When I don’t Twitter for a while (“a while” meaning, like, 12 hours), I usually just get a worried text message from my mom. But can you imagine being arrested for not Twittering? Well, that’s what happened to a VP from Island Def Jam Records this weekend.
Let’s start at the beginning — apparently, there’s a hot new 15-year-old singer called Justin Bieber who’s giving the Jonas Brothers a run for their money. When Justin (who kind of looks like Miley Cyrus with a haircut) was scheduled to appear at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island this weekend, over 3,000 tweens and their moms showed up. People started getting rowdy two hours before Justin was even supposed to arrive, and some fans and moms got trampled and had to go to the hospital.
In an effort to break up the crowd, local police ordered Island Def Jam VP James Roppo to Twitter that the event had been canceled, but he refused. They subsequently arrested him for endangering the welfare of children and obstructing governmental administration, and even threatened to throw little Justin in the slammer too, if he came near the mall. The moral of the story? If the cops tell you to Twitter, you should probably just do it.
Kanye West’s MTV Video Music Awardsshenanigans last night caused a twitterstorm of controversy, with Trendrrreporting that Twitter users sent nearly 300,000 tweets in the moments following his onstage outburst. The celebrities in attendance even got in on the action, with some of them Twittering during the show. Some especially outraged Taylor Swift fans even made a concerted effort to make the hashtag #boycottkanye a trending topic.
Either way, props to MTV for realizing that awards shows have been completely revitalized by Twitter and the real-time web, and catering to the platform. MTV created its own Twitter widget called the Tweet Tracker, powered by Radian6, and hired iJustine to be the VMAs’ “Twitter correspondent.” To be honest, I didn’t even technically watch the VMAs because I don’t have a TV. However, between following along on Twitter and MTV.com posting videos online just minutes after it happened live, I felt like I did!
DMB Generates WOM with Listener Parties Using Facebook
Dave Matthews Band! I used to live and die for them, in some ways I still do! Especially when they’re coming up with interesting, social media-fueled ways to promote their new album.
To support the release of their newest album “Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King” DMB asked fans to host advanced listening parties using Facebook. To qualify for an advanced listening party, participants had to be one of the 100 entrants with the most Facebook members attending their party. Although the listening parties had to occur at a physical location, the parties were facilitated through each entrants Facebook event page. One of these hosts would win the chance to meet the band and score front row tickets.
Not bad for an 18-year-old band! You’ve got to give them praise for continually finding ways to tap into the college-age crowd in ways that are relevant to that demographic.
Fulfilling its promise to make its songs DRM-free, iTunesraised the prices on some of its songs today. Although certain songs still cost $0.99 to download, other popular hits now cost $1.29. Thirty cents might not seem like a lot, but for music junkies who are always downloading new songs, those cents can add up.
So it’s understandable that a recent survey found that teenagers are buying less music these days — teens between ages 13 and 17 bought 19% less online music in 2008 than they did in 2007. However, the tradeoff is that the new DRM-free iTunes songs will make it even easier for cash-strapped kids to share music with their friends, instead of having to buy it themselves.
I’ve never been a huge fan of MySpace. What can I say; I’m just a Facebook girl! I have used the platform for managing my music interests but found the set up to be user-unfriendly and rarely logged on.
Today while on Digg I noticed that TechCrunch recently posted a story on MySpace’s recent improvements to its music section. It makes sense that MySpace would want to tout its music offerings as it seems to be the social network’s bread and butter.
I took some time to play around with the new offerings and I must say that I’m impressed. It’s much more user friendly, although some of it is still leaves something to be desired aesthetically. The improvements include the capacity for multiple playlists, multiple songs posting on user profiles and more. Check it out! The coolest feature I will never use (I really don’t need help embarrassing myself) is their karaoke feature.
Music lovers, enjoy your Friday fun. Friday playlist on!
According to TechCrunch, Twitter was abuzz this morning with people who thought the sound on their computers was broken. The problem was not individuals’ computers; it was that YouTube squashed the music. To indemnify themselves against copyright infringement woes, the videosharing giant muted all videos with copyrighted soundtracks. The hilariously depressing music video embedded here is courtesy of the nice folks at TechCrunch.
“ The music industry (1.0) is dead and being reborn in 2.0. To get ahead and find your place as a PR or marketing person, you must adjust.
MC Hammer, giving PR advice on Twitter
“ Twenty years ago, the thought of encouraging advertising with music would be like offering your daughter to the devil.
Peter Gabriel (yes, that Peter Gabriel), on his ad-supported free music serviceWe7
Pop sensation and international talent Britney Spears aims to reinvigorate her stagnating career with a new album that is available exclusively on imeem before it hits the shelves on December 2nd.
That Spears’ album is available for free online proves that a lot has changed since the days of “Lucky” and “Oops!…I Did It Again,” when fans like me had to wait in line for hours before we could rock out to Britney’s latest.
Are you on the lookout to broaden your musical horizons, but unsure about what to listen to? Check out Mufin, a new music recommendation engine in the spirit of Pandora. Mufin uses an algorithm of 20 different characteristics to choose artists that sound similar to your favorite artist. In addition, Mufin just introduced a Facebookwidget that allows users to get song recommendations from within their friends’ Facebook profiles. I dig it.
MTV has launched MTVMusic.com, an online catalogue for MTV’s archive of music videos, “Unplugged” performances and concert footage. Although Music Television itself has moved away from playing anything music-related, it seems that at least online, it will provide the content that originally was the foundation of the network.
I was able to check out the site and it appears to be analogous to Hulu.
Follow this link for a somewhat telling music video about the changing tides in the music industry.
