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Living in California it’s hard to align myself with the folks that are sitting in New York City day after day, hopefully weeks upon weeks to come, where they will fight a most inconvenient battle for so many of the rest of us.
I applaud every single one of you that have joined the occupy movement and hope that soon I can join in to. I’ll be at the Occupy San Diego event on October 7th. If you’re in Southern California, I hope you will be too.
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The above screenshot is taken directly from the Pandora FAQ on the proper way that artists can submit music to be put on the Pandora player. I have not altered it in any way, despite how ridiculous the policy may seem.
If we take a minute to think about this logically (I know it’s hard), let’s break this down.
1. With advances in technology, Amazon and Apple have made it easier to buy music in an instant, saving you a trip to the ‘record’ store.
2. Because of said technology like app stores, etc. - old fashioned brick and mortar record stores are closing their doors all over. (Borders, anyone?)
3. Compact disc sales have recently fallen below digital sales. See below.
4. Services like Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and RootMusic make it extremely easy for a band to upload music in an instant, allowing fans to access music from their favorite acts almost as immediately as an act uploads it.
SO WHY THE HELL, AS AN ARTIST, SHOULD I EVER PRINT ANOTHER COMPACT DISC?
It’s expensive to print. It gets thrown in the trash. It’s a burden on the environment via landfills and the trees we must cut down to make linear notes. And then there’s the plastic jewel casing. OMG, PLASTIC?!? Do we even know what that’s made out of yet?!?
All I’m saying is… Pandora, let’s revisit this policy. Compact discs are a waste. Millions of ‘music acts’ have boxes of them laying around. To get them to you, I have to buy a stamp, when I could easily put it in a Dropbox or send it to you digitally.
If you’re saying - “well, a serious act prints compact discs!” I send you a simple rebuttal. NO THEY DON’T. At least an artist that wants to save money and invest in marketing by connecting with potential fans where they already are - Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. etc.
So Pandora, if you continue to use this policy for years to come - I can already tell you where you’ll be in the next few years - right there with the major labels who wanted to go the ‘Clear Channel’ way, eating up acts and spitting them right back out, only to have a massive business and financial mess on their hands.
Let’s be a little forward thinking, and start accepting music the way everyone who really cares about music is doing it - DIGITALLY.
Have anything you’d like to add? email me - iquick (at) me (dot) com
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Recently all abuzz Twitter and Facebook, you might have been seeing the introduction of Google’s latest attempt at a social network - Google + (plus). Much like Facebook you can add friends, co-workers and acquaintances, all while sharing pics and links in a stream. Kind of exactly like Facebook.
Only kind of though, since Google also goes further with their network, allowing you to drop people you may know into ‘Circles.’ They start you out with a few standard circles like Family, Friends and Acquaintances. You can easily add your own Circles and as many people as you can find into any one given circles.
The brilliance of circles resides in the noise reduction of the overall stream. Like Facebook you can see the stream of everyone, or you can click on a certain circle and see what they’re sharing, or just share something with that Limited group. So, we have less noise and more specific content from a more specific group.
And then Google brings a real game changer to the mix. Inside of any of these given circles you can host your own ‘Hangout’ with everyone you’ve placed into that circle, allowing you to video chat with anyone available in that Circle.
That’s nice and all, but what does this mean for a band or solo musician who recent years has joined service after service in hopes of getting ‘discovered?’ Nothing, at least not yet. Right now the mega search company isn’t allowing companies or brands their own Google+ account.
Google + is much more relevant to the fans you already have, and making it easier to connect with a certain group. Have a street team? Put them in a circle. Know 50 fans who would do anything for your band? Put them in a circle. Host a Q&A on the Hangout and then play them a few songs. The possibilities for who you put in each group and how you reach them is completely up to you.
If you’ve been responsible with your email collecting in different cities or on the net, you may have a general idea of where that fan resides, making much easier to share with them when you’re playing next. Or, you could easily get in touch with them to find out new venues in that area you could play. So, make some circles like ‘San Francisco’ ‘Seattle’ or ‘Bakersfield.’
Fact is, Facebook and Myspace as a social network may have built a place for artists to place their music, but really dropped the ball in features that helped the musicians ability to market to their fans, intelligently.
I’m not saying that Google+ will kill Facebook. I’m not saying it will even have enough users on it to be worth a damn. But, if you are the type of act that’s on top of your marketing to fans and like the ‘social media’ aspect of being a musician, give me your gmail address (sorry, no @customdoman.com emails allowed on Google+, yet) and I’ll send you and invite.
