Existential questions on the state of Twitter

Well it’s done, Trent Reznor just deleted his Twitter account. He was one of the first to be harassed by puny users and other Twitterazzi types, and one of the first to leave ship.

From Rolling Stone: “When Twitter made it’s way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality,” Reznor said. “I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me”.

I find this quite interesting. The other day I left some comment on Hypebot’s “Amanda ‘Fucking’ Palmer (Part 1) interview” (which is a must-read by the way). One commentator commented upon the fact that a seemingly indestructible platform such as Twitter clearly has a life expectancy. His arguments, some straightforward and simple deductions that go along the lines of “Twitter is new and fun for now, but the narcissistic social game it engages its community in will eventually get old”, got me thinking about the real impact Twitter has on most people, and if that “social game” is really worth the time spent perfecting the skills required to a “must-follow” type of user. And now there’s Mr. NIN, one of the most influential and “must-follow” accounts, that decides to bail. Although I believe he did so for personal reasons other than “Twitter is boring me”, Trent is also saying “Twitter ain’t for me, at least not anymore”. I think many will come to that realization at one point or another. Not every massively popular service is for everybody, and the more some play the game of opening-up-to-the-world, the more they might realize they just don’t like opening-up to the world.

All in all, Twitter can be seen as a sort of gratification game, or tool. I share my insights, my news, all the while shedding some light on my personality, and when I get that RT or that mention, I feel as if I made some impact, as if my presence on the Twittersphere ain’t useless and that some people out there appreciate it. And by Jove how it feels good to achieve that sense of accomplishment in this absurd world (even if it’s only due to words and not actions). Add to that the fact that Twitter is a powerful networking tool, and for me the game is still fun and exciting, as it is for an increasing number of people.

It seems to me that all the social-media success stories are due to specific traits of character. In that Amanda Palmer interview cited above, one particular sentence struck me as being very revealing: “I simply feel blessed that I’m an emotional exhibitionist right around the time is seems to be expected and en vogue.” Not everyone is like Amanda Fucking Palmer, or Trent, or others, weather they be exuberant social figures or more of the discreet kind.

I also want to quote what that commentator (know as “Old Recod Guy”) said on the interview: “Music, and art in general, is cyclical. Right now, most artists have to engage, have to get close to their fans. This is a new sensation for both sides, especially when it comes to bigger acts, for whom a one-to-one dialogue was never really practical. So fans and artists are learning where the boundaries are, what works and what doesn’t, and what the tolerance levels are on both sides.

BUT…..

Sometime in the future, people will get tired of this. They’ll become used to the interaction, the access, they’ll realize that not every artist has something interesting to say, they’ll suck all the ideas and news and gossip and photos and free downloads out of the trough until they want to puke. And that’s when some artist, or movement, will bring back that sense of mystery, that unattainability, and they’ll be huge. They’ll use the new tools to accomplish the task, but they won’t be Tweeting during their colon cleanse. They’ll rebel against the banal status quo, and legions of fans who are sick of it it too will follow them.

And that’s what’s great about art. The new burns down the old to be burnt down by the new, until we fondly remember the old and burn down the new.”

Since I feel incapable of finding a proper conclusion to this post, I will simply ask what you all think about this. Is Twitter popular for the simple reason that we live in a time where gratification and validation are important? Is Twitter working for music just because the former industry model is crumbling, and that Twitter’s direct-to-fan model appeared around the corner at the right time? Is indirect messaging a la Twitter truly to the new communication medium, or is it just a craze?

Woof!

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Amanda Palmer and Band2Fan success stories

The name Amanda Palmer was until yesterday a mystery to me. It kept on popping up sporadically in all the music-media news feeds I read daily, but I never took the time to have a deeper look in this amazing artist’s career, until yesterday that is.

Amanda Palmer, who is most noted for being the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the “Brechtian punk cabaret” duo The Dresden Dolls and who has now launched her solo act, has accumulated an astonishing amount of buzz these past years thanks to here uncompromising artistic vision. Formerly signed to Roadrunner Records (or maybe she still is. The story is complicated) to whom she gave the middle-finger on many accounts, Amanda seems to have made it her top priority to connect directly with her fans. The phrasing here might sound wrong – I don’t mean to say that she calculates her every move, but her every moves are nonetheless very well calculated.

