Changes Finally Afoot, or Deja Vu?

Warner Music has just announced a new imprint that will be primarily online, releasing songs in small "clusters" on Rhapsody and iTunes, and scouring online sources for new talent. One of those sources will undoubtedly be MySpace, although they've just announced a move in the opposite direction, with a "normal" record label bubbling up from the thousands of band profiles.

Both of these are probably good moves in shifting elements of the business model. On the one hand, it'll be interesting to see one of the old guard try something different with the Cordless effort. On the other, I think the notion that the MySpace/Interscope deal will include compilations may be the best way to present what the site has to offer in a more familiar package.

Then again, neither of these efforts are exactly new, but as we saw with iTunes and EMusic, it's possible that later iterations of essentially the same model will fix some inherent problems that preceded them.

Coolfer has thoughts on Cordless here, along with more detail.