Social Music: Top 5 Sites to Build a Playlist The Social Music series is supported by BLive Share, a platform for online music sharing and host of the Groove Armada mini album. Ah, the perfect playlist. In the quest to find a musical oasis where track after track is a pleasant reprieve from the surrounding world, even the best of efforts are often thwarted by limited song selection, an overly complicated user interface, or the lack of insight into upcoming songs. So we've scoured the web to find only the best musical offerings and we've put together a list of five sites that make playlist building a joy. You may notice that we've left Pandora and Last.fm off our top 5 list. 1. We recently pitted Slacker against Last.fm in a head to head battle, and even though Slacker fell to a worthier overall opponent, we think it's the top site for building out extensive playlists. One of Slacker's greatest features is the huge assortment of pre-fabricated stations covering all music genres. Tired of listening to the same old pop songs? 2. 3. 5.
SocNets Grow 93% Since 2006 The report, “Social Networkers US: Who they are and what they mean for next generation advertising,” draws from a projectable sample of 4,384 broadband users to pinpoint the specific demographics, online behaviors, preferences and “passions” of online contributors and social networkers. Netpop finds that 76% of US broadband users (105 million) are active contributors to the web via social media (including uploading photos, blogging, rating products and other Web 2.0 activities). Moreover, approximately 29%, or 40 million broadband users are regular contributors to the web specifically through social networking sites and are spending increasing amounts of their online time communicating with each other, both one-to-one and one-to-many. This, Netpop said, is signaling a shift in the content people consume and how they are entertained and is turning everyday users into natural connectors, promoters and influencers. Key findings about US social networkers: Social Networkers in China
Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy? Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com. Companies are realizing that people are talking about them whether they like it or not. As a result, they’re deciding whether they should consider having a social media presence, and hence, a policy. A social media policy outlines for employees the corporate guidelines or principles of communicating in the online world. Social media is quickly moving from an emerging form of communication to the mainstream. 1. As a human resources professional, I’m constantly accused of being all about policies. Unfortunately, you have to contemplate what might happen if someone says or does something stupid (like employees doing gross things to food and posting it on YouTube). 1. 2. In addition, social media can strengthen your ‘brand’ not only as an employer but as a company. 3. 4. 5. Social media or new media is really media.
VolumMonster.com Launch Poised To Change The Face Of Band/Fan In Nashville-based company, Volum LLC, is thinking outside the box with it's first product release, volumMonster.com. Using what the creators call the "Power of Free," volumMonster offers a valuable service to both fans and artists. While at first glance you might be tempted to think of volumMonster as just one more digital music service, the players behind it, co-founders and music industry veterans, Sean Smith and Kelly Poe, confess that while their core service offers digital downloads, that's where all similarities end. Smith, a successful, nationally recognized independent recording artist, says he was looking for a new, inexpensive way to get his music into the hands of potential fans. "This past year has been hard for everyone, including those of us crazy enough to make a living creating music," says Smith. volumMonster offers artists the ability to upload original content they're willing to give away. "Scarlet | Snow gets it," says Poe. back | top
IAB UK : News and comment : Engage for Social Media Is it possible to hold a social media conference without someone mentioning Barack Obama? Of course not. Unsurprisingly the poster boy of social networking was a feature of most of the presentations at today’s IAB Engage for Social Media conference held at the Imagination Gallery. Thankfully Obama’s journey to office was not the only topic of discussion however as speakers shared their thoughts on how marketers can look to use social networks to communicate effectively with customers. The four Rs First up, the IAB’s marketing director Kieron Matthews explained that one of the key issues for modern marketers to deal with is the fact that “a lot of what we do online hasn’t been set up for advertising. For Matthews there are four principles that brands hoping to use social networking successfully should follow: brands should ‘respect’ their audience; ‘respond’ to their customers; keep their communications ‘real’; and always strive to be ‘relevant’. New world order The web is social
HOW TO: Manage Social Media Goals and Expectations You have insightful tweets, write amazing blog posts, and can make a viral video like it's nobody's business. So why don't you have 500,000 followers, 50,000 views per video, and your own personal social media army? People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media. While you might believe that you're only worth something in social media if you have a huge audience, the simple fact is that it's not true. Popularity game vs. real value The desire for social media popularity has been a growing phenomenon in recent years. Yet while it's true that more attention can mean more shareability in general, you aren't going to gain anything from people that don't truly care about what you have to say. So the first step in managing your social media expectations is this: don't get caught up in the popularity game. Avoiding pitfalls This is what can happen when you become frustrated... Control your emotions. Setting goals Why set a goal?
