The mixpixie customer experience

The twin tape deck hi-fi was a must for all teenagers in the 90's having become an established icon throughout the 80's. Creating a mix tape of your favourite tracks and sharing with friends an essential activity of school playgrounds. The mix tape also became part of the courting ritual with couples making the ultimate romantic mix tape to give to their newfound love and show their love through the power of top 40 hits. As technology developed and tapes died out the mix tape was replaced by home burnt CDs but these lacked some of the personalisation of the tape. Mixpixie are striving to bring back this retro feel with CDs created that give more of a mix tape vibe. Log into the site (www.mixpixie.com) and select from over 13 million tracks your choice in tunes then personalise with a bespoke cover with your text and even photos. To add to the home grown flavour you can even add in a voice recording to wow the recipient. All done online and delivered in days it feels more special than burning a playlist onto cd although in reality is exactly the same concept. There is something to be admired though about this resurrection of old school music tapes. Mixpixie. Epically retro. 

The not very modern customer experience of CD's

Modern music is dominated by the download with fewer people experiencing the feeling of owning, touching and feeling their music when buying it.  The realities of today are that if I want a tune I'm going online and downloading it in that instant or I am adding it to my spotify (www.spotify.com) list and listening to it on demand.  The ifpi published their report on global figures this year - http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/dmr2013.pdf that makes interesting reading not least finding that all is not doom and gloom as you might believe from the many media reports on this subject.  I am less worried about the financial implications of the download than I am about what it means for the customer experience.  Listening to music while it may have changed dramatically in terms of the technology available to listen to it through the physical experience of zoning out to your favourite tune has been with us for hundreds of years.  Yes I no longer need to chase up my local harpist to play that fine new ditty I heard in the courtyard but the resultant experience of listening to your favourite tune is unchanged.  Although I doubt Kings of the past or present would likely refer to it as "banging".  The whole emersive experience no longer includes the physical attachment and ownership of the music as an MP3 file doesn't carry the same presence as a box set of your favourite pop combo complete with collectable memorabilia.  So are we missing something.  Are the music freaks of tomorrow going to be robbed this essence of music.  I think for the experience of music to remain epic it must keep a thread of this physical real deliverable.  I love downloads but give me something real for those special tunes so I have something I can really feel to make it a truly epic customer experience.