Is Music Technology On The Decline?

Music technology has evolved in leaps and bounds over the past two decades in particular, with Moore’s law playing a starring role in bringing high-end audio production into the bedrooms of thousands of DIY artists. But is interest in music technology starting to fade?

Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

Having an active and comprehensive Web presence is pretty much essential for any musician these days; and with the barrier to entry so low, there’s no excuse not to have at least some exposure on the Internet.

Your very own domain and website is preferable, but at the very least you should have an account on some key music-based social networks.

However, being on the Internet and being found on the Internet are two very different things – which is why having an understanding of Web search can be a crucial advantage.

One very useful tool for spotting trends and key phrases of interest is Google Insights.

Rocking All Over The World

If we look at the worldwide search history of music technology (using both Broad and Phrase match variants) we see that search volume has been on a gradual but continuous downward slide since 2004. Steve Jobs’ Grammy win for contributions to music technology development was one of the main stories of last year related to this phrase.

Interestingly, Ireland is the country displaying the most interest in music technology via Google search, followed by the UK.

On the broad term, South Africa and Philippines are ahead of Australia and the US – although this may be due to some unusual matchings that stray quite a bit from the core search, but are particularly popular in those regions.

For the more specific Phrase search, “music technology”, Australia and the US get the third and fourth slots, respectively.

It’s All Relative

Looking at the top related searches, one that stands out is “ayo technology” – perhaps not as relevant a term as the search algorithm believes, but undoubtedly receiving a lot of search traffic, being the title of a Top 10 single from 50 Cent’s album Curtis.

Clicking into the stats for that term, we can see that “ayo technology” was particularly big in Macedonia, with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan and Bulgaria taking the remainder of the top 5 search volume slots.

Digging the Data

So for a few extra sales, perhaps 50 Cent should run some paid search campaigns targeting these countries, with ads leading to his very own website.

He could even add some localised bonus materials to the landing page – perhaps a recording of an impromptu gig in Skopje thrown in with every download. Promoting a new single to such a receptive audience should be a doddle…