Artist lament passing of custom CSS Myspace pages

Is this true? Rupert says, “they are not giving up on Myspace yet“.

I’ve had a few of my clients log into their Myspace account lately and be presented a chance to “upgrade”. Poof. Custom CSS Myspace site all gone. Now they have to start from the ground up using the new “templates & plug-ins”. Bummer.

Well, now who’s to say that this is bad? There is even an option now for a graphic header above the infamous Myspace ad banner. Whoa fancy pants! Get back!

This is Social Media, it’s free, and policy is subject to change at any time without warning. The digital music and social media sites are just this way. Only a very loud community backlash can * maybe * get an unpolular policy changed back. I for one have no time or interest but to roll with the punches with this one. Yawn.

Either do not upgrade, or just do it. Poke into Myspace and manage your fans if you have a fan base worth managing there. But do not completely ignore it, Rupert is not done yet. Myspace is good SEO/SMO too.

Ok, here’s the deal…..I’m kidding! Your custom profile did not go away, yet. You simply have to revert back to the old profile. Check out this blog post to see the details of how to get your profile back if you have made the same mistake as some of my clients.

Now fair warning we have some great details here courtesy of this MS blogger:

• New Regular User Accounts (starting 07/19/10) cannot switch from 3.0 to any other profile type. Those accounts are locked into 3.0.
• If you had a Regular User Account and upgraded to 3.0 you can still switch back to your previous account.
• Regular User Accounts do not have a custom CSS option (yet!, still in Beta testing).
• Some think that New Band User Accounts are automatically given 3.0 like with Regular User Accounts. They are not. New Band Profiles are given the old profile structure (for now). Then you can upgrade to 3.0. If you upgrade you can still switch back.
• Band User Accounts can still enter custom CSS codes into their Bio section. New codes will need to be generated as lots has changed. Check back in the coming days for new codes.
• For either account type, and this is speculation, I think you only have 7 days trial period before you are locked into 3.0. So if you try it out, make sure you switch back after a few days if you don’t like it or you will be locked into it.
• No matter the profile type, the instructions on switching back are the same.

We’ll see ya in Cyberspace kiddies. Pay attention to the _music_ and pay attention to the buttons you click!

Cheers,

Your 5thbeatle

Google Buzz Gets Privacy Patch

Ok, so Google Buzz got a privacy patch? And what was that? Turning it off? Hmmm. Here is an interesting article from CNET about turning it off successfully. Myself I have, for now turned it off, as it is an overload as this specific moment. But I do wonder how this new “Buzz” can be used successfully to engage fans within a Social Media campaign for music. Join the 5thBeatle.net Facebook Fan Page and I’d love to hear what some of you think of how the new Google Buzz may play into Web Music Technology in 2010.

Social Networking by the Numbers, 2009

Well we all love statistics, here is a very interesting slideshow by LeeAnn Prescott of www.venturebeat.com and www.research-write.com on Social Media usage by
using data from US Comscore and Hitwise. We want information like this so we don’t waste our
time when trying to market our music. Check it out, it’s a good quick read.

Crowdsource to get things done for $0 and engage fans

I am feeling so industrious today. HA. Ok so it’s a lazy day and I’m on Twitter and I see Island Records, home of many of your and mine favorite recording artist over the years…and behold look what I see:

We are looking for a new twitter background & u can design it! http://www.islanddefjam.com/artist/news_single.aspx?nid=5922&artistID=7386

Pretty cool idea to get fans engaged and also get something done! So say if your in a band, and you have little time and/or inclination to get into making your Twitter background look professional… Get your fans to do it!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Wanted to take the the time to thank all those who where a big support in 2009! Looking forward to 2010 with all of you!

Brian and Shoshana Zisk – SF Music Tech Summit
Christopher Buttner – PRThatRocks
Steffen Franz and everyone at IDC!
Mario Previti & Terry Morton Renegade Studios
Kenny Stavropolous – Bay Street Studios
My team and ( hopefuls ) at Super Secret Underpants, LLC – Curtis, Jaemin and everyone at Ropers, Majeski, Bentley, and Kohn, Buzzmakers, Inc., @toxic, Secret Weapon Dude, Brenda Walker / Rebel Content, Kara Murphy, Shannon Clark, Design About Town, & Secret Mobile Guy.
David/David and Ashli at Musica Tecnomica. The best and longest running *monthly* Music Technology Mixer right here in SF!

My 5thbeatle clients! That you for making the music you do and letting me help you with your Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement. I provide the platform; you provide the inspiration for fandom.

Alright let’s make some music and get it out there with the technology.

Best to everyone in this new year of 2010.

All the best!

Todd

Google, Myspace, and Collecta; 2010 the year real-time search takes off

A new exciting year is upon us! Many are still absorbing the news of Imeem going down, and the few possibly..or real reasons why. For those of us in the know, it is surprising to hear what really brought Imeem down, then again maybe not too surprising. Anyways…

Onto bigger news that improves things for musicians and fans a like is the Google and Myspace deals going down lately.

Status Updates

Google works Myspace status updates into their real-time search capabilities. Oh this is so “last month” as far as news, but a really big deal for the landscape of 2010. I’m gathering the deal is you can get real time results of *status updates* from Myspace, Twitter, and soon Facebook Fan Pages, via Google.

To check this out in action, simply:

1) Go to Google
2) Below the search box click on ” + Show Options ”
3) On left hand navigation go down and click “Latest”
4) Bingo you will see real-time data start to scroll down the page
5) This is the future!

