1. What is your history within digital music?

We got to work with Trent Reznor of NIN on the concept album, Year Zero, and converge on an unusual experience of both storytelling and music made possible by technology and how it’s shaping our lives today. The experience attracted a large online community who worked together collaboratively to uncover the context for the world in which the music was set. This hive mind had an amazing ability to decipher clues, piece together evidence and essentially write the story of Year Zero in real time. The audience brought Year Zero to life and the experience became very personal to them.

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

I’m intrigued by physical manifestations of music – especially how advanced technology and immersive storytelling can be incorporated on another level to create…performance magic. I love the energy, personal connection and immediacy of feedback involved with live music. If someone has a great experience, they capture it themselves and share it in real time.

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

What are active engagement opportunities and methods that allow artists to target, intercept and engage audiences in new ways. People want to be in control – they program their lives and the content they let in. Most are device agnostic. It makes it harder to get above the noise, but at the same time, the playing field is leveled in certain ways – the right mix of what, when and how can make all the difference.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

Some of what we’ve learned about how to attract and build an audience using the connective tissue of technology, the web and storytelling. Also, how to track and gauge what is working and not working and react in relative real time to nurture a two-way relationship with the audience.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

I’m fascinated by the search for game guru and digital pioneer, Kevin Flynn at www.flynnlives.com. What could have happened to him?

Read Susans Full Bio Here

Andrea from Digital Music Trends discusses The Filters current services, future plans and Davids upcoming participation at Sounds Digital!

Listen and read here www.digitalmusictrends.com!

Fred McIntyre is vice president, product, of the newly formed business unit of CBS Interactive. With close to two decades of experience working in the media business and over a decade of building and growing category leading consumer Internet products and brands, Fred will play a central role in defining and executing the vision and strategy for the entire portfolio of assets within the CBS Interactive Music Group. In this capacity, he will identify new customer segments, market opportunities and product extensions to drive audience growth.

Fred’s extensive resume includes positions with AOL, SPIN and Vibe magazines and Internet radio pioneer Spinner.com. He joins the CBS Interactive Music Group from AOL, where, among other responsibilities, he spent several years building and leading AOL’s global product businesses for AOL Video, AOL Radio, SHOUTcast and Winamp. In this capacity, Fred had a strong track record of growing audience and revenue while improving operational efficiency. At AOL, he also worked in a variety of business development and programming roles including, most recently, leadership of business development on behalf of AOL’s Content business.

Follow Fred on Twitter at @fredmcintyre

1. What is your history within digital music?

AS A COMPOSER, PERFORMER AND PRODUCER I’VE BEEN USING DIGITAL MEANS OF PRODUCTION SINCE THE FIRST MACS ENTERED THE COUNTRY IN THE EARLY 80’S. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN REGARDED AS A PIONEER IN THE INDUSTRY, AND I’M ALWAYS LOOKING FOR NEW WAYS TO PROLIFERATE OUR WORK – NOW INCLUDING THREE-DIMENSIONAL SOUNDSCAPING WITH MY COMPAY ILLUSTRIOUS AND MY TOURING SHOW FUTURE OF SOUND/FUTURE OF LIGHT AND MY SOUND BRANDING COMPANY SONIC-ID

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

SEE ABOVE, BUT ALSO THE VAST ARRAY OF EXCITING MUSIC AVAILABLE ONLINE – THE PROBLEM IS THAT WE NEED AN INCREASING NUMBER OF ‘DIGITAL CURATORS’ TO HELP US FIND THE GOOD STUFF

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE MANY USES OF SOUND IN THE FUTURE, PARTICULARLY USING IMMERSIVE SOUND ENVIRONMENTS

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

OVER 30 YEARS EXPERIENCE AS A TOP RECORD PRODUCER AND ARTIST, AND ‘IMAGINEERING’ THE FUTURE AND OPENING PEOPLE’S MINDS TO NEW AND EXCITING POSSIBILITIES IN THE WORLD OF SOUND