In here eternal struggles with Roadrunner, Amanda accomplished where many others had failed: gave her major label that middle finger (Roadrunner is part of the Universal group), rallied and wrapped her fans around it, and still managed to keep her “job”. And by rallied I mean the real thing. During what is called the “Fans Rebellyon” where her label wanted to cut-out part of her “Leeds United” music video because of her “fat stomach”, she proceeded to tell her fans about the controversy leading to a massive movement of people photographing their own bellies and sending their pics to the record label. Since then a website with belly pictures has been created - http://www.therebellyon.com. Since then, Amanda has made a couple of attempts to be dropped by her label, one of which is a song simply called “Please Drop Me“.

That and other stories has turned her into a rebellious role model that the music communities are relishing.

Now the story that caught my attention yesterday is about Amanda’s recent twitter experiments that have garnered illustrious amounts of buzz, and have illustrated the very strong bond she has with her fans. These improvised operations generated $19k without the sale of a singer album. This story is told in three parts. Below is part one. I highly recommend reading all of it in the Techdirt post here (couldn’t find it Amanda’s website).

1.
FRIDAY NIGHT LOSERS T-SHIRT, $11,000

about a month ago, i was at home on a friday night (loser that i often am when i’m not touring, i almost never go out) and was, of course, on my mac, shifting between emails, links and occasionally doing some dishes and packing for a trip the next day. just a usual friday-night-rock-star-multi-tasking extravaganza.

i twitter whenever i’m online, i love the way it gives me a direct line of communication with my fans and friends.

i had already seen the power of twitter while touring…using twitter i’d gathered crowds of sometimes 200 fans with a DAY’S notice to come out and meet me in public spaces (parks, mostly) where i would play ukulele, sign, hug, take pictures, eat cake, and generally hang out and connect. this was especially helpful in the cities where we’d been unable to book all-ages gigs and there were crushed teenagers who were really grateful to have a shot at connecting with me & the community of amanda/dolls fans.

i’d also been using twitter to organize ACTUAL last-minute gigs…i twittered a secret gig in LA one morning and about 350 folks showed up 5 hours later at a warehouse space….i played piano, filmed by current.tv, and then (different camera crew) did an interview with afterellen.com.
the important thing to undertsand here is that the fans were never part of the plan..,i basically just INVITED my fans to a press day, the press didnt’ plan it…i did.
i was going to be playing in an empty room and doing q&a with afterellen on a coach with only the camera watching.
it was like….why not tell people and do this in a warehouse instead of a hotel lobby or a blank studio? so i did.

it cost me almost nothing. the fans were psyched.

but back to the bigger, cooler story….

so there i am, alone on friday night and i make a joke on twitter (which goes out to whichever of my 30,000 followers are online):

“i hereby call THE LOSERS OF FRIDAY NIGHT ON THEIR COMPUTERS to ORDER, motherfucker.”
9:15 PM May 15th from web

one thing led to another, and the next thing you know there were thousands of us and we’d become the #1 topic trend on twitter.
zoe keating described it as a “virtual flash mob”.

the way twitter works (if you don’t have it) is that certain topics can include a hashtag (#) and if a gazillion people start making posts that include that hashtag, the topic will zoom up the charts of what people are currently discussing. it’s a cool feature.

so anyway, there we were, virtually hanging out on twitter on a friday night. very pleased with ourselves for being such a large group, and cracking jokes.

how do you “hang out” on the internet? well, we collectively came up with a list of things that the government should do for us (free government-issued sweatpants, pizza and ponies, no tax on coffee), AND created a t-shirt.
thank god my web guy sean was awake and being a loser with me on friday night because he throw up the webpage WHILE we were having our twitter party and people started ordering the shirts – that i designed in SHARPIE in realtime) and a slogan that someone suggested: “DON’T STAND UP FOR WHAT’S RIGHT, STAY IN FOR WHAT’S WRONG”. neil gaiman and wil wheaton joined our party. the fdnas felt super-special.

by the end of the night, we’d sold 200 shirts off the quickie site (paypal only) that sean had set up.
i blogged the whole story the next day and in total, in the matter of a few days, we sold over 400 shirts, for $25/ea.

we ended up grossing OVER $11,000 on the shirts.
my assistant beth had the shirts printed up ASAP and mailed them from her apartment.

total made on twitter in two hours = $11,000.
total made from my huge-ass ben-folds produced-major-label solo album this year = $0

Don’t forget to read the two other parts on Techdirt’s website.

Micheal Masnick, the brain behind Techdirt, theorizes that if an artist connects with  his/her fans and gives them a real reason to buy something, then that artists drastically increases his/her chances of selling that something. Very accurate theory.

