5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010 | Mashable - Nick Crocker

1. Labels Will Get Smart
2. Physical CD Sales Will Continue to Decline
3. Release Strategies Will Evolve
4. Music Will Live Legitimately in the Cloud
5. Who Knows?

There’s some as-yet untested consumer models building momentum.

Guvera is promising the world, not just to the music industry, but to advertisers as well. Whether consumers buy into its advertisement for content exchange remains to be seen.

Rdio, with serious pedigree and some big money backing it, hasn’t poked its head up completely yet, but you can be assured that whatever it offers isn’t going to be lightweight.

Lost in all the buzz is the fact that some legacy digital music companies — Last.FM (Last.fm), Pandora (Pandora) and MySpace to name a few — still have the established brands, the existing customer base, and the revenue streams that preserve their lives beyond the froth of the tech/music blogosphere.

And of course, there’s Facebook (Facebook). The biggest country in the world (or soon to be), Facebook and music have always been awkward bedfellows. If Zuckerberg and Co. can figure a way to integrate music with the Facebook platform, the existing user base would guarantee a big chunk of the market overnight.

It all adds up to create a big void of uncertainty, one that will be filled in the way the web knows best — by its end-users. What those end-users decide they love will ultimately determine the winners and losers in the digital music economy. As a passionate music fan, I can’t wait for the competition to heat up. For those on the digital frontier, music really is better than it’s ever been.