Futuristic.

What does the future hold for the bloomin' technology age of boomin' music? My guess is as good as the next persons but the possibilities are endless. 


If I were to take one guess, I would say that viral marketing will only increase in the social networking realm. So far, social networking has worked wonders for the music industry. It has cut back advertising costs drastically - there is basically no need to advertising the actual music anymore and only a low need to advertise the music media players. Music is forever. 


If it were up to me I would request one major, dominating social networking site that has all of the major players essentially all in one package. Think about if you only had ONE login and ONE password, life would be even more simple. This is the direction I think we are headed in. Each network (as you have seen throughout our journey) connects and intertwines with one another, so why not combine them and be the ultimate knockout? Music would absolutely prosper even more so.


Where do you think the music industry is headed with the nonstop growth of technology? It is hard to say but will definitely be interesting to watch. I know ten years ago I did not think that the music industry would be anything it is today.

Keep plugged in.

Social Networking is Taking Over

Now that we have taken a good hard look at the top social networking sites for music, I would like to emphasize the point that while yes, each one is individual, they all intertwine and connect with each other.


YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ping and SoundCloud. Could you even ask for more?

Each social networking site allows for interaction in another, if not multiple. 
Lets take a look:

• YouTube: Tell me who doesn't love to watch their favorite artists latest videos? Everyone. YouTube is all over Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. People love to interact with each other and share their favorite videos. The three social networks listed allows for YouTube to do just that.
• Facebook: The ultimate social networking site obviously has connections to just about everything. People share music videos from YouTube millions of times a day, use it to connect to their Twitter accounts like crazy, Ping literally taps into your Facebook profile to find your friends in order to fully function and SoundCloud allows you to post your music straight onto your Facebook page.
• Myspace: Though MySpace has fallen behind some of the newer networking sites, it is still hanging in their with the help of other networking connections such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.
• Twitter: Twitter is compatible with Facebook and MySpace through widgets, which allows you to access your Twitter account at anytime.
• Ping: In order for Ping to properly function, it accesses your Facebook page to allow you to see what your friends favorite music is, what they are listening to now, and their recent downloads.
• SoundCloud: SoundCloud is a social networking site specifically for music. You can upload or download straight to your computer and share directly from the site to Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter.

With all of these social networks interacting, it allows for the music industry to truly prosper. This is all completely free and user generated, which is the ultimate goal of any business. The music industry is at an advantage because people will continually seek out new music and new artists but with all of these tools it makes it less time consuming and much less expensive than in the past.

What if there was a website available to the public, by the public, which allowed people to access, upload, share, and download music all from their computer? Guess what, there is. It is called Sound Cloud.

SoundCloud is a platform that puts your sound at the heart of communities, websites and even apps. Watch conversations, connections and social experience happen, with you sound as the spark (SoundCould, 2011). Once you add your sounds to SoundCloud they are free to go anywhere on the web. You can share it on social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook, You can email your tracks to your family and friends, or just leave them on the website for others to enjoy. This takes advertising to a new level - a level that is not even seen as advertising to the general public. At this point, it becomes fun and adventurous exploring. 


SoundCloud has contributed to the downfall of the recording industry because it allows for an individual to record a song on the fly and immediately update it to the web, making it hearable by any and everyone. This is the fastest and cheapest (free) way to get your music heard. 


You want an application you say? Get this, there are over 100 apps that are SoundCloud compatible which increases the range of people your music has the potential to access. What musician could ask for anything more? This is "advertising" on steroids.

Ping. Ping Pong? Nope, just Ping.

Ping is a relatively new addition to the amazing line of Apple. Ping is a social networking site specifically for music. It runs directly through iTunes, which allows for it to access you iTunes library directly. With access directly to your personal library, Ping gets a feel for the type of music you listen to according to what you already have and makes suggestions based on it. According to Apple, Ping allows you to follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they are talking about, listening to and downloading (Ping, 2007). 
Similar to Twitter, Ping allows you to visit your favorite artists profiles to view their latest status updates, pictures, and of course, music. Ping allows you to access your friends profiles to see what type of music they are listening to so you can find some hot new tunes that you otherwise would not have been able to discover. 


Conveniently, Ping is accesible through the iPhone, iPad and iTouch application making it easily accessible  and user friendly (for those of you that are familiar with Apple products, which is seemingly everyone these days). THis allows you to stay updated on who, what, when and where in the music world at the click of a button. 


If this is not a prime example of music and technology working together at it's finest, then i don't know what it. This has taken music over the edge especially since it came from the technology giant Apple.

