Facebook’s new social plugins should continue the boost. It makes me wonder if an IPO is coming, but I don’t think it will right away at least. Facebook has so much data. They know it. Like Google, they’re becoming more open with their data and platform. Personally I depend on Google more than Facebook. How ’bout you?

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Rage gets some air on stage during their encore at Lollapalooza 2008 in Chicago.
Image: flickr/revolute

Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor. (Wikipedia: Censorship)

Google and China. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil.” While often times in life a fine line exists—I can’t help but view internet censorship on the dark side. I hope that Google continues to act proactively against internet censorship in China, and the world. Unbiased information is fundamental to social and intellectual progress. People can handle the truth. Blocking sites means blocking progress. Attempting to “control” the Internet defies logic. Privacy and security are huge issues.

Image: flickr/the-g-uk

Let’s not be clueless. In my opinion censoring information—whether by government, institution, workplace—is an ultimate form of disrespect. I take it personally. If the question is “why” then is the answer “fear?” Are censors afraid of people’s reaction to the truth? Here’s the bright side—think about traditional news mediums like television, radio, or newspaper, and realize that the Internet is by far the most democratic and unbiased information medium in history. That’s the whole point—internet media needs to echo reality. We’re moving in the right direction—bloggers and citizen journalists are multiplying. More people worldwide are gaining internet access. Northern Europe and North America currently have the highest per capita internet usage. Global access is accelerating.

Social Rocks.

The stage is lit—music has always been social, and the web continues to make it even more so. Communication is on the rise. People want to share and “everyone who shares is an influencer.” Music discovery is powered by your friends and by recommendation engines—the technology is only getting smarter, and, in their case, everyone who listens is an influencer. Web apps like Blip.fm and Twisten.fm rely nearly entirely on friend-powered playlists and realtime recommendations. Music streamers crave sharing, simplicity, and depths of controls for customizing their listening experiences.

Bloodred Erik Unedited by Luminis Kanto on Flickr

Shareability and community spin music in the social web. Pandora and Last.fm’s widely popular iPhone apps encourage users to share songs they like with their friends as they’re listening to them. Grooveshark’s web interface heavily encourages sharing, and its integration with Twitter via Twisten.fm and Tinysong have helped fuel its rapid growth in 2009. Nearly all of today’s free (ad-supported) streaming sites include links to purchase mp3′s via iTunes or Amazon. Vevo has them, but, YouTube—arguably the largest and most engaging music streaming site—does not.

The Delicious user base has a relatively high concentration of developers, designers, techies, nerds, etc.—individuals likely to have above-average internet savvy. As a group they are an acute filter for quality content. The chart below shows the popularity of the same music websites based on data from Delicious. You can see there is some divergence from the traffic heat map. The most notable difference is MySpace Music, which showed the highest website traffic, but shows the lowest Delicious rank. Pandora is the top-bookmarked music site on Delicious by far, with last.fm second, and Grooveshark climbing quickly. Pandora is also the top-ranked music site on Xmarks.

Musicians—many are at the center of the social mix lifecasting on Twitter, Ustream, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. They’re communicating like never before, and evolving the industry. Revenue comes in new forms. The urge to be “indie” is contagious. The amplifiers are on.

Mobility Rolls.

Seven of the top twelve are radio/streaming apps. But smartphones are not just for listening to music. Gigzee is an events app—a location-aware tool for finding shows/concerts in your area. With more people on smartphones, more people can take advantage of location-based services like this. Music creation apps like Virtuoso Piano, Drum Kit, freestyle, NLog Synth, Digidrummer, Looptastic, and Jamble Music Mashups are wildly popular. Every human is an artist in some way—as technology improves more people will find themselves creating, and collaborating remotely. Who’s at center stage now? Creative Commons-released music encourages open remixing via sites like JamGlue, ccMixter, Indaba Music, Jamendo, SoundCloud, and more. Maybe influenced by NIN, many musicians are releasing audio source files for open remixing, fan remix contests, remix apps, or fan music videos.