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A FAN OF FINNIAN WARMAN’S WORK – WWW.SODA.COM WHICH LEADS TO A WHOLE WORLD OF INTERACTIVE SOUND-ASSOCIATED AUDIOVISUAL WORKS

Read Martyn Wares Full Bio Here:

1. What is your history within digital music?

In terms of “analog” music, I grew up as a classically trained pianist, before switching over to guitar and vocals in high school. In college I got more into computer-based music creation, recording, and technology. I’ve been an actively composing and performing musician for the past 20 years, and have been involved in the digital music scene as a VC over the past 10 years. Norwest Venture Partners has made several investments in digital music including SocialFM (fka Mercora, and now defunct), and Mozes in the mobile marketing space. I’ve met with many music startups both prominent and unknown in the past decade, and will probably regret not investing in Pandora! I also work closely from a biz dev standpoint with the major labels, as well as many talent agencies, management firms, band managers, and artists themselves – we’re all trying to figure out just where the heck this industry is headed!

I’m also an active practitioner of digital music platforms and solutions, as my band BlackMahal is using many of these cutting edge social media and digital music tools and systems (including Mozes).

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

Every 10 years or so, the music industry goes through massive upheaval: Technology shapes the format of music and content; format shapes the distribution landscape; distribution shapes the business model. Disruptions in technology redefines formats, which causes massive upheaval in distribution and business models. This cyclical movie has been playing for decades: phonograph -> broadcast radio -> singles -> retail -> LPs -> 8-track -> cassettes -> CDs -> MP3 -> streamed cloud music -> ?? With each step in this chain there have been incumbents which faded away and new giants which emerged. Today, the key questions are “what does Record Label 2.0 look like?” “What skill sets does a manager 2.0 need?” (answer: social media marketing & production chops, data mining/analytics, brand/lifestyle affinity dealmaking, etc.) “What does success mean for an artist today, and what does it mean to ‘break’ a new act today?”

All the old rules are being rewritten as we speak, and there’s no silver bullet magic answer for anything anymore. Artists, labels, managers, distributors – everyone is having to re-invent their role in the new value chain today, and technology along with rapidly changing audience behavior is what is fueling this radical shift.

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

I’ll cover several trends: shift of the content industry from Media-as-a-Product towards Media-as-a-Cloud-Service; new business model ideas inspired by the Gamification of the media industry; multi-platform distribution strategies; ideas on the shifting role and nature of music in modern consumer society

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

Trends, tips, tricks, and traps learned from 10 years of looking at thousands of startups evaluated in mobile, digital/social media, and gaming…including the latest learnings from social gaming, mobile 2.0, cloud services, and my own efforts trying to “break” my own band as an emerging act in today’s confusing music landscape.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

Next-gen music 2.0 sites and mobile apps: Blip.fm, Echonest, NextBigSound, Spotify, Shazam
iPhone-based music creation tools. Expect to see more and more sequencers, synths, samplers, and “mini-studio in an app” functionality in your pocket!

Read Tim Changs Full Bio Here:

1. What is your history within digital music?

I listen to it — a lot! I also used to be a music writer when I was younger and have had some involvement with the BBC’s music web/mobile sites.

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

I think the ability to create personal collections of music in an unprecedented way is hugely exciting – both as a user experience but also on a business level. Never before have companies had the opportunity to know so much about what users are listening to and create businesses around it.

I’m also loving some of the really disruptive business models and technologies that are cropping up – like Bandstocks.com and Playdar.org. And I’ve been a long-time fan of Shazam – it solves a very real problem in an elegant way and I use it all the time. It’s the one single thing that made me want to work in mobile after I first used it a few years ago.

The biggest personal problem I have is finding a way to store all of my music. I’m constantly running out of memory – bring on the cloud!

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

I’ll be talking about the importance of mobile media in people’s lives, why the music industry can’t ignore mobile and making some predictions for the future.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

I’m a trained creativity facilitator and mentor – so hope to help people develop their ideas, identify the best parts of them and help them move forward.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

The City Sounds FM iPhone app is really cool – I just wish more people used it.

