GigaOM

Fred Wilson recently pointed me to David Hyman’s manifesto on how the music labels can save themselves. And although I’m not sure that it will fully replace the foregone revenues from a decline in physical CD sales, it does make a lot of sense.

Given my past performance, I’m going to refrain from making any predictions for the year ahead. Instead, below are the top five questions — and their related trends and themes — that I’ll be tracking in 2008 (in no particular order):
1. Can user-generated video be directly monetized and made to be profitable? [...]

It’s official. Madonna is leaving Warner Music Group (WMG) in favor of Live Nation in a long-rumored landmark deal said to be worth $120 million. In exchange for the concert promotion company’s participation in a number of revenue streams, including recorded music, merchandise, ticket sales and the Madonna brand, the artist will get equity in [...]

The introduction of the iPhone later today will signal a sea change for the music industry, especially mobile music. It won’t solve the music industry’s woes immediately, but it will herald a new era in which music can elegantly coexist with a phone on the same device.

The woes of the recorded music industry have been well documented. Sales of CDs thus far this year are down 20% compared to last year. Revenues from digital distribution continue to grow but not enough to prevent further downsizing. All of which is why the labels are turning over every rock looking [...]

Social networking around music has emerged as a class of Web service. While terrestrial radio has yet to fully embrace this, music social networking represents a large opportunity for terrestrial radio stations to gain relevance and currency online. Fundamentally there are two functions around music that social networking can fulfill: