April 2012
10 posts
The Viral Power of Fan Communication: A Case Study...
It’s always exhilarating finding cases like this that validate the lessons we so often, teach, learn, and debate here on MTT. This story in particular, highlights the power of conscientious direct-to-fan (D2F) communication on the part of Fleet Foxes’ front man, Robin Pecknold. If Grammy awards were given to artists DIY’ing it each year, Pecknold would win the award for “Outstanding...
Twitter sucks… three years later | Rhythm Changes
Three years almost to the day after I interviewed Steve Lawson about Twitter for musicians, we thought it might be appropriate to update and reflect. Here’s the original video: Twitter Sucks, So Change Your Friends. via rhythmchanges.net
From Young Adult Book Fans to Wizards of Change -...
Perhaps the most effective practitioner of fan-fueled social change is Andrew Slack, the 32-year-old founder of The Harry Potter Alliance and the force behind Imagine Better. Since Slack, who started out as a comedian, founded the Harry Potter Alliance, he has motivated Potterphiles to send five cargo planes with $123,000 worth of relief supplies to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, donate more...
Fan Friction - How The Internet is Failing Artists...
The way things are set up now with Facebook and Twitter, very few artists have fans. Artists have plenty of “likes” and “followers,” but they don’t have the artist-fan relationship that’s needed to be as big as the acts of previous generations. Fans buy albums, concert tickets and t-shirts. Fans tell their friends about artists. The person who “liked” a Facebook page, who are they in...
Nimbit.com | How to Win & Engage Fans on Facebook...
I was invited to give a presentation on Best Practices for Musicians on Facebook last week at SXSW and thought it would be helpful to share my slides from the talk and some audio excerpts that were posted online for those who couldn’t make it to the conference. I tried to tailor this talk toward practical things that you can do today. In particular, I spent a bit of time on how to optimize your...
Twitter for Musicians and Artists | Twitter...
Twitter for Musicians and Artists Sound and vision For music fans, Twitter is the next best thing to being backstage. And for performers, connecting with your fans in an authentic way is one key to your success. A Twitter connection tells fans how much you appreciate them, and it also enables you to tailor your messages. The fact is, Twitter provides more authenticity and...
If I don't get pants, nobody gets pants by...
via theamat.deviantart.com Awesome fan art.
simonlindgren.com » The subpolitics of online...
The subpolitics of online piracy March 7, 2012 Convergence just published my article The Subpolitics of Online Piracy: A Swedish Case Study which was co-authored with Jessica Linde. Our presentation of this research at ISA2010 in Gothenburg is available here [slides+audio]. The article will go into an issue of Convergence later this...
24 Hours » The Kickstarter Blog — Kickstarter
There are crazy days and then there are days like yesterday. Kickstarter has experienced some frantic hours but nothing like what happened in the 24-hour span between Wednesday at 6:54pm and Thursday at 6:44pm. Two million-dollar projects, a major political speech involving Kickstarter, an amazing band launching a project for a comeback 20 years in the making… the list goes on. Here’s...
Eden | kristin hersh
We all know what the World values: things that makes noise, “expert” opinions, sales, charts, hype, lists, awards, trends, tap dancing, self-promotion…it hangs high price tags on what it says the herd wants. And it is true that there are people who only like to look at what they think other people are looking at, who only want to live where other people want to live, who watch, read and listen...
January 2012
12 posts
Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA. Where's the...
Bad for business. Anti-piracy legislation could be bad for the Internet business. It almost takes my breath away. Internet piracy has claimed half of the recorded music business, and made the prospect of making a living as a musician harder for artists of all rank and file. Why didn’t Google, or Facebook, or Wikipedia ever stand in solidarity with musicians, actors, and writers - most of...
the clatter of keys | an open letter to washington...
As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works. We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and...
Trent Reznor, OK Go, MGMT, Zoe Keating, Neil...
As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works. We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open...
Jonathan Coulton on why piracy is not worth...
