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Every industry has gone through a major overhaul over the last five to ten years. Industries from high tech software; real estate and lending and movies and videos have all felt some level of impact. One of the industries hardest hit is the music recording industry. Internet broadband speeds, digitization of music, and proliferation of MP3 players have all contributed to significant loss of revenue to musicians, songwriters, labels, retail stores, radio stations and more.

Simultaneously, the same events that have contributed to this lost revenue have also compressed the value chain associated with this industry. Now a musician who wants to get his or her music “heard” can just plug in a mike, flip on an electronic keyboard, switch the dial to record and upload to YouTube or Vimeo … Voila, instant “channel”. In this era of digital music uploads and downloads, business development takes on a whole meaning.

But, hold on! Don’t I need a manager anymore? And, what about the Label … aren’t they supposed to help me get my CDs into the record stores? Who’s going to make sure that the radio stations play my music? Who’s going to manage business development for me to make sure I can make money at my craft?

The music industry is walking a slippery slope. Business development in the old days of the music industry was performed by an artist’s manager. His / her job was to get the artist a contract with a Label and get the music into the radio stations. The Label’s job was to press the CD and on and on.

Developing new business today means creating a whole new value proposition in this industry. For example, the major recording Labels are all but gone. CD production is pretty much a thing of the past, thanks to digitization. Internet radio stations and XM radio are eating away at traditional analog radio stations. Even, music publishers are feeling the pinch.

Creating business development opportunities requires thinking outside the box in this new era. As a manager, one should consider how to propagate your artist’s music across multiple Internet and mobile channels. How many “friends” will want to connect to your artist and which ones do you select.

As a music publisher, you can develop business opportunities for your clients through interlinking each artist in your portfolio with each other. In essence, you’d be creating your own Internet music world. That, could in turn, accelerate your clients’ popularity and exposure to more fans.

If you’re the artist, you can take control of your own destiny and business development efforts by creating online profiles for targeted audiences to which you want to connect. Every tool that you’ll need is available online from MySpace to Facebook and YouTube.

The Internet is truly the largest democratic nation in the world. By its very nature of openness and “free speech” anyone has the opportunity to be heard. It’s up to the individual to use the tools and seize the opportunity.

Read more articles from David Chan