I love music startups (doing one myself). Is it similar to what Bop.fm are trying to do, but more around having a entire library of music (like a cloud-based iTunes)?
Drop me an email (in my profile) if you're keen to chat.
The majority of companies in the music industry are aware of the problems driven by the fragmented setup. Some react by offering additional features for user retention. Others continue to drive the fragmentation further. New companies emerge, focusing on eliminating this setup. (bop.fm is one of them. check : tomahawk, wyhd and kollekt.fm)
This fragmentation though, is more the user’s problem than the industry’s.
We start by accepting that music consumption, discovery and sharing has to be fragmented. Our competitors misperceive this problem and conclude that ‘sharing’ is broken in music. Taking a step backward, we know that the core problem is that ‘music consumption’ is broken.
On-demand services, download services, discovery services, terrestrial radio.. They are all complementary products from and end user perspective.
This is why we accept that a user needs access to all these services and fulfil different consumption habits. This should not prevent a user to create a music library; accessible from anywhere and anyone. The users need an online Winamp!
Drop me an email (in my profile) if you're keen to chat.