Spot On Spotify: "Let's Talk About Airtime"

Web 2.0 Summit is hosted in San Francisco this year from October 17th to October 19th. There are a variety of speakers including the Sean Parker. Parker is currently dedicating much of his time to develop Spotify in Stockholm.

He suggests that much of the industry being created is influenced by licensing issues. There is also a confluence of media based on the individual user creating social media in the shadow of larger institutions developing such materials.

Parker's interview (below) at the Summit gleans fascinating insight into the creation of Spotify. His public persona is still heavily influenced by his estranged relationship to the music industry. Parker's recent platform development is a collaboration between Facebook and the social music media industries. The brand then purports to bolster its power on the basis of viral distribution packets.



This initial program interview was not without digs at the Boulevard and Parker's persona. The interpersonal drama between Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg is still predominant in their recent press coverage. The press noted that Parker's first tweet, reportedly, was "Sorry, Zuck, I had to do it eventually." But, Parker does makes clear, informative points about his understanding of media in the interview at this conference.

Parker's theories suggest that the media we use and the platforms we adopt characterize more than our consumer profiles. The consumer crowd still searches for a distribution of music without the mediation of existing, top-down structures. The existing structures governed by entrepreneurs like Parker and Zuckerberg might evolve in a similar manner. For now, the strength of Parker's public speaking is that he acknowledges that his interests as a shareholder will temper his opinion. He admits they negate his ability to extensively and publicly critique the organization. He is unable to address whether products like Facebook usher in a level of "creepiness" due to his financial obligations.

Are we, as a public, capable of accounting for this flux of data? Who is keeping track of whatever or whomever is creepin' on our data?