"The Internet As A Platform For Musicians"

During my last semesters at university I started to work on the relationship between music and technology (you can take a look at my blog about Media & Technologies: http://mediaandtechnologies.blogspot.com/).

My thesis “The Internet as a platform for musicians” (it can be found at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=101233079) focused on how technological innovation have shaped (and still shaping) the music world.

For this work I gathered reading material such as books, magazines, online articles, etc and I had the chance to interview ( mainly by e-mail) musicians from the US, from UK and from Switzerland. There were independent musicians, soundtrack composers & producers, radio show host and other people involved in the music business.

The project is divided in 4 sections:

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The search for the next Music King on the web

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to reward internet awesome! We all know you belt those notes in front of the mirror, so why not show the world and go for the crown? King of the Web (http://kingofweb.com) - a new website where the web decides who and what is awesome - is looking to crown a Music King.  In return for getting the most votes and singing, beat boxing or playing your heart out, you could win a $450 gift card for musiciansfriend.com.  Not to mention, if you get the most votes across all the competitions you grab the title “King of the Web” and $4,500 cash!

Competition ends July 28 so register now and show off your skills. Then tell your friends, family, and fans to vote for you! Anybody can compete with text, photos or videos and anybody can vote for the Music King.  Earn the most votes and win! 

Who doesn’t want to be able to tell their friends, dates, or loved ones that they’ve just been crowned Music King!

Sara Waltemire is a Marketing and Business Operation intern for King of the Web, an entertainment startup that allows people to vote on who and what is awesome online. Our hope is to democratize celebrity and reward Internet awesome.

Find out more: http://kingofweb.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekingoftheweb

Twitter: http://twitter.com/kingoftheweb

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kingofwebinc

Sharing, Streaming and P2P -- The Death of Our Internet's 'Hippie' Era

It was too good to be true. You always knew it. Millions of songs, movies, books, etc., all up for grabs, all of the time. We used to think, ‘Oh they won’t catch me— they may catch the sophomore college fool who seeds hundreds of torrents, but not me.’ Now they won’t have to.

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Think For Yourself & Question Authority

I have found myself commenting (ranting?) on various posts on Music Think Tank a lot recently, normally versions of one theme, which can be summed up by a phrase borrowed from Timothy Leary, the psychedelic guru/grass, who nevertheless had a way with a catchphrase: ‘think for yourself and question authority’.

What bugs me are the posts that state or imply that there are routes to success available to any artist who follows certain rules.

Hardly any provide proof of any kind.

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Is the Internet Dead or just Dead to Artists?

Is the internet dead? This has been a question I have been asking myself for a few weeks now. If it’s not dead is it just going through changes like most businesses do? I have read several articles of late that seem to think that it is dead and that the future of the internet will look much different then it does today. So what if it’s dead, how does that impact us? Do we even care?

I’m looking at the internet through the eyes of someone working in the music industry, as a recording artist, a studio owner and a music publisher. What was once the supposed gateway to music business success is closing and its closing fast. In fact it may have never really been open at all.

We have all heard the stories of how a band was found on myspace and then international fame soon followed. I once bought into this, but now I’m not so sure. How true can this be? Success in business has always been built on hard work, time, effort, energy, preparation and education. There are always the stories of overnight successes but even then all of the above things were at some point involved. No one can succeed at anything if they have never put forth any effort to succeed can they?

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T Bone Burnett vs. the Internet

T Bone Burnett shook up the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit at Georgetown University on Monday by boldly declaring at the beginning of his segment: “The future of music is…” wait for it, here it comes…”analog”.

While much of the conference focused on digitization as slayer or savior, and the Internet as love child of the universe and musical cash register, T Bone turned the conversation towards the quality of recorded music. Portions of the audience seemed stunned by some of T Bone’s thoughts, here are a few highlights:

• He finds it shocking that artists allow their music to be distributed in such a degraded form as MP3s.
• MP3s should be free, because they’re not worth anything.
• The Internet is a broadcast medium, not the omega point.
• Any musician who uses the word “monetize” should be ashamed of themselves.
• Musicians should not spend time marketing and analyzing data, they should be focused on making great music.
• To someone starting out at as an artist today, his advice would be “stay completely away from the Internet.”

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The Perceived Value of Music

An opinion about the value of music today, and what factors are contributing as to why music is at this value. Finally, what artists and labels have to do about it.

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The "Metagration" of the Web...and what it can mean for artists..

It only make sense that with the floods of content floating out there waiting to be surfed, there would be some better tools put in place for finding and organizing the content that interests you the most.

So how is content found today? I think it would be safe to assume that Google is the number 1 way people currently find content on the web that they’re looking for specifically. It works great. It will show me any content or any websites that even contain the keywords I’m looking for, but when it comes to using the search results for a specific function, Google isn’t always so specific. In other words, there’s many things Google can’t/doesn’t do.

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