If we take a look at all the B2F techniques used by bands lately (B2F=band to fan), most of what is for sale and has the true potential of generating money is the exclusiveness of the content sold or distributed. For me that is where lies the true power of social tools used by artists these day: the potential to create exclusiveness anytime, anywhere with anyone. In the olden days, the closest a fan could get to experiencing exclusiveness with a band was going to a show, buying that show’s t-shirt, getting a backstage pass for that show and buying a limited edition record from the band that played that show. Other than that, fans didn’t have that much to hope for in terms of connecting with their favorite band. Now all that has changed – absolutely every bit of it – and the talented, tech-savvy artists out there have the communication tools to leverage their career. Although this type of statement may seemed re-hashed, it’s a fact that is becoming more apparent as time goes by,and more applicable as those tools are perfected and exploited.

Exclusivity+Immediacy+Quality music=potential to middle-finger labels and make it on your own.

Mruff.

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ONDO’s music editing phone

Just found this video out of the blue:

My initial reaction was “is this some kind of joke”, and is goes to show that it isn’t, but that this product is a prototype created by a company called Pilotfish begging for some investor to back it up.

Now since I already started this post and embedded the video and everything, I guess the logical follow-up question here is: “would you use this”.

Well, hmmm, I really don’t know actually. Depends on how good those microphone sticks are. I think the whole party-mixing aspect of it is way to gadgety for that to work, but a portable social mixing device is an interesting concept.

Mruff?

Roar

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Trent Reznor: the first case of “Twitterazzi syndrome”?

Mr Reznor is one of the last artists you could expect to put his web-based networking activities aside. He is one of the most influential and inspiring social gurus out there, and now he seems to have officially announced that he’s taking his leave from it all:

“I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me. All expected. I’m not as concerned about “breaking” your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven’t noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It’s tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others – and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there’s 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 – 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff.”

Reading Reznor’s quote made me realize that being in his position reflects an awkward situation.

Bands or artists or whatever who are “unknown” and who enter the social media game will put in time and effort to get online exposure. Whether it be via Myspace, facebook, Twitter, Bebo, blogs and what not, networking not only takes time, but requires know-how, and a good deal of creativity. Seeing how every single platform has its own social-mechanisms, once you start getting into it you realize the amount of work it represents to start grasping just for an couple of extra “true fans”.

For some people, like Trent, the whole process is very natural, and social networks became popular after he did, so he just surfed a wave that suited him well.

Now he is taking a step back because he’s been chocked by “Twitterazzies” to the point where he just can’t take it any anymore. As in show-business, where an unknown actor or singer dreams of being harassed by photographers, the social-networking-inclined band or brand ravishes the idea of getting re-tweeted, mentioned, linked, pod-casted, blogged etc.

Trent Reznor’s statement just goes to show that, past a certain point, being too “social” just ain’t worth it.

Woof.

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Kanye VS Twitter impersonators

Kanye isn’t happy at all that someone impersonated his name on Twitter, stealing a tincy bit of his spot light. “Isn’t happy” in this case, is a euphemism.

I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING TWITTER!

shrieks the poet. And he doesn’t need one either ’cause he’s too busy being creative. Here’s what he had to say about the whole twitter tantrum:

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NIN iPhone application: Apple rejects and Reznor retorts

Trent Reznor, along with his media director/guru Rob Sheridan have developed a pretty hefty band-fan interaction iPhone application and launched it on iTunes a couple of weeks ago. Now Trent and Rob are seeing the new update of their application rejected by the Apple store because of some “explicit content” in one of NIN’s new songs, “The Downward Spiral”, that is merely just streamable in the application’s podcast.

Trent is obviously not happy about this at all. In  Apple’s world, apps like the virtual fart thing can make you a millionaire. Apps like iSnort, that lets you snort virtual cocaine lines, are accepted. There are enormous catalogs of “explicit content” related music sold on iTunes, and yet just because of one song (who by the way is also sold on iTunes), a perfectly respectable app, created by a perfectly respectable music 2.0/tech-visionary/rock super mega star, is getting shoved off the shelf because of some content that doesn’t even pertain to the app itself.

Incomprehensible indeed.

Trent posted Apple’s rejection letter, as well as his outraged reply on his forums. Here is what came out of it:

Follow-up: XXXXXXXXXX

Dear Craig,

Thank you for submitting nin: access to the App Store. We’ve reviewed nin: access and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store at this time because it contains objectionable content which is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

The objectionable content referenced in this email is “The Downward Spiral”. Since the app is live on the App store, please make the necessary changes to the application as soon as possible, and resubmit your binary to iTunes Connect. Thank you

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

Trent retorts:

Now, “The Downward Spiral” the album is not available anywhere in the iPhone app. The song “The Downward Spiral” I believe is in a podcast that can be streamed to the app.

Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem – as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards?

And while we’re at it, I’ll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and “clean” versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart’s standards of decency – because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you’ll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any “indecent” material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film “Scarface” completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?

You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone!

Come on Apple, think your policies through and for fuck’s sake get your app approval scenario together.

Bark?

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YouTube Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie Hall – Act One

Here’s the Youtube Symphony Orchestra, the first ever online collaborative orchestra, performing at Carnegie Hall on April 15th 2009. The orchestra was composed of 96 professional and amateur musicians from 30+ countries and territories on six continents and represented 26 different instruments. The orchestra played movements and excerpts from 15 wildly diverse works for over 59 minutes, but opened up the evening with Tan Dun’s Internet Symphony No. 1, “Eroica.”

Enjoy.

The New York Times has more.

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The Youtube Symphony Global Mash Up video

The Youtube Symphony orchestra is performing tonight (Wednesday, April 15th) at Carnagie Hall.

Yesterday, Youtube delivered “the world premiere of the Tan Dun composition “Internet Symphony, Eroica” as selected and mashed up from thousands of video submissions from around the globe”. They call it “The Internet Symphony” Global Mash Up.

Check it out:

Tomorrow the concert will be uploaded to the Youtube Symphony Orchestra’s youtube channel.

Mruff.

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One example of how to twitter a gig

Twitter is getting uncontrollably big and viral, and having a twitter profile is becoming a must for bands who want to increase their online exposure. This one band from Silicon Valley called Moonalice (whose lead guitarist is an investor for a venture firm) has experimented on different accounts using Twitter to promote their gigs, and on April 3rd they tried something pretty cool that paid off: their sound guy captured, exported in mp3, uploaded and tweeted their songs… all of this during the gig one song after another. The tunes went viral in their twittersphere amounting to more than 3000 downloads in the last week. What I find a little compelling is that Moonalice’s Twitter account only has a little under 400 followers, but downloads are more important than followers (or are they?).

Twitter is indeed opening many doors for the creative bands, but it’s not as intuitive or as easy to exploit as many people tend to say it is. It takes times to create a following, and Twitter ain’t big everywhere. Oh, and it also garners a rather active community of geeks, and not everyone (and especially not all fans) are “social media friendly” (or whatever geeky expressions used to defined those who love to spend their time connecting with others behind a screen).

For now it seems that using Twitter effectively is a question of knowing if your fan-niche is web-savvy. If it is, then you are encouraged to create an account and tweet away. If it’s not, it will be in a not so distant future :)

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How to migrate from the tube to the stage: Wax makes it in L.A.

I cited the artist Wax a couple of times in this blog, in part because he’s one of those Youtube phenomenon figures, and mostly because he is extremely talented at what he does. There are a lot of “video stars “out there, most of whom become famous due to a viral idea displayed on video – a great number of these talents get their 15-minutes of glory and fall into the deadpool of the long-lost Youtube archives – but Wax pertains to the category of artists who just doesn’t let go. And rightfully so: all his videos generate at least tens of thousands of views (all his hits amount to over a million), and his viral activities earned him a lot of respect and recognition in the virtual world.

But is it possible to quantify what that success is really worth in the offline world? How to migrate from the tube to the stage and does online prosperity = offline prosperity? That’s what Wax is trying to figure out now that he’s moved to L.A

His story is described in the first episode of the Made in L.A. series.

Made in LA was created by Damon Campbell, Dan Mercaldi, and Raheem Dawson.  These three independent producers are apparently launching short documentaries on up-and-coming talents trying to make in Los Angeles.

In this first episode, Wax sits down with Damon Campbell, and they “discuss everything from YouTube hits to the importance of performing live… and of course, making it in L.A.” Very interesting insights.

Check out Made in LA: Ep. 101 – Wax, along with the bonus video Made in LA: BONUS – Wax speaks on the state of hip hop.

As Wax puts it, there’s no money to be made on Youtube, at least not before websites start to seriously redistribute their advertising cash to the people who generate the traffic, but virtual fame does open doors, and it does initiate a fan base. In today’s day and age, it seems that the gap between the importance of offline and online activities is narrowing down.

Mruff

Check out Wax on:

Myspace: www.myspace.com/waxandherbalt / www.myspace.com/waxeom
Youtube: www.youtube.com/waxandherbalt

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