Myspace or Yours?

After stating that the Internet was dead in my last piece, I decided to ask, if it’s not dead then what's next for social media? I thought it was a good follow up question after declaring the Internet dead. Well, then again, I'm not sure if I declared it dead, or just dead to some. Maybe that is the question I should be asking and answering here, but I'm not. Maybe next time.

As far as my discussion for today goes, I decided to talk about the first of the three most well known social media sites that most every artist uses in more detail: Myspace. Don’t be mad at me Facebook and Twitter users your turn is coming. I know lots of you are saying, ‘I don’t use Myspace anymore’. That’s okay, but my question to you is, why not? First up is Myspace. Over the past few weeks Myspace has totally relaunched itself as a place for social entertainment. No longer as the place for friends as it originally billed itself.

Myspace for many artists was the originator of the social media revolution. It in essence gave you a free web page that you could load your music, pictures, tours dates, etc up to for the world to see. The idea was genius and quite revolutionary to say the least. The idea that people looking to connect with artists in such an all encompassing way had never existed before. In turn millions flocked there overnight. As with all good ideas though, competition soon followed.

Myspace, being the giant it was, didn’t really take any of the challenges to its superiority very serious. They did little, if anything, to keep up with or advance the idea of social media. The word complacency comes to mind. As always the case with such a mind set, Myspace began to slip off the radar of all of the new social media fanatics and soon lead way to the birth of the second great social media explosion: Facebook.

At this point it seems Myspace seems to be resting all of its hopes on its ability to draw in entertainment users. Probably because someone at Myspace realized that the only people still using their site was artists. You can still have a band page on myspace, but I don't see the thrust towards being a future leader in the social media realm. What attracts a user to come to Myspace to meet or network with just artists? Nothing.There are already numerous sites across the web that offer users entertainment news, updates, features and access to celebrities. Most of these sites offer you a free membership where you can sign in to get updates direct to your email or mobile device. I don't think having the option of having a personal page on Myspace will make much of a difference or help separate it from other sites that already provide that sort of content.

From an artist’s standpoint, I can see where the thought of music consumers coming to Myspace for entertainment news might help generate traffic for your own profile, but I wouldn’t hold out hope.

The major labels already spend large amounts of money promoting artists signed to their labels on Myspace. i.e. Myspace Music. Also, major label artists are paid for every visit to their page. I bet you didn’t know that. They have a deal setup with Myspace so that their artists are paid based on song plays because of the advertisements that are placed at the top of each page. They also work in conjunction with Amzon.com as a direct link to buy or purchase that artists music direct from their Myspace page.

I thought I should take a moment before you get the idea of contacting Myspace, Amazon, CD Baby or anyone else and asking where your money is, to tell you that’s it’s not coming. Before CD Baby was bought out by Disc Makers, they were trying to negotiate a deal with Myspace to help get a little of that same money for the artists whom they represent. By represent, I mean artists who used them for digital distribution to iTunes and other Internet download music sites. No such luck. Before the deal was in place, Disc Makers had acquired them and the deal hit the preverbal back burner where it has stayed. Such is life for an indie artist.

I think going forward it will be even harder now for indie artists to find and get exposure on Myspace. One bright spot to Myspace though, in a recent survey, 80% of people said Myspace was the first site they visited to hear new music and find new artists. Don’t delete that band page just yet!

Ok, I have rattled on enough about Myspace. In the end I think having a presence there is important. When thinking about the Internet you have to think about your overall web foot print. The larger it is, the easier it is to drive traffic to your own webpage. (We will talk about your own web page very soon!) Using Myspace as a part of that foot print is worth a little of your time. If nothing else, Myspace still gives you a cheap easy way to get your music out so everyone can hear it. Most venues even request a link to your Myspace page when you approach them about booking a gig. So it’s good to have, just don’t put all of you eggs in one basket.

Next time we will talk about Facebook and Twitter. They are both are very different from Myspace and each other. It’s going to be interesting!

We are on Facebook!

Took us long enough huh? It did and we are sorry for that. The good news is that we did it for you!

We have made so many friends and fans here on myspace, but we feel as if we are losing you. We have heard your complaints about myspace and know that many of you have now left.

That’s why we have now have a facebook page and twitter!

We are asking all of you to come join us on one or both sites. We don’t want to lose contact with you.

We love all of you! You have always been so close to the band and a major part of our success. We love talking to all of you and don’t want that to end.

We know all of you have a facebook, and a twitter too probably, so come on and join us on both!

www.facebook.com/thirdgradehaters
twitter.com/thirdgradehater

I think our facebook has my name, Andy Jones on it, but all of you know me anyway.

So what are you waiting on, before you delete your myspace come join us on facebook!

See you there!
TGH

Is the Internet dead, or just dead to some of us?

I thought I would go ahead and follow up on the very question I asked myself at the first of my last blog, is the Internet dead or just dead to some of us.

I have been getting a lot of feedback to my recent blogs about the current state of the Internet from a artists perspective. Positive feedback, I would like to add, and some really great points to go on top of what I had written. It has become apparent from your comments that many of you see the Internet through the same lens as myself.

So my question is, do we all think the Internet is dead from an artists perspective? Or are we just looking at it the wrong way?

Let's a take a look at the future of the social media world, maybe our answer lies there.

Just like the past, new technologies start to become apart of our daily lives, soon lose their buzz over time, and we move on to the next big thing. Just like cell phones, email, the Internet itself and many other recent techno-marvels that were all the rage at some point over the last 10 to 15 years. So what makes social media different and thus giving life to the Internet?

In just the past few weeks all of the major social media sites have undergone huge revisions, implemented new polices, given their sites face lifts and now shifted towards on demand content and marketing services to reach new potential users and customers. Would they being doing this if they were going out of business or are they doing this to stay in business?

Marketing departments for companies in the past never put a plan into place to develop their email department or their own website departments. These things were just adsorbed into their way of doing business. They never thought about focusing more time on how to email better or how to google search better, these tools just made their jobs easier. Now though, companies are spending lots of time and resources to build their own social media departments. There are some that believe that social media will become it's own stand alone discipline in the marketing world.

That's a lot to take in isn't it? The idea that some college kids got together and created a handful of websites that let people interact with each other, to the idea that these very sites are so influential in our lives, that kids will now be getting college degrees in social media is breath taking! It also answers our question.

Social media is evolving. It's finding it's place in our lives, how we work and how we work with it. There are going to be up's and downs. New advancements and technology. Some sites will grow to take on a larger market share then others, while a few will fall by the wayside.

Just like the music industry itself, artists are going to have to wade through all of the progress and turmoil of this social media revolution. Myspace was a successful outlet for many artists in the past, and who knows, it may be again in the future. Right now there is no 'best place to be' for artists trying to find a foothold in the music business. Using social media can be aggravating and difficult to say the least. It can also be rewarding. Don't give up though, keep blogging and tweeting, keep your profiles up to date, post those status updates and maybe, just maybe, success will find you!