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!

Is the Internet Dead?

Is the internet dead? This has been a question I have been asking myself for a few weeks now. If it's not dead is it just going through changes like most businesses do? I have read several articles of late that seem to think that it is dead and that the future of the internet will look much different then it does today. So what if it's dead, how does that impact us? Do we even care?

I'm looking at the internet through the eyes of someone working in the music industry, as a recording artist, a studio owner and a music publisher. What was once the supposed gateway to music business success is closing and its closing fast. In fact it may have never really been open at all.

We have all heard the stories of how a band was found on myspace and then international fame soon followed. I once bought into this, but now I'm not so sure. How true can this be? Success in business has always been built on hard work, time, effort, energy, preparation and education. There are always the stories of overnight successes but even then all of the above things were at some point involved. No one can succeed at anything if they have never put forth any effort to succeed can they?

I have come to conclusion that the artists that have found success from the internet would have found it no matter what. Take for instance Fall Out Boy. They have long been held up as the first band to find success using myspace and the internet. True indeed, they were the first band to one million plays, one million fans and so on and so forth on myspace. They used this virtual hype to gain fans; attendance at their shows grew and increased album sales. All of which caught the attention of record labels that were all too eager to sign them to a record deal.

Would all of this have happened for Fall Out Boy without the internet? I say yes. They used all the same basic principals that any successful business would employ to get their company off the ground. For them it was the new media of the internet that gave them a jump start. Looking back over the past we can see how such new mediums as print, radio and TV also launched stars and their careers. Yet again, how many of those same success stories would have come true without such media? I would argue that all of them would have.

Like Fall Out Boy or not, they were the right band with the right sound at the right time that just happened to catch on. People just liked their music. Girls thought they were cute and guys wanted to emulate their style. In all truth the very same thing can be said about the Beatles or Elvis or any other music act that has seen international fame and success over the last 60 years.

At the heart of all success is good marketing. For the Beatles, Brian Epstein took four rough young lads and put them in suits, and took advantage of their good looks. At the time TV was the new media and they were just the right darlings to capture the imagination of everyone who watched.

For Fall Out Boy it was their use of the internet. Good marketing always knows how to take advantage of unique opportunities when they present themselves. Especially new and unknown opportunities that have yet to be explored and figured out.

I have been told more times then I can count of late that myspace is dead. Ok, so what about facebook and twitter and the plethora of other sites just like them. Are they dead too? How does the next big thing in the music business find success? I believe the answer lies in the past. As some would say, what is old is new again. I think it lies in hard work, time, effort and preparation. The same things that have always made businesses successful. If you have a good business plan, work hard and continue to knock on doors eventually opportunity will lead to reward.

I know some of you are saying, yeah but what about those artists that got discovered and bypassed all of that, what's your answer for that. My answer is you can't discover someone that doesn't at first at least want to be discovered. Is Justin Bieber really an overnight success? He would busk on street corners and posted videos on YouTube. It's not like he was locked away in his room singing to the walls around him. Maybe YouTube helped draw him attention faster and easier then most, but it was only a matter of time before the recording industry discovered him.

So is the internet dead? After writing this I'm not sure I'm any closer to an answer then I was before I started. I think I am of the mind that the internet never really helped anyone on its own. It was just another tool in a large box, that when used along with other known tools, sped up the process. Did the internet and myspace make Fall Out Boy famous? No, just like TV didn't make the Beatles famous either. Both the Beatles and Fall Out Boy would have been famous in my opinion had there never been TV or the internet. It may have taken longer, but they would have still reached the same point in their careers.