The role of record labels, magazines, and other traditional outlets as a distributor is obsolete, yes. Anyone can deliver digital content now. But their roles as editors is more important than ever. And that’s why record labels and traditional media still matter – to be quality filters in an over-saturated world. Think about it: if you’re really honest with yourself, you usually tend to gravitate towards content from “established” outlets. Whether that’s music on some record label rather than some dude posting MP3s on his site, or an article from a bigger site or, dare I say it, traditional outlet like New York Times or Wired rather than some chick’s blog.

It’s human nature – in this internet age, we’re overwhelmed by choice, so we look to filters that do the finding of quality content work for us. If you know a record label is great, then you’ll trust their latest releases to be worth checking out.

That’s not to say it’s always the case – of course there are widely-read individuals like Seth Godin and John Gruber who have one-person blogs with no traditional outlet interference (well, Seth had book publishers, but the blog was separate from those). And amongst all the crap out there you no doubt have found a golden nugget or two that you passionately follow. I know I do – Seth and John being 2 examples, as are countless electronic labels like Warp, BPitch Control, Kompakt, and Hyperdub.

But those are rare exceptions for the most part. 99% of DIY (do it yourself) stuff out there is crap. So what’s an individual artist (writer, musician, entrepreneur, whatever) to do? Either start passionately building a consistent-high-quality-output platform to become your outlet, or affiliate yourself with existing quality outlets, at least until your own name and brand is built up.

And that’s where record labels and traditional media come into play. They’re not needed to get music, writing, videos, and other content out to consumers anymore. But they are needed to keep consumers’ lives sane by being quality filters. And it’s your job as the individual content creator to use these outlets to your advantage.

Music writer Jacob Wright summed it up great on the electronic music site Resident Advisor: I think that as the quantity of music being produced continues to increase, editing is more important than ever. Nobody wants to check on hundreds of albums every month, we need shortcuts. We need labels like BPitch to stand for quality and to do this it important not to put out albums when EPs would be better. That why, even though labels as a round piece of paper and a facilitator of distribution are becoming obsolete, the role of the label is has never been more significant.

Apple’s iPad and the touch interface is set to be the next great creation device for music, graphics, and video – but there’s a reason it’s not that yet.

There’s no denying that the iPad, along with the iPhone, popularized the next great user interface for computing – touch. It’s easier than ever to get around the web, media, apps, documents, whatever. That list should also include creation applications. And while that’s true for basic drawing, video, and audio creation tasks, there are two reasons why the iPad isn’t a true creation device – yet. Two reasons, actually.

The iPad lacks a precision tool. Ask any professional film editor, music producer, or graphic designer, and there’s a reason a mouse or digital pen exists – to do ultra-precise edits. It’s the equivalent of reaching for the low-tech hammer when you need to precisely hit a nail in, despite fancier technology letting you slam that sucker into the wall faster and easier. Now granted, not every single artist needs that level of precision. But most professional creative types do at some point or another. And a finger is not that precision tool. I can’t imagine making nano-edits during my electronic music creation without a mouse, digital pen, or some not-yet-created precision tool.

The iPad needs to sync files in most cases. This reason isn’t as critical, but it still limits the iPad to a secondary device rather than a sole creation device. In order for the iPad to really be a true creation device, it needs independent computer-like functionality without needing to sync. This is so you can always create, edit, copy, render, and upload all of your work without needing to sync to a computer somewhere.

One specific iPad creation example shows promise. One creation example does show the iPad as a true creation device: writing. Writing is true creation on the iPad. You have the precision tool (a keyboard, both soft and hard) and independent functionality (iWork and notes apps, saving and uploading of text and pdfs).

Let’s hope that the iPad becomes a true creation device for film, audio, and graphics professionals sooner than later. Because I really want to switch my portable music studio onto that glorious device.