#NowTrending

Let's talk Twitter, the best way to discover what's new in your world. People all around the world are getting their Twitter on. Twitter is the newest (and maybe most popular, recently surpassing Facebook in popularity) social networking site. The idea is surrounded around text-based posts, which allow up to 140 characters per "tweet". The network is compatible with SmartPhones and iPhones, making it readily available to its users at all times of the day and night in the most convenient way possible.

You may be wondering how sending out 140 character tweets and the music industry are related, I don't blame you. The beautiful thing about Twitter is that it is not only used by your average, everyday people but celebrities of all types follow and update their Twitter accounts daily. Twitter certifies the account to ensure the public that it is indeed the real person. Twitter allows you to "tweet" at specific individuals, including celebrities. Many artists have twitter accounts therefore making the general public available to actually interact with them and build relationships - which is the key to getting a truly positive reaction from the public. 

Twitter has opened up a whole new world. It makes it seem as if celebrities are regular people just like you. They tweet about their daily lives, friends, family, you name it, they have probably tweeted about it. By now, I am sure you could have guessed that musicians utilize this unique tool to promote, sell, and advertise their latest and greatest hits as well. You can communicate with the artists, which has helped artists hone in on exactly what it is that their audiences expect to see from them.

I personally follow a number of musicians on Twitter including Nicki Minaj, a hot new artist on the rap scene. Here is one of her latest tweets to give you a better idea of how this tweet deal works:

NICKIMINAJ Nicki Minaj 

Cleveland, Ohio are u ready?!?!?!?!?! See ya tonite!!!!!#iamstillmusictour

Time to go out and experience twitter for yourself. Connect with your favorite artists and get the latest scoop on their music. Don't miss out!

MySpace, MyMusic.

Oh my MySpace. What ever happened to MySpace after the creation of the ever-so-popular Facebook? Advertising happened. Advertising has hit MySpace in an unthinkable way - via music. MySpace, which was first created as a social networking site such as Facebook now has its very own Music website, www.myspace.com/music. If you are in a band or are a musician of any sort and you do not have a MySpace account, you are missing out on a whole new world of opportunity.
MySpace Music offers the music industry an amazing opportunity. It allows the world to access the musicians page, which typically contains their songs, pictures, blogs, tour dates, essentially any piece of information that one would be seeking to find. 
My cousins band, Flawless Escape, has their own MySpace page and is the very first thing that comes up when it is google searched. It is a great example of how MySpace can be used to a musicians full advantage. Please visit the Flawless Escape MySpace page. 
What a better way to get your music heard? MySpace Music features up and coming bands and artists, has hot new artists, charts to check the current industry rankings, etc. 
If you are interested in music, you better get a MySpace music page to brag (advertise) about yourself because it works. This is the future.

let's FACE the MUSIC.

If you have not heard of Facebook by now, it is probably due to the fact that you have been living under a rock for the past couple years (specifically since 2004). Just kidding but really, Facebook is THE number one social networking site in the world with over 600 million users. It started out as a way for college students to interact with one another but has evolved into so much more. Today, Facebook is open to the general public, which allows for a great range of activity to take place among a great range of people.
With the expansion of Facebook, came a great business opportunity. It is no longer only used to reconnect with old friends or create a profile about yourself showcasing your life through pictures, posts and comments. It is a great way to communicate messages to people without using hard sell tactics. The idea behind "Facebook advertising" is brilliant. It requires the consumer to seek them out from a wide range of other similar products or services due to an already established interest in the consumers mind. The consumer seeks out brands, services, etc. on Facebook and can "Like" the page so everyone knows you are interested in it, creating buzz.
This consumer generated buzz is essential to advertising. The music industry has gained exponential benefits through Facebook. It allows for the musician to create their own page with information about themselves, the band, their music, etc. and basically advertise for free. The best type of advertising too, consumer generated word of mouth (or rather word of Facebook).
My cousin, Ryan Vyner, is in a band and I interviewed him about his experience with getting their name out there using Facebook as a key tool to their success. "Facebook has really helped Flawless Escape expand our listener base because it is available for everyone to see and interact with," Ryan Vyner said. "Facebook brings the band to life allowing us to comment and update our listeners on anything and everything, it is a great tool to use for any business venture".
There you have it folks, Facebook IS advertising for music.

YouTube, made for uploading, sharing and viewing videos generated by individuals is dominating the internet age. Home videos can now be made with the click of a mouse and simply uploaded to the internet in a matter of minutes. Tools such as webcams, Flip video camcorders, and iMovie help make these videos reality. 

The Flip video camera along with iMovie, which is compatible with Apple Mac computers have both helped to simplify the actual production of music videos. The old "big and impressive" is now the "old and ordinary" according to David Hooper of Music Marketing. Pretty much anyone with access to these resources is capable of pulling off a successful music video, all it takes is a little help, which can typically be found online through other individuals. The idea of big videos on limited resources is taking what you have and working with it to the best of your advantage (Hooper, 2011). People are more interested in seeing things that they can relate to, such as videos made by individuals like themselves rather than big video productions with expensive cars and hot girls all around, which we have seen in bulk in the past.

