Why music on mobile phones is not music

The music industry is in a pickle. CD sales are falling, big-name artists are signing with touring companies. Independent artists are having a go on their own. The solution, the industry thinks, is to sell its music through mobile phones.

They are dead wrong. Here’s why.

Mobile phone users don’t use music in the same way that music listeners do. Music listeners — whether at home or on the go with their iPod — are listening to what the artist has created. Even “digital” forms of the music are still relatively analogue because the listener cannot slice and dice the music into a new mashup. The best she can do is skip a track (which she has done since the times of vinyl).

Music on mobile phones has both “listening” and impression management behaviors. Mobile phone users use music more often to present a version of themselves to the public world than they do to actually “listen.”

Music on mobile phones has truly become what Nicholas Negroponte calls “co-mingling bits.” Mobile phone operators have already sliced and diced the music into snippets for its users to use in various ways. The ringtone is one version. The “ringback,” which a caller hears when he’s waiting for his friend to answer her phone, is another version.

Now mobile phone users can download all sorts of “co-mingling bits” off the Web. Some of these bits happen to be musical. Some of them are unrecognizable from what the artist originally intended.

This kind of behavior is not listening to music; it is impression management. What is the effect, for example, when your friend hears Paranoid while he waits for you to pick up the phone? What is the effect if it were I Can Hear You Breathe?

Music companies think  this new form of music consumption can save the industry. They hope that album sales will be replaced with mobile phone downloads of full tracks. They are wrong.

Consider the following numbers from eMarketer.

Full track downloads as percentage of ringback and ringtone downloads:
2006: 23%
2007: 33%
2008: 47%

While the share is growing, it is certainly not replacing album sales. Artists should recognize that mobile phone music is not “music” but the public adornment of their art. And music companies should recognize that mobile phones will not save a bloated and dying industry.

Why do ethnography?

Ethnographic research is mandatory for all design. Why? Because the role of design is to improve people’s lives. This you cannot do unless you know what people’s lives really are like — and not what charts and graphs and tables are like. Why do ethnography? Here are some clear reasons.

1. People don’t know what they actually want: Would anybody ask for a translucent mirror? That’s what they now get at Prada. The dressing room’s at Prada ’s flagship New York store allow you to do something you normally do — but better. Shoppers can first view outfits on themselves, then can invite their friend’s to view their outfit — but turning the mirror into a window. Instead of coming out of the dressing room, leaving your handbag behind, you can instead simply click a button with your foot, and show your new outfit to a friend.This innovation did not come from asking people what they want, but by thinking about the process of buying and trying on clothes.
   
2. Context matters: Most people who design mobile phones don’t think that electricity has anything to do with their product. But they are wrong. Researchers in Africa have learned that when the power goes out, people can’t charge their mobile phones. The solution? Various forms solar and wind-powered chargers.Designers must know where their product will be used. Deep insight into that context can only come from knowing the context.
3. People lie: A well known example of urban ethnography finds a contradiction. People say they want a quiet space to eat lunch, but when you watch lunchtime routines in urban spaces, people do anything but seek out quiet spaces. Now are they lying to be naughty? To be elusive? No, they lie because they believe the “normative” or “should do” practice of eating lunch is a quiet experience.Actual experience plays out much differently.
4. Designers design symbols — which can’t be understood through numbers: The reason why people love quantitative research so much is because it is short and easy to communicate. You know the “average” household income, instead of having to think of all the possible household incomes. You know how many people answered “yes” to a pre-defined question.Designers are designing or adapting symbols. They cannot do so without knowing what they represent. But you can’t summarize symbols. Symbols *are* summaries already — and not numerical summaries.A national flag conveys many ideas for people within that nation state (and many more for those outside it). Likewise, a kitchen stove is a symbol that conveys much about the household, gender relations, and family life. This cannot be conveyed in the “average” number of kitchen stoves.

Many designers will take numbers or focus group research or even usability test results and design their products. They may even improve people’s lives that way. But short observational research provides “thick description” that all designers need.