Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

The ‘proof of work’ premium in the age of AI

Ben Woods

18 Sep 2025

AI is presenting an existential threat to the video creator hardware market . Key to the disruption is the ability of AI video generators to enable creators to bypass cameras within the video creation workflow.

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AI AI, Cap’n: Shifting headwinds to the promised land of tech innovation

Hanna Kahlert

11 Sep 2025

Product Strategy

Content

Social

In any industry, the simple bits tend to be the most stable. For every ice cream, there’s the company that makes the sticks; for every book publisher, there’s the company selling the paper. By the same logic, in the midst of the AI boom, Nvidia – which manufactures chips that make the technolo...

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Karra, bifurcation, and YouTube’s gain

Mark Mulligan

8 Sep 2025

Product Strategy

Streaming

Music

A couple of weeks ago, electronic music artist Karra posted a video on YouTube about why she took her album down from streaming (one that she spent $100,000 making). She is now going to focus her efforts on YouTube (“an incredible platform for [her] artistry”), as well as selling content to musi...

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From niche to mainstream: How video games adaptations are taking over movies and television

Brandon Sutton

3 Sep 2025

Product Strategy

Entertainment

Games

Today’s most successful movies and television shows are video game adaptations. For those who remember the media landscape of the 1980s and 1990s, this represents a marked shift in the entertainment industry.

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The case for flexibility: What the Switch 2’s success signals for other handhelds

Brandon Sutton

20 Aug 2025

Product Strategy

PlayStation

Gaming

When Nintendo announced the Switch 2 would release this year, it had big shoes to fill. Its predecessor has become one of the best-selling consoles in history; surpassed only by the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS in total sales.

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Some artists are leaving Spotify (again). Here’s what’s different now

Tatiana Cirisano

7 Aug 2025

Product Strategy

Spotify

Streaming

Over the past few weeks, a growing list of indie bands have decided to leave Spotify, the most prominent being Deerhoof and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (a partial list has been compiled by Fader ).

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What is the value of a stream in 2025?

Olivia Jones

31 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Streaming

Streaming Music

More parties than ever are becoming frustrated with streaming. For evenmany successful artists, streaming is a minority income stream, as fandom-related endeavours like live performances, merchandise, and brand deals prove to be more lucrative.

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Why Drake’s ‘Which One’ single is not a TikTok-first track

Hanna Kahlert

29 Jul 2025

Music

Content

Social

Drake’s new single ‘Which One’, featuring Central Cee dropped on July 25, 2025 –not abnormal. Less normal: he launched it with no warning halfway through a 41-minute episode of Iceman , a YouTube series he is streaming in advance of his album of the same name.

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The future of creator apps
Fuelling engagement with fandom

Cover image for The future of creator apps

Ben Woods

July 2025

Creators

Spotify

Artists

The AI boom has unleashed a wave of creator tools, but some are struggling to make the transition from interesting and experimental to compulsive and essential. Fandom offers a solution by tying creation to a consumer’s personal passion, appetite for community engagement and a desire to have a stake in the entertainment they love.

Online game ownership in the digital age – do we really own what we play?

Brandon Sutton

24 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Games

Gaming

Over the past decade, digital sales have become the primary way gamers purchase video games. With this shift comes a series of growing pains that often puts gamers at odds with publishers. One particularly contentious issue is digital ownership and consumer rights; topics gaining renewed attention t...

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The ghost of the 2000s lingers over the catalogue acquisition market

Kriss Thakrar

23 Jun 2025

Product Strategy

investment

music catalogue

Sign up here for MIDiA’s Masterclass webinar on catalogue investment, this Thursday June 26, 2025, with Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano. In the second quarter of 2025, a range of catalogue acquisition deals have broken the typical mould: Sony acquired Hipgnosis Songs Group from Recognition Musi...

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Grok meets Telegram: Why is AI being shoehorned into messaging platforms?

Hanna Kahlert

5 Jun 2025

Product Strategy

Messaging apps

Social

In an unusual twist, on May 28, 2025, xAI agreed to pay Telegram $300 million in cash to be integrated into the messaging platform (per Reuters ). It is not every day you see a feature paying its platform to be combined into its existing service, but, Elon Musk is not often one for the traditional p...

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AI prompting is an art form that will reshape creation

Ben Woods

1 May 2025

Product Strategy

creator tools

AI

Key takeaways from this blog: Generative AI is reshaping creative workflows, with MIDiA’s research highlighting how AI-only video production is already achievable The next creative divide will be defined by prompting skill level: those who can expertly translate vision into AI prompts will be ahea...

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What will audiobook market growth look like?

Laura Fisher

24 Apr 2025

Spotify

Audio

Discovery

Key takeaways from this blog: Audiobooks are evolving into something far more than just a listening experience With its integration into the wellness sphere and innovations in immersive audio, the medium is carving out new paths MIDiA examines the evolution of audiobooks and the possibilities ahead ...

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A case against video podcasting

Laura Fisher

16 Apr 2025

Product Strategy

Podcasts

Radio

Key takeaways from this blog: While video is at the forefront of entertainment, audio-only formats can be equally important for engagement Prioritising video-first podcasting risks dilution – favouring style, celebrity, and algorithms over knowledge and authenticity MIDiA argue that audio-only pod...

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AI chatbots
The new conductors of entertainment

Ben Woods

March 2025

Creators

Digital

Entertainment

AI chatbots are intersecting our entertainment lives as the tech majors transform consumer devices into digital companions. Such moves are building upon the foundations laid by smart speakers and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to elevate chatbot engagement towards the mainstream.

Suno, Alexa, and the rise of ‘create to consume’

Ben Woods

21 Mar 2025

Alexa

suno

Creator economy

This blog was created with collaborative inputs from Ben Woods, Mark Mulligan , Tatiana Cirisano , and Kriss Thakrar . It is hard to think about generative AI without coming back to copyright. There is a pressing need to find IP safeguards before even more copyrighted content is used to train AI mo...

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With “short-form audiobooks”, Spotify has become an independent book publisher

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Mar 2025

Product Strategy

Spotify

Audio

On the heels of Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audiobooks through their partnership with ElevenLabs, the streaming giant is looking to further democratise and monetise audiobooks. On March 13, Spotify’s For the Record blog announced a new publishing program aimed at independent authors publis...

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A model for a new music streaming industry

Mark Mulligan

18 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify

YouTube

The music industry is approaching a pivot point. On the one hand, things look positive: we have UMG’s Streaming 2.0 , artist centric licensing, the impending launch of supremium and expanded rights revenue hitting $4.

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Podcasting has finally become profitable, but question marks remain

Rutger Rosenborg

5 Mar 2025

Product Strategy

Spotify

YouTube

Throughout 2023 and into 2024, you might have thought the sky was falling for podcasting. Layoffs and show cancellations had many in the industry wondering if there would be any financial future for the format.

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