Foundry Group recently invested in Next Big Sound, an online music analytics and insight business based in Colorado. Jason from Foundry writes:

As part of this future there will be new opportunities created to service these new direct-to-fan and Internet marketing models. We believe a key opportunity involves data. Currently, the industry-norm data report is from SoundScan. For thousands of dollars per month, industry professionals are able to see how many CDs and digital downloads have been purchased along with how many plays have occurred on terrestrial radio. We believe that this report is already mostly irrelevant. 

Sweet! This is encouraging as it further supports our investment thesis behind Feilio (Noank Media), a platform that measures digital content usage, that data will not only drive new opportunities in the music industry but also form the foundation for next generation business models. While it has taken longer then scripted for the industry to come around we remain optimistic that the tide is turning.