Nine Inch Nails, a band who have developed a reputation for being at the forefront of new technologies in the music industry have pioneered new territory once again with the advent of the NIN:ACCESS app for the iphone, which went live today.
NIN ACCESS for the iphone: A new form of mobile music networking
The new app, available both from its own site http://access.nin.com and via the Itunes app store allows those who download it, and indeed own an iphone, to share files, discuss news, recieve updates and news direct from NIN themselves and connect with others nearby to the phone at any time.
Portable social networking and newsfeeds have been around for a while but this is an innovative mix of the two which is causing a stir within the music industry.
In a recent interview with the observer Trent Reznor, Singer, Songwriter and generally Nine Inch Nails in human form, spoke about how the conventional model of the music industry has become obsolete.
“People are going to steal your music whether you like it or not; it’s out there, it’s free…” “You’re never going to make a lot of money selling records like you used to, that’s a fact. It’s over.”
The idea for the new app came from an experience Trent had while fooling around with his own phone backstage at a gig and noticed fans queuing to get in were already uploading pictures from their mobiles.
“So we then communicated with them and said, ‘We’re backstage’ and that freaked them out,” explained Reznor. “But that got the wheels turning and we thought, ‘How can we develop that?’ “
The app is currently free and grants fans a level of “access” into both band released material and fan generated content that has so vary rarely been seen before and few have dared to try.
NIN’s freedom from the constraints of a record label allows the band to experiment more than just musically, but with new forms of distribution, much like the ‘pay what you like’ method seen on previous releases The Slip and the Ghosts collection.
“Record labels do not know how to deal with the new media environment that they’re confronted with..” “They’ve made their fortunes selling plastic discs and now no one wants to buy plastic discs – they’re just trying to get their fingers in every other pie, but they’re so greedy and ignorant they’re not prepared to do what they have to do…”"All we’re trying to do is make something cool. Something that as a fan you’d say, ‘Hey, I want to have that’. If we can monetise it, then that’s fine, no problem.”
Those left wondering about how big a deal this app is can visit NIN.com and witness, by means of a Google Earth plug-in, the Earth light up with indications of every message an post sent by the new app.
While it may not sound hellish to picture your next live experience of a NIN gig surrounded by hundreds of fans holding their apple hardware aloft these technophiles will be building an impressive resource for equally as many file hungry fans.
Trent himself is a tad skeptical that it will improve the gig going experience but remains neutral about the whole gig/phone dichotomy.
“I tend to not take cameras on vacation any more as I want to experience that moment as a human, not as a documenter. At a concert, it’s up to them, I can’t tell them how to experience a concert. If that makes you feel like you had a better time, holding a phone up the whole time, then OK.”