Hooper gives an example of a low-budget, attention getting video from YouTube:

(YOU)Tube.

YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. When you think of the word viral, you should automatically think of the word YouTube; They are essentially synonymous. YouTube is a video-sharing website, which allows users to upload, view and share videos of all kinds with each other. In other words it is p2p, peer to peer. This is reality. YouTube is reality. Individuals everywhere are now able to communicate at any time, from any place, any where in the world. Millions of videos are uploaded daily and range drastically. There is anything from short webisodes (a mini-series of episodes done by regular people like you), to funny babies, to adorable pets, to music.
YouTube has been a gateway for new musicians who want to be heard. The tagline is "broadcast yourself" and that is exactly what has been done, musicians are broadcasting themselves.It is as simple as singing an original song, a cover song, or heck just anything you want and uploading it to the internet for anyone to see with the click of a button.  YouTube has opened the door to a whole new world of music. Real music. Special music. Personal music. 
People long for nothing more than to connect with other people and YouTube music allows just for that to happen. People can interact by leaving comments under the posted videos and they can even go as far as rating them. This is an amazing opportunity for anyone who thinks they can sing (or even for those that don't mind making a fool of themselves in public) because it allows for them to be seen. YouTube has introduced the world to a slew of fresh new talent that the recording industry failed to find.
If you think you've got the talent then don't be shy, upload your music today and give yourself the chance to be heard by visiting YouTube.


Take a look at a couple brave soles that took a shot at their fame-worthiness via YouTube:

Recording Industry Struggles

What about the recording industry you ask? The physical recording industry has most definitely taken a hit since the rise of viral marketing. The tools provided through technology in correspondence with the internet age have made it significantly easier for an individual recording artist to be heard through a seemingly easy process. Technology has advanced to the point where the majority of computers come with built in home recording studios. It is no longer necessary for an individual to even leave their home when recording a new song. There is no longer any need for outside services when you have the program automatically installed in your laptop. There is no longer any need to go out to the store and drop thousands of dollars on high-tech equipment. People are saving time, money and not to mention space (a laptop is minuscule compared to recording equipment).

It has taken much longer for technological advances to hit the recording industry as you can see from the Dollar Value of Recording Industry chart shown to the left (Ziemann) than it did to hit the music industry sales.

I predict that in the future, Consumers will continue to move away from spending their hard earned cash on services that they can now-a-days provide for themselves. This will become an even bigger trend then it already is, which will cause the recording industry to suffer even more economic loss.

It's Like Stealing Music From a Baby

Everyone knows that the best things in life are free, so why would it be any different concerning music? It's not. People want to obtain their music in the cheapest way possible and over the past decade, technology has made that possible. Downloading, or rather stealing music has become an increasingly more common theme among internet users. 

While technology has made music more accessible to the public, it has done so at the industries expense. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, downloading free music from the internet has officially become the number one way of obtaining music ("Weighty words: the," 2007). That can only mean one thing - the depletion of CD sales. Is this fair? Is this morally and ethically correct? America is essentially robbing the music industry of what should be their hard earned cash thanks to technology. This has given rise to many questions of whether the rapid expansion of technology has been beneficial or harmful to the music industry. I would like to think it has done both.

music LEADS the way.

Music has been and will forever remain an immense part of American culture. The evolution of the music industry has been a long process. What started out as records has progressed to cassette tapes, from there to compact discs, otherwise known as CD's, to the latest and greatest mp3 players. As technology advances, so does the music industry - but not necessarily in the way that it was predicted to 10 years ago. Sales (unit shipments) have gone down significantly for all physical musical products which can be seen from the Unit Shipment chart ("The Numbers Game," 2010).


Over the past decade we have seen a new trend emerging for music marketing. With the move to mp3 players came Apple and iTunes, which allows an individual to store all of their music in one place rather than have a collection of CD's piling up around the house. Music can be bought and downloaded straight to an individuals computer from the internet, there is no need to even leave the house. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) releases yearly statistics, which show the depletion of real sales (Bangeman, 2007). Needless to say,  traditional media is no longer the outlet for advertising in the music industry because it is simply not reaching the consumer today, rather viral marketing is taking its place.


Viral Marketing is the use of social networks on the internet to spread the message to the consumers. Myspace, Facebook and YouTube are among the three most popular places for sharing music in todays society. The idea behind viral marketing is to generate buzz and interaction among the consumers themselves. Music marketing today has taken on the face of the consumer, it allows them to choose what is hot and what is not.


For more statistics please visit the RIAA website.