[NewMusic] We have cookies! (was Poopoganda)

[lx rudis]

wow, sarah.  you really hit this one hard, thanks.

>
that define "web 2.0" is that you - the user - the customer, essentially

> are not making money for these companies by paying money, but essentially
> by doing work for free.


right. in theater i remember calling it 'sweat equity' but i think this is a
bit different, mostly because of integration with adspace and tracking
systems.

no matter how much sweat i devote to myspace, i doubt i'll get $ back from
them, or security, or whatever.  meanwhile, the more i make, the more
traction i develop, the stronger they become.

it was discussions like that with several other social community old-timers
like myself that led to me pulling _all_ content down from myspace, and the
deliberate reduction of my presence there.

> Compare it to radio or, something that combines music and
> socializing - a

ok, now i think this is very interesting - a quick look at what myspace has
set up _implies_ that sort of relationship.  but imvho there's something a
bit poisonous going on there, and it relates to what i consider 'fame
culture'.  lots of people make their aesthetic decisions based on what they
hear/see from others, not from personal investment.  as a result, there's a
natural skew toward things which have a visible [and usually expensive] push
behind them.  a natural byproduct would be that 'small' artists tend to be
ignored, not because their work is poor, but because the _equally creative
artwork_ of marketing the artist does not exist for them.

although i see some little vestigial tools to overturn this, and i also see
cultural moves in certain spike communities to get around it, the end result
seems to be 'more of the same'.  without marketing, you don't exist...


Certainly you - the musician on myspace - benefit from it as well. I


exactly.  it's not like myspace _failed_ me, it's just that it didn't
'work'.  i have met lots of people internationally, fans have tracked me
down there, i've even made friends.  but ultimately it was not worth my
trouble to ally myself with that place.  additionally, i'm in a _fast_
community which tends to skate around the web rather than staying put.

as a quick example, i'll offer that several of my myspace friends made an
exodus to flickr, and i'm getting pinged hard there by people wanting me to
enhance my presence over there.

another example, i'll offer that freeware CMS and easy access to serverspace
yield new opportunities for little communities _designed_ to only exist for
a college semester, or the run up to an event.  although it's cool to have
the constant terrain of myspace underfoot, it's not necessarily
_necessary_.  in my case, i've racked up a big 3k or so of hits there, those
hits served me well, and now i'm moving on to other, newer sites which have
a better chance of giving me an _active_ audience.  but i digress...sarah,
back to you:

think
> the question is how you frame the choice to have a myspace page.


and even though i just addressed this, i think it bears repeating.  tools is
tools.  myspace is a tool.  i pissed off sevcom bigtime by never putting up
a gallery there, then deliberately  put one up at myspace.  i did that
because i recognized that sevcom could not 'work' for me the way myspace
did.  after dealing with MS for 2 years, i figured out that it had _very_
limited value to an artist like myself, so i took a deep breath and took the
necessary steps to do something which _would_ work.

and i share that with you guys in hope that it might give you a slightly
more positive spin on MS.  yeah, it sucks.  no, i don't intend to go to
secondlife [that is DEFINITELY sooo 5 minutes ago].  but i recognize that to
someone like me, webpresence is as vital as blood, and that i better
approach this aspect of my career with at least as much creativity as i do
my main 'art'.

ok, that's it from me.  great thread, sarah!