Not sure if this has been posted here before.

http://www.scottandrew.com/blog/archives.../11/overexposed.html

I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet, but the figures make for interesting reading.

Kev
www.soundsunique.co.uk<br><br>Post edited by: JK2006, at: 2006/03/06 12:20

AND they were on the front page for a week!!!! Does anyone think for a minute that myspace can help a talented unknown act (other than 1 in a million) get to the point where they do nothing but music for a living? I just don't see it. There is no filter. Its a social portal thats hip to kids. I dont see it helping me or any act I'm producing. A represented act is going to have its own website, and be more professional. Leave myspace to the street team not the act itself. I think the notion that myspace is in any way shape or form a revolution for the business of making money in music, is simply very naiive. This board has more power to help an act that has the goods, than myspace.

Comments?

Why?
Ignore all that silly &quot;friends&quot; stuff.
Don't expect to breal through it.
Or sell through it.
But people like ME can hear sounds and see info at the click of a mouse. Ten seconds and you've auditioned.
It's SO simple to put up and SO easy to listen.
Yes; the Tipsheet board and this site has far more impact than MySpace sites, but one leads to another... if someone with contacts is prepared to listen.
Personally, I reject 99.9% of everything I hear (as opposed to sites like ROTD, which needs to find 300 tracks a year).
Which is probably why acts like ORSON break from here; not from other places.
The ultimate FILTER... but MySpace is a great way of reaching me (I can't speak for other A&amp;R types... are there any these days?).

It reminds me so much of MP3.com, which was good for a very small number of acts.

But as JK points out, it certainly is an easy way to reach music. I would also recommend garageband.com, which is actually better organised to generate useful listens.

M

Well I respect your opinion JK, and if it works for you then...I only go there when tipped to a certain act, and in almost all cases they (act/artist) already have a website as well. I agree that anything that makes it easier for busy people to hear something is good, I was only commenting what some people(kids mostly)saying its the be all and end all.

Its a case of perspective GG. An artist puts up a page on myspace and because there are lots of artists on there, A&amp;R types like JK can quickly go and listen to an artist's music without trying to remember whatevertheirbleedingdomainnameis.com not to mention all the blooming flash animation, navigating to the music, etc. As a result band gets a deal. The media and of course myspace will attribute it to myspace to perpetuate the rags to riches element.
Another scenario is that an artist can kick start a word of mouth marketing campaign through myspace and others fairly easily. Lets not throw the baby out with the bath water. Myspace is neither a saviour for unsigned bands nor totally irrelevant. The truth lies somewhere in between. Most music people do not know how to use the internet effectively to promote their acts and pander to extremes, either overhyping one method or dismissing it totally.

Just read the article and i must say im not surprised one bit. Not because myspace isnt good for artists. Not because its overhyped or full of crap. Not because there are no filters. I will like to go down on record and say that the notion of filters is only to massage certain individuals egos (and i dont mean this in a bad way so please dont shoot me down). The so called gatekeepers have their own agendas and do not act in a 100% objective capacity. Radio being a particular case in point. Payola, backhanders, contacts etc only coming to light now as a result of government investigations and lets not think that it doesnt happen elsewhere. Anyway back to myspace. 20000 spins is not going to result purchases and calculate the percentage and then work in any CD sales because the way myspace counts these spins is not particularly robust. One person could be streaming it 20000 times for all i know. Look at the music control stats showing radio listens to CD it out according to unique IP address listens. In other words one person needs to listen to a track 100 times before they go out to purchase it and then the point of sale needs to be user friendly for 17 year old kids. For what its worth i think the best way to use myspace is to generate your friends and convert them to your mailing list and nurture your relationship with them.

Myspace plus Tipsheet has been a great discovery for me. I've made lots of contacts, discovered lots of great new music (The Randoms, Orson, Zena) and received some honest opinions from total strangers and/or people in The Biz, which is far more helpful than &quot;Its really good&quot; from mates.

Do A&amp;R people still sit there opening mail sacks full of jiffy bags containing tapes &amp; CDs? (Did they ever?)

ps - KZ whats you're myspace address - I lost it...

Now we've got other people adding Dastards tracks to their MySpace page - a bit like wearing a T shirt with the bands name on. Then their friends get to hear our our track, and so on. Brilliant!! We love it.

Probably doesn't sell any CD's directly - but it's helping to get the band noticed by people and in places that we could never have reached before. (And it's free!!!!)

Stretch

www.Dastards.com
www.MySpace.com/theDastards

Hi Nathan. My myspace address is www.myspace.com/klubvhp. I have added some new tracks on there. One is recently recorded and the others were recorded a few years ago. The tracks are all being digitised for delivery into itunes et all. Gonna be uploading more recent tracks in the near future.

I still think this could take time to turn the corner and make decent money though, it must only be just around the corner that the majors, take this new independent industry away(that has been created on the net), and into their hands.
Lets face it, over half the time, the stuff is recorded, and does not need a large studio advance anymore, just distribution.
My first decent A+R meeting , was with a fellow called Bob Grace,he said to me ,&quot;this is great and sounds very expensive&quot;.
These days, most of the recordings all appear finished.

Hi Kev, Just emailed you regarding 'give me the sign&quot;. Its a brilliant dance track. Really love it.

I'm not sure about what people expect myspace to do. no, it won't sell you records, or break your band, but it IS a nice and simple way to let people hear your music.For that reason, i feel it's invaluable for new bands!

My band recently recorded a demo &amp; first posted a plug on Rotd &amp; Tipsheet referring people to our myspace a few weeks back.

The interest we've picked up has been way better than we had hoped for. we now have interest from management/PR/pluggers and some pretty big record companies.

so perhaps people shouldn't be quite so quick to rubbish it!

I won't plug the band again, the people who're on the ball will already know who we are.....

I've always wondered if the visitor &amp; play logs are accurate. www.myspace.com/tmcrecords for example says only 20 visitors yet 141 plays.

As the comments on that article suggested, some bands do sell their cds via Myspace.

Submerse use paypal on their page with an image of the cd. They do shirts too. All of the money bar a small paypal cut goes to the band. Personally I think they should be charging more for their CDs but I suppose punks arent the greedy type.

I don't do MySpace anymore as I have an aversion to Murdoch and The Sun..... so i went to Tagworld. I'm in the process of putting everything up there because I can.
http://www.tagworld.com/steveroberts

First of all MySpace can be a pain, but, there is nothing else like it - RE: Tag world it's not the same does not have the same functionality and members have complained about being spammed on the site.

On myspace, I have seen bands with thousands of hits and their music is pretty ordinary. They &quot;add&quot; as many people as possible and yay, many plays. BUT the reality is you often see track one with a shed load of plays, track two with half of that, track three half again and four half again. Hmmm...

All the good bands I have found have a consistent number of plays on all four tracks regardless of the number of hits.

BTW no plug, but I have a friend who put their tracks up 4 months ago, has NOT added friends, not promoted their page and has had 10,000+ hits and over 1000 friend requests - most are asking for a CD. It took them totally by surprise (and me).

I've not noticed any spamming from tagworld and it's features, purely for the musician anyway, leave myspace way behind.

RE: my comment on Tagworld.

www.techcrunch.com/2005/11/11/a-profile-of-tagworld/

You can make your own mind up...

nathanjay wrote:
I've always wondered if the visitor &amp; play logs are accurate. www.myspace.com/tmcrecords for example says only 20 visitors yet 141 plays.

Pondered this comment and thought that on our site we have quite a few of our friends who have linked their personal site through to one of our songs, so possibly when our song is played on their site it registers as a play on our host site.

We have 1457 views versus 2365 plays