Read Jason DaPontes Full Bio Here:

1. What is your history within digital music?

It goes all the way back to 1994 when three friends (a music attorney, an executive at Sony Pictures and a M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford) and I (a corporate lawyer at the time) started an online community/new media company on AOL that focused on Afro centric content. We cut ‘never-been-done-before” deals with many major and indie record labels to promote their R&B, Jazz, Soul, Hip Hop and Rap artists on AOL. We raised millions of dollars in venture financing and grew the company quickly. It was an amazing time!

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

This might seem pretty basic, but it never ceases to amaze me that I can carry my entire CD collection (which has taken me over 20 years to build) in an Internet-connected device that fits in my shirt pocket. And if I am tired of my collection, I can access a service on that very same device that let’s me type in my favorite artist, and hear song-after-song from that artist or similar artists. If I press a button, I can immediately purchase a song or album that I like and add it to my collection.

Moore’s law + cheap storage + wireless Internet connections + robust app development + somewhat stabile business model = “better-than-decent” consumer experience. It’s a start in the right direction.

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

That’s a good question. I’m looking at several topics that might be of interest to attendees. I’m currently at the SXSW Conference in Austin, TX (USA). There’s a lot of interesting buzz about licensing music for major and independent theatrical releases. As a “recovering” lawyer, I’ve done a ton of licensing deals over the past 15 years. Maybe something along those lines…I’ll have a better idea in a couple of weeks.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

No one should have to reinvent the wheel. My goal is to provide as much value as I can to my mentees, and if there are some key insights I can share from my experiences, I’m happy to roll up my sleeves, share thoughts and brainstorm for solutions.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

www.iwantmedia.com is a functional website that provides news highlights for all things media-related. I skim it every day, and use it as way to keep informed on a wide variety of media-related topics and transactions.

Read Marcelino Ford-Livenes Full Bio Here:

1. What is your history within digital music?

We have over 10 years experience from within the eCommerce space, encompassing the music and media industries as well as many other sectors.

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

In 2009 globally, for the first time, more than one quarter of record companies’ revenues came from digital channels. Fans can acquire tracks and albums in ways inconceivable a few years ago – from download stores, streaming sites, subscription services, free-to-user sites, bundled with their broadband or a mobile phone handset. A diversifying industry that requires an innovative payments strategy to aid success.

The music business is continuing to lead the creative industries into the digital revolution. In 2009, for the first time ever, more than a quarter of the recorded music industry’s global revenues (27%) came from digital channels – a market worth an estimated US$4.2 billion in trade value, up 12 per cent on 2008 (IFPI). In the US, the world’s largest music market, online and mobile revenues now account for around 40 per cent of music sales. Consumer choice has been transformed as companies have licensed more than 11 million tracks to around 400 legal music services worldwide.

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

A strategic view on payments consultation, working with the music and media industry sharing expertise to investigate potential new solutions that add value.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

Payment expertise
Industry expertise
Fraud consultation
Sharing alternative product knowledge with our partners PayPal and Ukash

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

Spotify
Bleep
AudioJelly
LeapMusic
Beatport
……. Too many to choose just one!

Read Ashley Heads Full Bio Here:

Get down to the essence of an idea with mentor Matthew Hawn at Sounds Digital London 2010. From journalist to record label executive, Matthew has a wealth of experience to share. He is feeling optimistic about the changes in the music industry and explores the simple things that record labels should be doing to take advantage of the changing times and add value to their artists and customers.

1. What is your history within digital music?

I started as a journalist in San Francisco in the early 90s, covering media and technology but in particular digital music.   I worked for TV and magazines but eventually I moved into the record labels, first working for Universal Music in 1999 and then Sony Music starting in 2002. I helped establish the ecosystem that digitized and developed their assets for digital products and services.  Lately, I’m working much more closely with product managers and international marketing teams to develop ‘direct-to-fan’ experiences, products and services that support artists and Sony Music’s  great catalogue.

