Music Online: Alex Jones

I thought this video pretty much sums up how social networking works. The real advantage of a social network being online rather than reality is that it is possible to explore who your friends know with the click of a button, without having to ask about or meet them… you can essentially stalk the people you know to find out who else they know and how they know them…scary, yet useful when you take into account how this can help in the professional world of finding jobs and useful contacts.

By now it’s likely that most frequent users on the internet have encountered social networking online at some point, whether by signing up to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, or one of the many social networking sites, to viewing a video on youtube, or photos on flickr.

Social networking sites allow users to easily keep in contact with friends, family, colleagues, and to meet other like minded people, with the advantage that most of these sites are free to join and maintain. The basic concept of these sites is creating contacts, sharing and responding with them. Various sites hold different features, such as creating a profile about themselves, adding media, and tagging friends, while keeping friends and followers informed by updating their status.

Many of the more popular sites tend to offer the same features, so why chose one over another? It all comes down to what your friends are using; it’s much easier to stay in contact if you’re all using the same site. For example many young people and students are probably likely to choose Facebook rather than Twitter, as it’s what their friends use, whereas Twitter attracts a slightly older, more professionally orientated crowd of users, as they know they’re more likely to find people of similar interests. Some users also prefer to have all of these features on one site, rather than having to check several sites for updates.

These sites can easily become addictive; with users spending hours browsing through profiles to see what they’re contacts are doing, simply because friends and family are what interest them. This addiction is what makes these sites so successful, with new content constantly being uploaded by users, there’s always something new to look at. Many social networking sites use this as a main characteristic of the site; known as UGC, User Generated Content means that the majority of what’s on the site is generated by users uploading more content such as pictures, and adding comments. This also means that the site is easier to maintain by the owners whilst still attracting more visits.

Gaming sites can also be seen as a form of social networking, as users compete with each other, this can again become very addictive, they have a motivation to keep playing and compete to be the best. This ties in with how social networking can create a hierarchy amongst users, with people competing to have create more contacts, on forums users who post more regularly are viewed as more valued and important members of that particular community.

When linking social networking with ideas of promotion, we can consider that the more people we have as contacts, the more useful connections we are able to form. A social network can serve as platform for an announcement or promotion of something, getting the message across to a lot of people, for example a status update on Facebook or Twitter, a bulletin posted on MySpace or a video uploaded to Youtube. Users are not necessarily registered as a person, but maybe a musician, clothing company, photographer or another form of business, this can be a way to converse directly with fans or business peers and find out what other things they’re talking about, and if it’s about them. Members of a company could also use it as a form of promotion, by posting comments on active forums or blogs in order to get people interested and talking about their company.

Useful Links:

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-best-advice-about-social-networking/

‘The Long Tail’ – a phrase first used by Chris Anderson, in his Wired Magazine article, which he has since developed into a book and ongoing blog, also entitled The Long Tail. The phrase is used to describe the section of the market whereby a large amount of products are sold, but on a small scale, as oppose to the other end of the market where only a small number of products are sold, but each in much larger quantities. An example in music would be that Madonna alone is able to sell millions of records, however many smaller bands could each sell thousands of records, and so together they are able to sell millions, it is these smaller acts which make up the long tail.

Companies have recognised this trend in the market and with the help of the internet, are able to cater for it, such as Amazon. Customers are able to browse for exactly what they want, rather than in a shop, where there are limits as to how much stock they are able to hold, online they have no limitations and so are able to offer users an incredibly wide selection of products. Even though they may only sell a small number of copies of each of these products, because they have such a wide selection of products, all of which sell a small number, they are able to make more money than if they were to only stock a small number of products.

Many online stores are able to follow this trend, such as itunes, where the customer can easily access and buy rare tracks which they would be unable to find in stores or even as a hardcopy.

To link this in with my previous post on publishing, a music publisher could benefit from this theory of the long tail, by working with many lesser known composers and artists, and instead of focusing all their time to one which they feel may have they most market potential, they could promote each of the songs / composers / artists equally and individually, carefully placing them in a context which they’re most suited to. And so by doing this they are able to make more money from more artists. For much smaller artists this can also be beneficial as they’re given an opportunity which they wouldn’t usually have had if their publisher was to focus on one big act.

I can also see how this idea has the potential to be less beneficial to particular acts who may otherwise have become much more successful if their publisher were to focus purely on placing their work, rather than splitting their time between numerous acts.

Useful links:

http://www.thelongtail.com/

An important, and sometimes overlooked, aspect of the music industry is that of the music publisher.

The most common role of a music publisher is to work with composers and songwriters and to find suitable recording artists for them to work with. They will also deal with ensuring that they receive the correct royalties and credits for their work, and are responsible for handling copyright registration and tracking where and when the artist’s music is being played, ensuring that their work is not being used without the correct authorisation.

Another role of the music publisher is to get the compositions or tracks placed so that they’re heard by the right people; they are the key to the development of new artists. This may be introducing the artist to record companies and getting them airplay on the right stations and on television shows. They may also need to prepare the promotional materials and CD’s to send out to them.

Along with this, they would also be responsible for getting an artists cong or composition placed in suitable adverts or in the soundtrack to a film or television programme, by suggesting them to producers and individuals within the industry. Again this helps in the development of the artist as the music begins to be heard in more places by people with an interest for it, and in a context whereby it becomes familiar.

In many cases the publishers make a deal whereby they receive half of the profits generated and are then credited as owning half of the copyright, and the writer receives the other half; however this varies depending on the type of contract, size of the company and success of the music. For example, once a writer has sold a share of their song to a publisher, the publisher is then able to go about making money from the song by selling rights to advertisers and film makers etc. However the songwriter cannot gain any profit until the publisher has made up the amount which they paid for their share in the song.

An artist could then again chose to hire a publisher merely for them to administer their copyright, for just fifteen percent, rather than hiring them to track the usage of the song as well. Publishers are also known to go further and undertake other roles within the industry, such as the artist’s manager or a music producer.

Useful Links:

http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/faqs/what_is_pub.html

http://www.allmusicindustrycontacts.com/music-publisher.htm

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