Tasha Harrison

The music industry is dying, slowly but surely, as every year record labels lose more and more money. This doesn’t mean, though, that music is dying. In fact, for all the reasons that record labels are dying – file sharing, social media, MySpace etc – smaller bands, who previously would have struggled to get signed, are building their own reputations.

I was reading the blog of Sean Murricane, a member of the band March of Dimes and @seaneeboy,  whose latest blog post explains the importance of Spotify and MySpace for bands. The key point he makes is, “if we’re more likely to be listened to we’re more likely to be liked by more people”. Then more people will go their gigs and they can make money from selling EPs and, possibly, merchandise.

This is the big lesson for the music industry. Instead of trying to rely on their traditional revenue streams, which they are constantly trying to protect by shutting down file sharing sites and lobbying governments to pass draconian internet laws, they should be looking for new opportunities. It’s difficult to have sympathy for the industry when they can’t move forward and embrace the huge social changes that the internet has caused. By continuing to fight the losing battle, they are ruining the industry.

The other key problem is that the big bands and artists won’t make as much money. The money will be spread throughout the industry, meaning that smaller bands won’t have to sign ridiculous contracts to have a chance of being heard. They will be responsible for their own distribution and marketing, operating as SMEs in their own right. We will also see a lot more smaller record labels doing a lot better. They will no longer lose their best bands to the bigger record labels, because if their music is good enough and available in the right places they will get the fans they need.

Further reading:

Labels may be losing money, but artists are making more than ever

Creating the virtual experience of being at an exhibition is a concept I was initially a little skeptical about. There is no substitute for a real life experience – or so I thought.

Maslaha, an organisation which promotes and increases understanding of Islam, built a real life exhibition in Bethnal Green Library. They then created an online version. Called ‘Evliya Celebi – The Book of Travels’, it tells the story of the travels of Evliya Celebi through the Ottoman Empire. It shows the cultural impact of the empire on the whole of Europe and all the way to London.

Creating online exhibitions is the ultimate test of connecting technology with the community, one of the many ways Maslaha uses media to communicate Isamic culture and break down barriers.

Visit the site http://www.thebookoftravels.org and let me know what you think – it’s certainly a fantastic exhibition.

Once the two darlings of the web 2.0 world, Facebook and Digg, in their own ways, are demonstrating that this new world of media is not as lovely as many hoped it would be. The former is controlled and stifled by its owners, the latter by its users.

Facebook

When Facebook first began it was a way for people at University to keep in touch. Initially only available to Harvard students, it gradually expanded and in 2006 it was opened to everyone.

At first the site was a breadth of fresh air after MySpace became a horror of a social networking site. Users left in droves and discovered that all their friends were now on Facebook. For years people have happily uploaded all of their photos onto the site, detailed many personal aspects of their lives and generally used it as the online version of their life. (Within my own social circle every event and meet up is organised via Facebook.)

Then Facebook realised that they needed to make money to survive, just like every business. But this went against everything their users had bought into. And here lies the crux of the problem – how do they monetize the site without irritating and losing their users?

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the changes Facebook have made to their pages, which sums a lot of what they’re getting wrong. They are trying too hard, making too many little changes and not addressing the key problems of privacy and advertsing.

Digg

Digg became popular due to its simplicity and ease of use. When I started using the site it was to find interesting and useful articles, about technology, politics, news etc. I discovered some brilliant sites, started to make friends who gave me brilliant recommendations via the ‘Shout’ function. It gave me the kind of optimistic love I now have for Twitter – it’s why people make the internet great. They build these fantastic social sites and fantastic people find them and create great content.

Now Digg has become just another place where social media super users and spammers control the content. The most popular things online are not necessarily the best – cats dancing, a panda sneezing etc etc. This has led to Digg becoming controlled by a few sites offering similar content. You can still find gems, but this shift in emphasis has meant that many of the users that made it great are now gone.

General Trend

The internet is at a tipping point. With so many people now on Facebook the potential control is scary and they are going to have to be even more careful now that their privacy is being scrutinised and users are losing patience. While sites that aggregate content are going to have to find ways to prevent super users driving away everyone else.

Social bookmarking is a way of sharing your favourite sites and pages on the internet with other people. It is a great way of finding new content as well. If you’ve never come across a social bookmarking site before, it is a bit like sharing your bookmarks with everyone and being able to search your friends’ bookmarks.

Below is a selection of the most popular social bookmarking sites

Delicious allows you to share your personal bookmarks with other users. You can organise and tag your bookmarks, making it easier for people to search through. It also makes it easier for you to find information amongst your own bookmarks. The actual site lists the hottest links, the one’s that are bookmarked by the most people, and the newest links. It is a great way to find new information, adding a new dimension to old school bookmarking and RSS feeds.

Stumble Upon takes social bookmarking to another level, where it is about purely sharing and finding information. The site itself describes it as channel surfing.  Stumble gives you sites based upon a list of categories you select. You simply click a button and it gives you a site, click again and another comes up. It is literally stumbling through the internet. You can then rate each site by clicking the thumbs up ‘I like it!’ or thumbs down if you disapprove.

Digg was once the most influential aggregator of news on the net. Users submit and rate links by ‘Digging’ them, clicking on a button with a thumbs up sign on it (a little like Stumble Upon). You can also make friends on the site, shouting out your favourite links and asking them to Digg those. The popularity of Digg has made it more difficult to find great content, especially since the content is controlled by a few super users. This has made the site less diverse.

Reddit is a cross between Delicious and Digg. For many people it has replaced Digg as a more diverse source of articles and information. Users rate articles in much the same way as Digg, and can also comment on each link. This gives it a community feel with better and more intelligent discussion – if that’s what you’re looking for!