The word of the day is shakeout. That's the word that appeared in many articles coming out of Cannes, France, to describe the impending changes in the digital music retail market. "I don't imagine all these services can last. Some will go out of business or be consolidated," said Gabriel Levy, head of music in Europe for RealNetworks in this Reuters article. Barney Wragg of Universal Music Group's eLabs predicted "winners and losers" in the growing marketplace.

AP writer Laurence Frost singled out some of the issues surrounding digital growth. iTunes' dominance and flat pricing scheme is still a worry to many (though I've noticed more than a few albums priced at $7.99 at iTunes lately, so album prices are obviously more flexible than single download prices). Everybody is looking and hoping for some other player to emerge as a contender. "I'm hearing that the artists aren't happy, the publishers aren't happy. Someone other than Apple needs to be happy for this industry to grow," said Amit Shafir of AOL, which is close to introducing a subscription-based music service. (Shafir and everybody else knows subscription services will most likely be only minor successes as long as the iPod is imcompatible with the Microsoft DRM on which these services are based.)

Lastly, Billboard.biz reports conference attendance rose this year, helped in part by a stronger showing from American companies.