New Music Strategies

“Okay, so you’re on MySpace. And you’re probably on Facebook too. You might be using Twitter. You certainly should be. And then there are the other social media platforms - not the least of which is your blog. Wordpress? Blogger? Vox? Mog? For music, you’ve got Last.fm, Imeem, ccMixter, Jambase, Grooveshark, Virb, PureVolume, Amie St, FameCast, Buzznet… and then there are your photos on Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa… your videos on Youtube, blip.tv, muzu.tv, Vimeo… bookmarks and news on del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Digg… profiles on LinkedIn, Ning, Disqus, LiveJournal, Bebo, Hi5, Plaxo, Ma.gnolia, Yahoo Groups… not to mention Tumblr, Upcoming.org, Eventful, Posterous (I looooove Posterous), Pownce, Brightkite, Xanga, Jaiku, Friendster, FriendFeed, Diigo, Kwippy…

It’s actually all a bit much really. Just how social do you need to be? An argument could be made that actually it’s important to be on most, if not all of these websites, and more besides. A slightly better argument could be made that it would be nice to occasionally make music and earn some money too. But social media platforms are not just a necessary part of our lives these days, they’re an important way of connecting and communicating with our colleagues, customers, friends and audiences. Because actually, that’s what social networking means…”