Is the Future of Music Now?
Berkeley Cybersalon
5-7 p.m., Sunday, May 21
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley
Given the invasion of music sharing technologies introduced by Napster, MP3 and Liquid Audio in the 90’s, and the wildfire adoption of the iPod cum iTunes, a new crop of digital music companies (and some old ones) are finding new ways to provide us tunes without losing their shirts in the process.
Shedding some light on new ways to make listeners pay to play are Gerd Leonhard, author of “The Future of Music Manifesto”; Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora, which is decoding the algorithms of music in order to better match a listener’s musical tastes; Ann Greenberg, cofounder of ION, which was sold to Gracenote, one of the largest music databases on earth; Brian Zisk, founder and board member of the Future of Music Coalition; and Amy Tobin, singer, composer, and multimedia show producer. Moderator is Andrew Keen, producer of the podcast site www.aftertv.com {http://www.aftertv.com/}, and author of “The Great Seduction,” to be published in 2007 and named after Keen’s eponymous blog.
$15 at the door includes dinner, drinks, and salon. All sessions are podcast and audience participation is highly encouraged.