So if you can stand me sounding a little crazy, listen: where is the proof that piracy causes economic harm to anyone? Looking at the music business, yes profits have gone down ever since Napster, but has anyone effectively demonstrated the causal link between that and piracy? There are many alternate theories (people buying songs and not whole albums, music sucking more, niches and indie acts...
“Fanthropologist” Kristen Olson Studies Fans for...
Kristen Olson calls herself a “fanthropologist.” The title says it all: she uses the techniques of anthropologists to study fans and fandoms for the Los Angeles ad agency she works for. Olson’s job is to lay bare the inner workings of a given fandom so that studio executives can understand, and communicate with, the people who are passionate about their intellectual properties. It’s a job made...
Digital Music News - Ringtones Still Make Four...
But wait: it gets even crazier. Because it turns out that ‘mobile personalization’ products account for more than 1/3 of total digital music sales. That mostly includes ringtones, but also more exotic products like ringback tones (at least exotic in the US). But how could we have missed this? Looks like if you’re not a shiny new technology, no one cares! Case in...
Cheaper than Free « Bandcamp Blog
We see these sales as proof that Bandcamp can effectively compete with filesharing and other free distribution platforms by a) giving fans a clear, easy way to directly support the artist, and b) offering them a better user experience. Our favorite recent example of this was an $8 sale that started with the search “milosh flac -torrent.” So here was a fan looking for a Milosh record, wanted a...
Crowd funded film successes
Kickstarter, the powerhouse crowdsourced fund-raising engine for an increasing number of creative projects, is poised to have a breakout winter as a film funder, with three of its projects on documentary short lists for the Academy Awards and more than a dozen films headed to the Sundance Film Festival. via gigaom.com
Digital Music Sales Surpass Physical Sales
Physical music sales have been decreasing every year since digital music offerings have become more popular, finally arriving at this moment – digital music purchases accounted for 50.3 percent of all music sales in 2011. According to CNN, the boost past 50% was due to a significant increase in digital single sales, combined with a moderate increase in digital album sales. As far as exact...
1/4 of Twitter verified accounts are musicians
Approximately one quarter of Twitter’s verified accounts belong to musicians, many of them quite famous. The Echo Nest is applying our music intelligence platform to identify which verified accounts belong to recording artists and to deliver that data to Twitter, helping to organize Twitter verified accounts, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We are also adding these artists’ Twitter IDs...
David Lowery rants against contemporary music...
David Lowery ”Say Hello to the new boss, same as the old boss”. Digital Music Myths Re-education part 2. Record labels and artists don’t need to re-invent their business model to match the new reality. THEY ALREADY DID. That’s what we’ve all been doing for the last ten years. AND WE NOW KNOW IT”S ACTUALLY WORSE FOR THE ARTIST. We know this...
Inside the Cell Phone File Sharing Networks of...
Digital filesharing doesn’t need the internet. This is the case at least in Western Africa and other parts of the developing world, where computers aren’t yet consumer goods for most and, even if they were, web access isn’t exactly New York City. Lovers of music still get it done, however, sharing files between knockoff cell phones via bluetooth connections and accumulating song collections in...
December 2011
2 posts
Ryan Gosling Memes
To those who spend little time navigating entertainment blogs, Gosling, 31, is merely an actor who has deservedly earned an Academy Award nomination and appeared in three wildly different films in recent months: “Drive,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and “The Ides of March.” (Four, actually, if you count “Blue Valentine,” which rolled out in wider release back in January.) But to those who track the...
Literary greats answer high-school student's...
via boingboing.net “It is sometimes even pleasant in that the reader’s mind has collaborated in a creative way with what I have written.” - Ralph Ellison on reader interpretations of his symbolism
October 2011
12 posts
Flying Lotus video with open invitation...
Watch Kill Your Co-Workers Video + Animators Open Invitation + Tour Dates Flying Lotus and animator Beeple present brand new video ‘Kill Your Co-Workers’ taken from ‘Pattern+Grid World’ (out now). In an open invitation to animators across the world to make new scenes and stories with the parade of fantastical characters that feature, the source 3D models have...
