Myspace
Myspace was a profound platform
for independent music artists a decade ago. Myspace was “founded in 2003
and was acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580
million. From 2005 until early 2008, Myspace was the most visited social
networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as
the most visited website in the United States. In April 2008, Myspace was
overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique worldwide
visitors. In June 2011, Specific Media Group and Justin
Timberlake jointly purchased the company for approximately $35
million.” (Myspace) That means in six years their net worth
decreased by $545 million dollars, an astronomical amount.
Myspace is an example of a
platform that experienced unheard of growth and success only to lose a
substantial user base to other competing social platforms.
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is well-known file sharing platform currently
on the internet. The Pirate Bay is a “Swedish file-sharing website founded in 2003 and, as of May
2012, has over five million registered users and hosts over four million
torrents. According to the Los Angeles
Times, the Pirate Bay is “one of the world’s largest facilitators of
illegal downloading” and “the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright or pro-piracy movement”. The site’s
torrents allow a variety of content to be downloaded via peer-to-peer.” (The
Pirate Bay).
DatPiff
A platform that has actually benefited the genre of hip hop
and rap by providing registered consumers with new music from a variety of
well-known artists is DatPiff. DatPiff is an “online mixtape distribution platform owned by Idle
Media Inc. It was launched in 2005 and specialises in Hip-hop and Rap music. A large number of popular
Rap and Hip-hop music artists have released mixtapes on the site, and the total
downloads of their most popular mixtapes exceeds 19.7 million. They have also
received major sponsorship deals from companies such as Nike and VH1.” (DatPiff)
Music fans
can go to Twitter or Facebook to keep updated about our favourite artists,
while new tracks or videos will almost instantly be launched on social network
accounts for the artist. Furthermore, social media is where music audiences
naturally congregate, forming their own communities and sharing their
experiences of bands and artists.
On social
networks you can see how many people are talking about the artists e.g. FB
saying how many people are talking about it right now. This allows measuring online conversation providing insight into
the popularity of an artist. Fans go by how an artist’s produces music to their
liking and then stands by them if it is good to them.
Engaging fans will make them aware of the music released, make them feel
closer to the celebrity and allow them to stay loyal to the account, liking
their posts, sharing, retweeting etc. Promotions, brand endorsements and
blogger outreach all have to deliver sales. The loss of CD and sales of
songs and albums because of digital downloading and piracy leads artists to
make money out of concerts, advertising and other things.
