo is the simplest and most emotional way to share an experience you had in real life.
To make it simple, it's the only way to show you did something. 90% of the 100B pictures uploaded on Facebook are all about that.

When you plug this into social platforms, games, it multiplies the social fabric, ego booster, of groups and individuals, and it has great value.

As shared experiences will be the next big trend in social media, photo will be at the center of it.

When I wonder if something is a winner-take-all market, I look at a few different criteria:

1. Direct Network Effects: Does the benefit I get from the product go up as more people use it? One obvious way to achieve this is to make your product "social." Allow folks to follow each other's photos, etc. But if most your users are posting to other social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), then I think it'd be hard for a mobile photo-sharing app to rely on "follows" alone. But I'm sure there's a lot more you can do here.
2. Indirect Network Effects: A.k.a. the "platform" effect. Will other companies build on top of your service because of the scale you already have? Hard for a startup to achieve but some folks (e.g., Tumblr with their blog designs) have been able to get it right faster than others.
3. Economies of Scale: Does your marginal cost of production go up with scale? Not exactly relevant to a software startup - unless of course you decide to build something like an iPhone hardware add-on. But that might just be a separate business altogether.
4. Economies of Scope: Does your cost to build/ launch new products decrease with scale? Facebook seems to be in the sweet spot of this advantage right now, based on how successful Facebook Places has been in such a short amount of time.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones that usually come to mind first.

Personally I believe the answer to this question is in #1 and #2. Can a mobile photo-sharing service become extremely social, even if its users are not consumers pictures through its app? And then, can that service transform into a platform enticing enough for a community of people to build their own services on top of yours?

I don't know much about the mobile photo-sharing space (am just an avid user) but my gut tells me that it's just a matter of time before Facebook launches their own service and eats everyone's lunch. If you're already in the space, the best course of action might just be to become a leader and then make it more compelling for Facebook to just buy you than build their own.

The other route is to go niche. Become a high-end service, or cater to specific communities (e.g., food). Even if mobile photo-sharing becomes a winner-take-all market (~80% market share), there's always room for the niche players. May not be as lucrative but if that's your passion then go for it. And if you can build a strong enough community, someone who wants that community may just come knocking to acquire you.

I think it is mostly convenience and low barrier to entry. Enough people own smart phones now - with a semi-decent camera built-in - to have reached a critical mass. All these phones run apps that make it super easy to share your snapshots with the world. Only a professional or very serious hobbyist these days is going to fork out a lot of money for a 'real' camera which doesn't come loaded with apps, requires a lot of practise to get the right results, and doesn't allow instant context switching to make phone calls or watch movies etc.

Camera phones meet the requirements of low barrier to entry, ease of use, ubiquitousness of the app ecosystem and multi-tasking capabilities. Cameras on the other hand - all they do is take higher quality photos - which a growing number of people won't care about since they are uploading to the web - where the standard is only 72dpi

Notice also, how the mobile phone has replaced the wristwatch.

In the future, photography and social networks are expected to continue evolving and becoming even more integrated. Here are some simple predictions for their future:

1. **Advanced Camera Technology:** Mobile phone cameras and professional camera systems will continue to improve with better image quality, low-light performance, and more advanced features, making it easier for people to capture stunning photos.

2. **Augmented Reality (AR) Photography:** AR will likely play a significant role, allowing users to overlay virtual elements onto real-world scenes, enhancing creativity and self-expression.

3. **Artificial Intelligence (AI) Enhancement:** AI will further aid in photo editing, making it easier for users to enhance their photos with a single tap, improving colors, lighting, and composition.

4. **Real-time Sharing and Engagement:** Social networks will focus on real-time sharing and instant engagement with followers, encouraging more live content and storytelling.

5. **Niche Photography Communities:** Specialized photography communities may emerge, catering to specific interests like wildlife photography, astrophotography, or underwater photography.