What does this mean to you the musician or band that wants to have presence on the Web?
Update your status’s! ; no matter the consensus on how “cool” Myspace is. You must still have some sort of presence there and update it, maybe even daily!

Or if you want a more thorough and even easier way to view what is going on in the Myspace-sphere right now you have to check out Collecta’s real-time Myspace search interface.

Instead of *just* status updates. This arrangement drafted by Myspace and Collecta enables users to search for sentiment / key words in Blogs, Comments *and* status updates!

Myspace is wheeling and dealin’, so be sure to include it your daily routine of Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement. Tell your fans about Real-time search at Collecta and Google. When people ask you where your from, say ” I’m from allova’ “

Europe or BUST: Spotify opens indie floodgates

I’ve done a couple outreach campaigns with my band to European countries on a network-to-remain-nameless and I must admit, they like my music more that America does. So far at least. Last.fm is cool , but Spotify of course is all the new rage. So maybe 4 weeks ago I went through Cdbaby Digital and asked to just be put into Spotify as I have already put my music into stores via Tunecore. I am imagining I should be up and available very soon. CDbaby was keeping this somewhat low key I noticed, but the cat is outta the bag now, and you have other options too.

Just got this e-mail from Spotify:

Dear Artists,

First of all; we are really glad to hear that you are interested in getting your music onto Spotify.

We appreciate your patience since you signed up to the Spotify Artist and Label list. Since we last communicated to you we have created some pretty cool things. For instance, it’s now possible to listen to your favorite music (and hopefully soon your music) using Spotify on your mobile phone. Also, our time and energy has gone into uploading thousands of tracks every day from the 80 thousand labels we currently have agreements with. However, getting more independent artists’ music onto Spotify is important to us, so we’re working on various solutions to assist you.

The current solution we offer indie artists is to make your deliveries through Record Union, Zimbalam, CDBaby or Ditto Music. They are artist-aggregators, whom we work closely with; and through them you can create a standard agreement and upload your music onto Spotify as well as deliver your music to other great digital services such as 7digital, iTunes, Amazon etc.

So if you want to join Spotify we strongly recommend you to go one of the following sites:

http://cdbaby.com/

http://www.recordunion.com/

http://www.dittomusic.com/

http://www.zimbalam.com/

We’re really looking forward to having your music on Spotify soon!

Regards,

The music team at Spotify

Nice note eh? Now go get your music everywhere! Europe or BUST!

Todd Rundgren West Coast AWATS Tour

HOT NEWS – Thanks to PRThatRocks I got a short gig helping out with the Social Media campaign for the upcoming Todd Rundgren West Coast AWATS Tour. Check it out; he will be performing the entire classic album “A Wizard A Star” live with Jesse Gress, Kasim Sulton, Prairie Prince, Greg Hawkes, Ralph Schuckett, and Bobby Strickland!!

PRThatRocks, with some consulting from yours truly will be executing a Social Media campaign around, Facebook, Myspace/iLike, and Twitter to help spread the word about these highly anticipated performances.

One main job was to author and Official Fan Page for Facebook and help migrate some fans from his personal profile over to the new page, that is sure to increase in fans numbers very quickly. Also to consult/assist the management in grabbing the vanity url. Be sure to join it at Facebook!

Stay tuned, just getting started.

Music Marketing via Web Radio

There are a number of sites to which bands can upload their tunes so friends, family, and fans can stream their music for free to spread the word and get additional exposure in the musical Web sphere. Some say to not provide a constant radio stream of your music or “people will not buy your music, they will simply listen to your streams constantly and you’ll never get paid.”

Well that could be true.  But you can sign-up with Sound Exchange to get royalties from online streams. Just fill out the stacks of paperwork involved. Read about them here and here and see if you wanna fill out all this stuff and send it in. Then you can go through the processes of trying to get on Web radio.  Some are just a sign-up procedure and others will be screening your music and/or have requirements.

It would also be cool at this point to have your UPC Code for your CD, your IFRC ISRC codes for each song, and all your work copyrighted ( which you can do all online now ), if you still believe in such a thing.

Web Radio

Set-up without being screened:

1) Last.fm Simply make an account, and decide if you want your royalties direct from them or through Sound Exchange. Bingo you will be on Last.fm .

2) Imeem.com Simply make an account, very similar to Myspace.

Get screened, get added to great online Radio:

1) Pandora Radio – You must have a CD to sell. It must be available through Amazon. This is more than likely the best Internet Radio station with “DNA coded” music recommendations. They pay out an estimated $27 million in royalties annually. Go here to see the list of requirements and how to get two songs screened for acceptance.

2) Lala.com “Home of the .10 stream”. If you want to be on Lala you have to go through a digital distributor like Tunecore or CD Baby Digital. Pay the man and within 2 months your music will appear.

3) You want to get added to as many Web Radio stations as possible? Better get organized; that is a whole ‘nuther ballgame, very similar to getting “adds” on College Radio. Hire a specialist. I have recommendations based upon your needs, location, and budget.  Hit me up.

Does copyright, submitting material to digital distribution companies like Tunecore, and setting up Web Radio stations sound like a pain? I may be of some assistance if I am available. Let’s continue this conversation if need be.

Most of the information on this site is painstakingly formatted in this PDF file below so you can print it on white paper with easy to read black text. Or you can print for FREE by subscribing to the RSS feed at the top of the page, and also be in tune with any and all updates. Try Google Reader, its’ pretty cool. Also many hyperlinks will take you into the Web and show you the examples given. In some cases better then the Website! Ha!

Ebook – ” Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement” by Todd Tate –
Take it for free!