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

I know that a lot of record label types are pre-occupied by how bad it is getting with the decline in sales but I’m really positive.  While sales of music have gone down, the growth of music usage and discovery continues to grow at amazing rates.  The breadth and depth of music discovery and acquisition is staggering right now and I think if we’re smart, we’ll realized that our new business is not only about selling music but that it starts with discovery and continues on with people using and sharing our products in a way where everyone gets paid.

If we reinvent ourselves to address that larger opportunity and start making new products and services that people want to pay for, what Kevin Kelly described as ‘better than free’  — the opportunities are fantastic.  It’s a much bigger opportunity than the world of recorded music sales.  This is a critical time for labels to reinvent themselves and to shift their investments in artists to these new opportunities.  Very few other parts of the music business are in the position that we are.  Shame on us if we can’t figure out how to rise up out of the ashes of the old record business .

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

I’m going to talk about three deceptively simple things that labels should be doing to bring more value to their artists and to fans.  The quality of fan-based relationships with artists and their music needs to go up and record labels must provide the platform for that change if they are to remain relevant.  We can do better than we’re doing today.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

As a former journalist, I spend a lot of time trying to distill ideas down to their essence.  This has been particularly useful as I work internationally.   You have to design and build your products globally from their origin, gone are the days that you launch something in one country and then adapt it one market at a time, and that means you need to have simple, easy-to-understand consumer propositions that translate to global audiences.  I hope I can help the teams I work with to focus their efforts on simple concepts that you can take to market quickly and develop over time.  Iteration and evolution are the models here.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

I love the Audio Scrobbler tool from Last.fm. I use it with iTunes and with Spotify to track what I play on my multiple iPods and on my multiple computers.  Having a history or a ‘personal chart’ of what I’ve played and being able to see what my friends have played is a great source of music recommendations.  I have services that post these stats and charts to my Tumblr blog, to Twitter and to Facebook.   I wish more people did this so I could learn more about them and their music tastes.

Read Matthew’s full bio here.

How do you bring the music industry into the 21st century? This is a question that Nicole Yershon certainly knows the answer to through doing exactly that with Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab. She shares some of this, but plans to reveal all at Sounds Digital London 2010. Nicole also discusses the knowledge she will disclose as she mentors a number of projects at the conference and her appreciation of easy access to information.

1. What is your history within digital music?

My history is not specifically related to digital music – but the moving of analogue process to digital – initially with broadcast digital asset management & digitising Ogilvy’s commercial archive of 10,000 reels going back to the ’50s to be made available to all. Digital delivery of broadcast commercials, negating the need for tapes/couriers – as well as working with Spotify, Last.fm and most people within the ‘digital’ landscape across mobile, gaming, digital out of home, virtual worlds, iptv etc

2. What’s exciting you in the digital music space right now?

I love the fact that it is finally forcing the issue of IP to be sorted – the need for new business models to be set up to make money – as well as innovative ways to distribute & pay for content. To enable people to listen or view what they want, when they want & how they want.

3.What will be the focus of your Key Note presentation at Sounds Digital in London this year?

The focus for my Key Note presentation, will be more about the ‘how’ – what have my experiences been to bring Ogilvy into the 21st century – new revenue streams, different ways of doing things.

4. What experiences and skills will you be sharing with your ‘Lab’ mentoring projects at Sounds Digital?

I will share a wealth of knowledge across all areas, focusing on the user & the ability to be more commercial – not just technology for technology’s sake. Work out the problem, then find the right solution to fix it.

5. Favourite website or online experience that not enough people know about?

Obviously TED.com, but then, there is the beauty of twitter – if you follow the right people, the wealth of information, websites, facts that come to you in a tiny url or 140 characters is amazing. Before twitter, I was probably looking at around 50/60 sites a week!

Read Nicole’s full bio here.