6. **Privacy and Content Ownership:** Concerns about privacy and content ownership may lead to better tools and regulations to protect photographers' rights.

7. **Virtual Photography Events:** Virtual events and exhibitions may become more prevalent, allowing photographers to showcase their work to a global audience without physical constraints.

8. **Cross-platform Integration:** Social networks and photography apps may integrate more seamlessly, allowing users to share photos across different platforms effortlessly.

9. **Storytelling through Visuals:** Visual storytelling will become increasingly important, with photographers using their skills to communicate meaningful messages and narratives.

10. **Increased Professional Opportunities:** Social networks can provide new opportunities for photographers to monetize their work, collaborate with brands, or find clients for their services.

It's important to note that the future is dynamic and subject to technological advancements, societal changes, and user preferences. As technology continues to shape how we capture, share, and interact with images, photography and social networks will undoubtedly remain an integral part of our lives.

I can only assume given to popularity of show-all and tell-all obsession with social networking gigs and general email… will either show up as being the path to greater wisdom unity of connecting by it or more self-absorbed with our own image we loose sight of the forest of fabric of actual personal presence mostly a rendered of being just a stagnate photo image or streaming video of a pixel rendition seemingly alive or actually edited and rehearsed imaging.

Film has being doing that since the late end of the 1800’s, and photography, its self, since before the American Civil War…. but you had to leave the house to get to it: TV since mid-1930’s and leaped into our lives in the 1950’s along with stay at home and never leave but to buy frozen TV instant cook dinners > It’s all good…eh?

Seriously, as for business, cultural exchange, education, medical care and general pictorial information… and even news has its merit: There is a rash of photo trash that begs to and warrants it just be deleted.

Yep … It’s made a huge different how we do those things has and will continue to change for better or worse how these thing have an affect upon us for better or worse we be evolving.

Everyone is a photo journalist and self-biographer > Why not?

An image is worth a thousand words, per say, unless it is just photo-shopped BS click bait to sell you some thing in some ad or promotion by a troller.

For Dropbox it is not a matter of market saturation, it is a matter of leveraging their core competency and business model.

Distil a photo app to it's technical simplest terms.

I create a file on a local machine that I want to share elsewhere.

I upload that file to a online server.

That file is now able to be viewed, copied and/or modified by anyone who can access that online server.

That process is Dropbox's whole reason for being.

Now I could take a picture with my phone and then upload it to Dropbox manually. I know a lot of people who do that to safeguard photos. An app just automates that process (better UX) and adds a few more features.

I always wondered why they didn't do it earlier.

Facebook is becoming the 800 pound gorilla in this space (see other post on this). The "classic"/"1.0" photo-sharing companies (e.g., Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Kodak Gallery) are developing strategies to work collaboratively in a Facebook-dominated world (vs. the "old world" in which each of these brands procured most of their business through their own portals).

Meanwhile, Picasa seems to have adopted an approach of being the functional leader in "2.0"/social photo-sharing with an agnostic monetization engine (i.e., they will farm off the after-market prints and photobook making to the players mentioned above). They will undoubtedly go head to head with Facebook as the Google-Facebook wars heat up.

Apple's iPhoto remains a walled garden. While most pundits would write off these walled garden approaches, Apple has continued to prove everyone wrong in this regard...so, perhaps more to come from them here.

Not sure where that leaves Flickr/Yahoo or Photobucket. They'll likely have to read the tea leaves of the "majors" and move into un-occupied and hopefully profitable niches.

Well the ease and accessibility of photo sharing has influenced many areas of human interactions which as a whole has had an impact on society.

The main areas where the ease of photosharing has affected people are in dating, how the world is experienced, and self esteem/ projection.