10+ Twitter Apps You (probably) Never Heard About! || Technology Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate and so is the eco-system around it. 10-15 new Twitter apps are being launched every single day. While most of them are MEME applications, few are really interesting and worth a shot. I’ve put together a list of Twitter related applications which are fairly new and do serve the purpose..[Follow @tnerd on Twitter] Here you go…. TweetCC is one of the latest Twitter related services which lets Twitter users publish and license tweets with Creative Commons. So how do you really license your tweets, it’s simple, tweet this msg.. Visit tweetcc.com to know about licensing options.. TwitterDMer: This service lets its users send customized DM’s to a follower. Twisten.FM is a service which “crawls Twitter for tweets about music. Twittad lets Twitter users monetize their Twitter profiles by selling their backgrounds to the advertisers. Example of conversations are displayed.. Not only events but it does the same for other twitterers.
Multi Platform Social Media - diagram-by-diagram | PERSONALIZE M Over the years I have been creating lots of confusing, busy yet at the same time, meaningful and insightful emergent media diagrams. These attempt to help the uninitiated heritage media folk, get to grips with a multiplatform, shifting-social-media-sands, transmogodified entertainment landscape…breathe. So I have been uploading a bunch of these diagrams onto my flickr account over the past weeks, partly to make them more accessible to me too (oh the joys of the cloud) but with the creative commons tag, for all and sundry to use (attributed of course – the only way to power & fame nowadays – cackles!). Here is a short selection of the 25 or so already up, with brief descriptions – the main bunch is in a set called ‘Emergent Media’ here. The above diagram is intended to help storytellers simply understand a range of key places to distribute their story fragments or triggers online. The above is one of my favourite diagrams from way back in early 2006.
Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy | chrisbrogan.com Social networks are great places to meet new people, to build new business relationships, and to learn about information from non-traditional sources. But another great way to use social networking sites is as an outpost. What do I mean by this? It turns out that people getting to know you on social networks might also find your content for the first time, and/or something you post to those networks might bring you an opportunity that wouldn’t immediately come to you in other ways. Building Outposts Before we go too deep, as I’m talking about RSS and some of you might not be fully aware, here’s a great video by Common Craft about RSS in Plain English: Here’s what I’m talking about: Find your RSS feed URL for your blog. Technically, it’s a simple tactic used in a strategy of awareness and / or community building. Any other recommendations you want to add to the process? Photo credit, Jule Berlin ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Genesis Framework Become a StudioPress Affiliate
18 of the Best Music Tumblelogs Tumblr has long been a site that promotes outside-of-the-box blogging with inside-of-the-box restrictions. Originally just a short-form way to tumble across the web and quickly post photos, videos, audio, text, and quotes, Tumblrs everywhere now appear in all shapes and sizes. One very popular niche approach is to focus tumblelogs around celebrating the art form that is music. The tumblelogs featured here are using the eclectic medium to creatively express and share their passion for music. From sites dedicated to educating you about the history of sampled tracks to quirky video-centric music hubs, and even oversharing music-making lifecasters, we've found 18 of the best tumblelogs to put you in a groovy music mindset. Have a favorite music tumblelog to add? Music Lovers 1. Sample Track: Lissy Trullie, Forget About It. 2. Sample Track: Tenacious D, Tribute. 3. Sample Track: Day 149 brought me back to high school with the strange and ubiquitous hit, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Plugging in to Social Networkers’ Behavior In the social media arena, marketers know that traffic is high and increasing, but social networks have yet to find a solid revenue stream. The disparity between usage and advertising is striking. In 2009, more than 44% of Internet users will visit a social network at least once per month, according to eMarketer. But social network advertising represents just 5% of overall online ad dollars. It’s no wonder that traditional online ad formats, such as display, are not terribly successful. A November 2008 JPMorgan survey showed that 78% of online social networkers were there to keep in touch with friends. Marketers will get more leverage with consumers by providing widgets and other applications to help people chat and create and share content, as Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of ad agency Deep Focus, told eMarketer. “Social networking is not just about the display advertising, it’s about the other things that you can do with it,” he said.