Interviews: Tom Waits | Features | Pitchfork
Pitchfork: Is the internet a big part of your life? Tom Waits: No. I mean, it’s necessary, but it’s not really part of my world. It’s robots, right? They are taking over the world. What is the biggest enemy of a computer? Pitchfork: I’m going to say water. TW: There you go. Slowly, their goal is to eliminate all the water on Earth so they can just hum in a room...
5 Ways in Which You Can Improve Your Connection...
Remove the artist-fanbase concept from your mind. It’s 2011. The concept of artist-fanbase is so last century. The issue I have with this concepts is that it suggests a distance between the artist and the fanbase. We all live part of our lives in the digital realm now, so get rid of this mental distance. You’re the center of the party. Sure, you don’t have time to talk to everybody when the party...
TEDxTransmedia 2011 - Andrew Slack - The strength...
via youtube.com Andrew Slack of The Harry Potter Alliance speaking about fan activism.
Why “branding” won’t save the creative class -...
Human beings, of course, have been making art at least since a Paleolithic man sketched a horse on the Lascaux caves 17,000 years ago. Stone sculpture of busty women and music, made originally on animal bones, are likely even older; the late scholar Denis Dutton argued in his book “The Art Instinct” that creativity was hard-wired into the human race during the process of evolution. So, some of...
Pesky artists messing up their brands
Artists are encouraged to tweet and post on their own, rather than having someone do it for them, Snowden said. “We have to be careful that everything stays in their voice,” he said. This presents challenges because recording artists are “imperfect marketers” and don’t always understand the impact their posts will have. Marketing an artist as a brand is also...
How to turn fans into CD-buying cow creatures -...
Thanks to Twitter, I stumbled upon this article in Information Week which provides an insight into the ways in which major record labels and their subsidiaries view the world of social media. My favourite quote: “Over time, we’ve become really focused on figuring out what do we do all these people we’ve sort of corralled?” Corralled. Like, herded into a pen. Is that...
'I may have been wrong about Twitter', writes...
I may have been wrong about Twitter. I think I’m still right about how awful it is that celebrity couples tweet one another publicly, (get a fucking room… nauseating), and that, engaging with idiots is quite undignified, but I was wrong to just rule it out due to those things. Of course there are idiots on Twitter. But there are idiots on the high street and I still go...
Interview with Bjork: “The industry was making too...
> The music industry has been through a lot since your career began. How has that changed things for you? Is the new music industry — weaker major labels, internet enabling DIY art — a better place, in your opinion? I don’t think it is better or worse. I started as a 14 year old hanging out with folks from Iceland’s only indie label (Gramm), where it was all about self-sufficiency, and not...
On creating art because there is no other choice
What keeps a person going? As I write this, I’m aware that there are people reading who know exactly what I’m talking about. Young painters and film-makers and novelists who are in that exact same place. Lemme say this to you: Don’t quit. Bleed from your eyeballs if you have to, but don’t stop. What kept me going was the same thing that kept those dancers working at the barre. I just loved it....
Music Ally | Blog Archive » Facebook’s new music...
Spotify and rivals have seen big bumps in their connected userbases since Facebook’s new music-sharing features launched, but what about artists? Inside Facebook has been doing some digging, and reports that the new ticker features have not resulted in a similar boost for the number of people Liking artist pages on the social network. via musically.com
Musician self construction: A conversation between...
@nancybaym …but, like some kind of abuse scenario, being mediated becomes the norm, so regaining the means to an expressed self is scary #11 11:50pm Oct 1st 2011 via TweetDeck in reply to nancybaym via exquisitetweets.com
September 2011
8 posts
Fans of ‘Psych’ Compete for Killer Prize
Most social games have perks for those at the top of the leaderboard, but USA Network may be unique in making one of those perks be the opportunity to become a murder victim. But it does suit a game based on Psych, USA Network’s drama starring two detectives known for their quirks and quips. The Psych tie-in #HashTagKiller (HTK) went live today in a seven-week game leading up to the show’s Oct....