In terms of dating most people have gone online and photos can be used as a way to represent themselves and for people to make superficial judgements. It has led to a culture that is actually similar to a ‘cattle market’. Prospective partners are judged for the way they first appear, there is no time to get to actually know a person and fall in love with them; as sometimes love can grow outside of the initial perspective of lust. People are shopping for partners, and therefore people have to sell themselves; make themselves look more attractive as though they are the picture of a ‘Big Mac’ in comparison to the actual reality of what a ‘Big Mac’ looks like. That’s just a reflection of appearance, obviously looks do matter in the first instant, but whether you can have a long term relationship with someone is not likely to be discovered until you both put the hard work into dating and meet up. It is better sometimes to fall in love with people over time rather than to have an initial lust for a person, and online dating does not really allow for this unless both people are open minded in how they choose to date.

The world is now experienced through a lens, which means that people are never really present or experiencing what is happening in front of them. They are thinking how impressive this moment will look to other people, rather than enjoying the sensations of where they are. They rarely absorb the smells, the sights, the sounds and the ambiance, they then move on to the next picture they want to capture, like unpaid journalists/ paparazzi. In many ways they are missing out on most of the living in the ‘lived-experience’.

When it comes to social media, after all of the images are captured and uploaded, there is then the waiting game to receive the ‘likes’ or the ‘comments’, to get that hit when you receive someone else’s approval. However, this is a game whereby people expect reciprocal comments in order to have their own hit of validation. In reality most of the photos have been doctored or taken many times in order for people to represent a ‘perfect life’. Some people are not really living the lives that they present on social media, and have insecurities which are never addressed as they crave some form of superficial human validation. Equally, when people do not get this validation or feel jealous of other people they tend to think that their life is less exciting even meaningless, which may lead to depression.

All of this has made people who live in society more unhappy, and unable to interact with people in a normal way, if you can not represent yourself to be attractive to someone else you will not date people, if you are with people whilst having an experience in the world you are not experiencing something together. If you are friends with people on social media, you are not spending quality time together with them actually discussing your experiences and having fun with them (other than a forced representation of fun). This means that society as a whole is geared towards the superficial, and the worth of people becomes commercialised by the currency of ‘Swipe rights’,‘likes’ and ‘comments’, rather than the quality of true human interaction and affection. This has begun to make people more lonely and they have challenges in talking to the opposite sex, so as a whole (with time) this might affect the number of people getting married, birth rates, depression rates (possible even suicide rates) and the amount of people on anti-depressant drugs.

The solution to all of this is an attitude for people to actually take pictures more sparingly to enjoy the moment, to make a space for dating which is less superficial, to work on social skills and keep your phones in your pocket (and limit your time on social media). To take moments in time to be present and to appreciate what you have in life, and not to feel a need to represent your life in a superficial way. You do not need other people to buy into the ‘perfect life’ that you may not be living, after all you are only human and life naturally has its ups and downs.

I love flickr. I used to work at Yahoo and flickr was free...but then I left and had to pay for flickr but found myself using it less often. I was trying to get off flickr because I hated the idea of having to pay for image storage every year for the rest of my life.

I just re-engaged with flickr when they made it free, but now I'm remembering my pain points. They are:

• Mobile app that works. Can Flickr please OWN this. Not a fan of all of these 3rd party flickr apps that suck.
• Can I take a picture on my phone and post directly to flickr? The email address to upload to flickr is lame and feels antiquated.
• Can I PLEASE print a single picture without having to go to Snapfish? Holly cow does Snapfish suck. Try going from flickr to snapfish on your ipad. I dare you.
  
• You can't MOVE a picture from set to set. The picture becomes duplicated. Hate that. Because I upload hundreds of pics at one time in to a bulk set, then organize later. I don't want to have to upload into known sets. Doing this requires that I actively monitor my uploading. I've got a 1 year old and 4 yearl old trying to rip keys off my keyboard. Checking back in on my uploads is not an option.
  

Flickr is social - I always share with my selected family and friends. I like that I have more control in that area. Pictures can be personal, especially when it comes to kids. You don't want too many kid pictures on FB.