Last week I posted this question on Twitter:

“Need some help: if 'Buy & Listen' was 20th cent. music consumption, 'Rip & Burn' the 1st digital generation, what's it for Digital Natives?”

I got a lot of good suggestions and though there was great diversity in the responses sharing featured heavily.  What’s interesting is that though Digital Natives do share music a lot, it is more in a social context than the peer-to-peer kind of file sharing more common among Millennials.

 We are working on a new report to try to help our clients understand what the next generation of music products should look like.  I of course advocate music product innovation to such an extent that I sometimes sound like a stuck record (spot the oh-so-analogue metaphor).  But the early results of the consumer data we’re mining for this report are building a case for a music product strategy reset so extensive in reach that it makes my previous protestations look too modest by far.

Researching the report (which we’re provisionally calling ‘Digital Natives, The Generation Music Product Strategy Forgot’) has been eye-opening.  Whilst record labels have been focusing energies on winning over CD buyers and converting Millennial file sharers, the Digital Natives have been left without music products that meet their needs.  The Millennials used digital to reinvent analaogue behaviors (such as replacing the CD with the paid or free download) but Digital Natives are creating their own rules of social context, experience and visuals.

The result is that YouTube emerges as digital music’s killer app.

Which is why I’ve opted for ‘Share and Watch’ as the tag line for the Digital Native’s (see below).  What do you think?  Does this slogan sufficiently capture the essence?

Over the coming weeks we’ll continue working on the report and building the vision for the Digital Native’s music product strategy, explaining how services, access providers, device manufacurers can harness the disruption.  While we do so, we’d love to hear your thoughts.  Feel free to comment here and also to visit our community where we’ve just kicked off a discussion (click here to view and participate).