Yesterday the media Futurist and blogger, author, etc, Gerd Leonhard was at the PopAkademie in Mannheim and spoke about the future of music and the media business.

You could download his presentation @ http://www.mediafuturist.com/files/gerd_leonhard_at_popakademie_mannheim_print.pdf

It was a really cool presentation, although I already saw him at Cebit 08. At the Cebit it was a more general presentation on the future of media. At the PopAkademie he spoke more about the business business and about the marketperspective for artists, labels and the relevance of new business models.

To learn more about his view of the future music market. Download his book, it is for free:

(Creative Commons Licencse) http://www.music20book.com/

In a nutshell: like in the radio: music is for free and the adverstisment gets more and more important to generate revenue for labels and artists. In additition a “feels like free” flateratemodel is also possible. But what he definitely denied was the itunes like a la carte download. This will not be possible in the future.

Today 95% are not paying for music and I could agree with him, a la carte download has no real future for the mass market as standalone. But for bundle with the broadband, mobile contract, isp etc i really would make sense to combine music offerings and hardware or network access. Good examples: Musicload/Dt Telekom – Arcor/Napster – Nokia/Comes with music etc. I think in other countries more examples could be found that bundles will coming up soon.

Gerd has most of the ideas in one of his videos, ppt or in his book! So i really recommend to read some of his writings!