Carey is pioneering a new business model for music. She’s cutting deals with the kind of partners musicians have traditionally shunned, pushing herself into new areas such as publishing, tourism and food and drink. … “A lot of big powerful music-industry executives made a giant mistake,” she says. “They gave the music business away on the internet. If they had just sat back and said, ‘Maybe let’s figure this internet thing out, it could be something cool,’ we could have found a way to distribute music online on our own terms, not somebody else’s. … Musicians have long promoted non-music products. The Rolling Stones marketed Windows 95 with Start Me Up. Michael Jackson did endless Pepsi promos. And rappers such as P Diddy and Jay-Z have moved on from name-checking other people’s fashion and luxury-goods brands in their songs to create their own brands, usually in partnership with their record labels, and promote them instead. But Carey is breaking new ground in three areas. Mariah Carey: The gloves are off | Times Online

The internet has leveled the playing field. It has proven that content is king, and that those who work hard at delivering content can build a following. Artists have channels with live streaming video content and direct connection with their fans through mobile applications. The same opportunities exist for everyone, and they’re almost all free. You may think that endorsements and partnerships are only for megastars—but I don’t. I believe that indie musicians with smaller niche fan bases can make the same types of product endorsement deals and partnerships with brands or services that the megastars can. The trick is finding the right brands and companies to match up with. But if you have—for example—a Ustream or YouTube channel that’s getting hundreds of views on a daily basis then I don’t think it would be hard to pitch to a company that relates to your audience. Ideally your audience would be a target market for the endorsed product or service. Think big but also think local.

flickr.com/photos/eyesofrc/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There is no single exact solution for indie artists, but the best solutions revolve around leveraging social media and video streaming to maximize fan engagement. Visual content is a must. Video content is supreme. YouTube serves well over 1 billion views per day. Live videos are easy to stream with ustream.tv, stickam.com, or justin.tv and a decent webcam. For recording non-live videos I recommend HD pocket cameras like the Zi6 or Zi8, or smartphones that enable mobile uploads like the iPhone. Video is becoming more interactive by the second and mobility is always important. Each musician has their own unique style and identifying that will help you see opportunities. Keep an open mind and be willing to adapt.

It seems that we truly are at the dawn of a new era. Opportunities abound at every corner. Music is more alive than ever, consumers listen to more music in more ways than ever thought possible, artists interact and build connections with fans in new and unique ways, music and other entertainment content can be delivered via multiple platforms for a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, and artists can form business relationships with many different partners—including consumer brands. (Music Branding Gets All Grown Up | Talent Zoo)

A lot of businesses still don’t get the internet, but a lot of them do—these are the ones that you can work with. Realize that a band’s physical merchandise is a product line, and there’s nothing stopping bands from partnering with companies to sell their own non-music products. Smart companies would likely jump at the chance to sponsor bands that have built active communities around the internet and are accessible via mobile phones. They see the meaning in social media—for business.

The types of products that will work for indie musician endorsements will vary greatly and be determined by each musician’s personal style or brand. A middle-man service that helps musicians match up with consumer brands and vice-versa might be viable—don’t you think? It would probably be pretty easy for Google, Facebook, or MySpace to implement such a service. However I’m a fan of DIY and I usually like to cut out middle-men. I think the best approach would be to directly contact companies that you’d like to partner with. Don’t be afraid to fail. You can’t get anywhere without trying things. Remember to focus on the dopeness—see Part 1: Music Dopeness and Bands as Brands.

Dhani Harrison is a musician in his own right—his indie-rock band thenewno2 is featured in Rock Band with songs from their debut album, You Are Here. Note—any musician will soon be able to publish their tracks in Rock Band too via the Rock Band Network. In a Billboard.com interview Dhani said, “I did everything I could to not be a musician…I went to university (Brown), I worked as a designer, I competed in Olympic sport (rowing)…and I ended up being a musician. It’s in the DNA, I guess.”

But as Dhani explains to Conan, his paying job is designing videogames, and I suspect the music-gaming community is pretty happy with his efforts so far in making The Beatles Rock Band as genuine and fun as possible. His enthusiasm towards creating the game and his dedication to historical accuracy no doubt played an important role. Outside of the videogame, Dhani is striving to build a unique community for thenewno2 fans with their new website designed to deliver personal interactive video content via subscription and without depending on networks like Facebook or MySpace. In an article on Wired.com Scott Thill summarized, “The plan is comparatively simple: Compress and feed thenewno2’s output on video directly to its fan base, and they will come to support the artists and build a community.” In the same article Dhani told Wired, “Rather than have fans just leave comments on MySpace, they can have a personal connection to the band. When they see my profile live on the site, they can literally click me and ask me a question or two. It’s interactive blogging, but we also wanted to bring that actual visual context.” Now here’s some Rock Band action—Yomp by thenewno2:

This post is a follow-up from yesterday when we posted video footage of The Beatles Rock Band. You can see more articles about Rock Band at here. VirtualMusic.tv is seeking writers interested in music videogames and other topics. Please see our about page.

Did I mention that these services handle the submission process to the Apple iTunes Store for you? Please share how you’re using these for your band etc. Plus, what other platforms am I missing? Update: we were informed about a new 4th platform via the comment section below. Here’s the 411:

Update 2: More app services for musicians have hit the scene—see app services.