After sitting on a panel a few weeks ago at the Urban Network Conference in Memphis, I realized something… there are still way too many independent labels and artists who have no clue about options that are available to them to use if they have a limited or no budget at all. There are more music and social related sites than just Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. If you don’t have an account on those three get out of this business now! What I plan on doing for the next couple of posts is expose some of you to sites that I think will help unsigned artists and independent labels. If you already use the sites that I mention in the months to come, GREAT! If not try it, use it, and pass it along to someone else.
I will start the music attack with Last.fm
Last.fm started out with a bang and then fell off, but you should not overlook this site for its reach for dedicated music fans. Here is a little more about the site from its staff:
About Last.fm
Last.fm is a music service that learns what you love…
Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like. It can connect you to other people who like what you like – and recommend songs from their music collections and yours too.
…and as you use Last.fm, you make it better for you and everyone else.
When you recommend some music to a friend, or you tag it, or you write about it – even just listening to it – you shift the song’s importance on the site. It’ll be recommended to different people, because you’ve listened to it. It’ll move up our music charts and maybe more people will hear it because you thought it was good.
How it all started…
Back in the 20th Century, Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel were running an online record label whose mission was to get independent music out to the people who wanted to hear it. A few years later, university student Richard Jones started tracking what he and his friends were listening to on their computers with a project he called Audioscrobbler. Last.fm brought these ideas and desires together. Luckily, these days it’s about letting people choose the music themselves – rather than subjecting the world to Felix’s music taste (or we’d all be listening to Elvis and Japanese surf garage). Last.fm has always been about making music culture more democratic: everyone listening to music how they want to, when they want to. Without a middle man making your decisions for you.
…and what we’re doing now…
Our office is in Shoreditch in East London. When we started, the four site programmers lived in tents on the roof of the office. Now, we occupy a whole floor on Baches Street, we seem to have someone new on the team every other week (either here or in New York), and Last.fm is a global music service available in 12 languages. And last year Last.fm became part of CBS – so that’s another six thousand or so people helping out. Sometimes we get nostalgic for the early days. Then we give ourselves a slap around the head and say “Wake up! There are still people who can’t get at the music they want the way they want to. So, back to work…”
Check out the site and begin your journey to the new Street Team 2.0… Until next time… Keep It Digital!
Mo