The term “niche product” is traditionally used to describe a commercially available item, event or attraction that is likely to appeal to only a limited number of people. Indeed, one definition of “niche” is “relating to or aimed at a small, specialised group or market”. You might, therefore, conclude that it is perverse to describe the debut CD from the Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys — which last month became Britain’s fastest-selling album of all time — as a niche product.

In a sense, you’d be right. After all, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is approaching sales of 1m copies in this country. Crucially, the initial impetus for that record-breaking opening week came from the internet, as tens of thousands of web-fingered young fans flocked to sites such as MySpace and shared information, gossip and tip-offs about the group. So that rules “small” out. It’s when you subject “specialised” to scrutiny, though, that the whole notion of the new technoculture, and its possible impact on pop music — how it’s discovered, made, distributed, consumed — becomes both more complex and more intriguing.

A vivid illustration of this was provided nine days ago at Brixton Academy, in London, when the annual NME awards tour reached its climax. The headliners were the Newcastle band Maxïmo Park. Beneath them on the bill were three groups, including the Arctic Monkeys. Traditionally, all the acts congregate on stage during the final song by the headline band. On this occasion, however, members of the two bands that preceded the Yorkshire newcomers joined them for a last hurrah, after which a sizeable proportion of the audience left the venue. Maxïmo Park may have delivered a barnstorming set, but they did so after being abandoned by the support acts.

The incident put under the microscope an aspect of the brave new netspace order of things that gets buried in the avalanche of eye-popping statistics. The brand loyalty, the shared sense of “specialisation”, that impelled so many to buy Whatever People Say I Am … also, arguably, led them to reject anything that falls outside that specialised choice — in this instance, Maxïmo Park.

That’s fine for now. But it’s a febrile state of affairs, too. To borrow from the old Elvis marketing line, 50m users can’t be wrong. That figure is the latest worldwide estimate of registered members of MySpace (part of The Sunday Times’s parent company, News Corporation, since it bought the site’s owners, Intermix, last year). In America, it receives more hits than Google. And in this country — where MySpace is set to launch a UK-specific site in the spring, with a particular emphasis on music content — community websites are the dominant online destinations.

Small wonder, then, that the music business is eyeing these sites with such interest — and such fear. Where the pieces land is a question currently obsessing those who work in the old modes of mass-culture provision. And who emerges as the driving force(s) in the new equation — provider, creator, consumer — could transform the landscape in which music is made, marketed and purchased.

Right now, most of the talk is about the empowerment of the artist and the fan at the expense of the manufacturer and the retailer. Certainly, the two former groups appear to hold the whip hand as never before. The ease with which, as a music consumer, you can register with such sites (and don’t be put off if you’re at the less net-savvy end of the spectrum; it’s a doddle) means you’re just a few clicks away from becoming a well-informed voice in the forging of new musical tastes. And if you’re in a band, posting new songs, details of forthcoming gigs and evidence to surfing A&R men of the size of your online fan base opens music-biz doors that once might have been slammed in your face.

If, however, you are a high-street retailer, or a music-industry executive with huge overheads, the current thinking is that you should be afraid, very afraid. If the wilder dreams of techno-cultural forecasters were to materialise — if, for instance, bands were to make viable the model of selling their product directly and cheaply to fans — where does a big label with 40,000 employees go other than down the pan? Yet if a new generation is riding a 24-hour electronic loop that will make them both a powerful engine of taste-making and a formidable commercial resource, might there not also be some downsides to this cyber-scenario? Bombarded with choice, informed to the point of instant expertise, how do you react? In an ideal world, you advance serenely towards the Proceed with Purchase button. What, though, if such choice, far from locking down your certainties, instead makes them more malleable? As far as pop music goes, it’s here, I think, where the battleground lies.

Let’s return to the Arctic Monkeys, and the three key participant groups with a role in their success. First, the fans. A sense of community and ownership draws them to social-network sites and into purchasing the album. Said album sells 1m copies. What happens to that sense of community and ownership then? In any case, aren’t the Monkeys old hat now — what about that new act everyone’s buzzing about online? Second, the band itself. Remember when everyone was talking about Franz Ferdinand? The circus has since moved on. Could that hype, and those record sales, be fashioning a mighty big trap for the Sheffield band? Lastly, the music business, old and new. You have the resources to adapt to new formats, invest in changing technology and exploit fresh revenue streams. Cyberspace is delivering priceless marketing profiles to your inbox.

Back, finally, to “niche product”. Once a term that implied a modest commercial return, it could turn out to be music’s key mantra for the net age. You know what you like, and where to find it. We know what you like, too, and we’ve learnt how to sell it to you. The niche becomes a capricious temporary address, a staging post to the next specialisation. There’s one step forward: fans have more power. But the collective fickle finger of fate hovers restlessly over the mouse button — and over the bands. Now that’s scary.

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