Fan wins dispute over LadyGaga.org domain...
The Panel notes that Complainant must first make a prima facie case that Respondent lacks rights and legitimate interests in the disputed domain name under Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii), and then the burden shifts to Respondent to show it does have rights or legitimate interests. See Hanna-Barbera Prods., Inc. v. Entm’t Commentaries, FA 741828 (Nat. Arb. Forum Aug. 18, 2006) (holding that the...
Studies On The Cultural Sector In The File Sharing...
Here are some links to articles summarizing academic research on how the cultural sector, including the music business, has fared in the file sharing era. First, three studies on the music business in various member states: Sweden 2000 – 2008: More Charts The Record Labels Don’t Want You To See: Swedish Musicians Making More Money Norway 1999 – 2009: Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing...
30 Years Of Music Industry Change, In 30 Seconds...
via digitalmusicnews.com
Study: Music Fans Prefer Ownership vs. Streaming -...
In a new research study concluded by eMusic, and administered by Insight Research Group, 92% of music fans are concluded to prefer they own their music rather than stream it – citing unlimited playback and file security as key determining factors. However, steaming music was found to be an important gateway to music purchases. The study found that 71% of consumers use...
Bodies hanging from bridge in Mexico are warning...
(CNN) — Social media users who denounce drug cartel activities along the Mexican border received a brutal warning this week: Two mangled bodies hanging like cuts of meat from a pedestrian bridge. A woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. Attackers left her topless, dangling by her feet and hands from a bridge in the border city of...
Wilco Fan Video Project on Vimeo
Wilco Fan Video Project 98 members / 33 videos Wilco Fans: We’re looking for video of the cities we’re playing — some of which may be projected behind the band during the show in your town. So break out your camera and show us what your city looks like to you. Please upload a DOWNLOADABLE video. IMPORTANT: To be elligible, you must visit...
The Cure's Robert Smith on Social Media
I’ve got a Facebook page,” says Robert Smith, “but I’ve never put anything on it. I’ve got a presence on all the social networks, in fact, but I’ve never once sent a message. I’m there because otherwise, someone’s going to pretend to be me. The idea of doing an interview nowadays … I have no interest or desire in having a conversation with...
August 2011
13 posts
Little evidence links mob violence to social media...
(CNN) — This summer Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has wrestled with one of his biggest challenges since taking office five years ago. Worried that flash mob violence would overrun city streets as it had elsewhere, the Cleveland City Council unanimously passed legislation that would criminalize the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media for assembling unruly crowds or encouraging...
Jeremy, Call Your Mother — She’s Worried Sick |...
When we switched to Facebook comments several months ago, we spun it as a way to combat the trolls. But you know, there was actually a secret agenda. We wanted to bring families closer together. And it’s with great pleasure that I can now announce that it’s working. Earlier today, we ran a post entitled, “German Court Suspends Galaxy Tab Injunction In The Apple-Samsung Case“. Apple, Android,...
The CASH platform: a peek at what we’ve been up to...
We’ve been building a free and open-source platform for musicians that will let them own and control all of the functionality they need on their website. It plays nice with WordPress or any existing PHP site. It works on its own or as part of a bigger CMS. It installs with a single, small file uploaded to your server. And it works without any programming at all — a single line or code copied to...
Beatles mania helps collector make a living in...
So how did an accountant from Argentina — which seems about a million miles away from Liverpool, England — amass a staggering 8,600 Beatles-related items? Hint: Being a self-confessed pack rat helps. “My history shows there is a virtue in collecting things, and I think schools should do more to encourage kids to do it,” says Vazquez, a gregarious, heavyset...
blink-182 video made of fan made videos after the...
via youtube.com
Participations: Volume 8, Issue 1
Twittering on: Audience research and participation using Twitter Ruth Deller Sheffield Hallam University, UK Abstract This paper aims to explore the potential of social network site Twitter as a site for audience research. Drawing on notions of ‘liveness’, participation, convergence and interactivity, it argues that Twitter provides a potentially significant development in our...