Let’s start with a little history.
In October 2007, free of label contract obligations, English band Radiohead rocked headlines by offering their last album, In Rainbows, as a digital download under a pay-what-you-want distribution model. A few months later, in March 2008, Nine Inch Nails, taking the same route, offered the album Ghosts I-IV online under a variety of different versions and price points, ranging from free for part of the album to $300 for a limited edition signed package of vinyl, photo book, and other multimedia.
Both of these releases had music critics, bloggers, and news media talking about the uncertain future of the music industry, as the Internet makes it increasingly easier for users to download music for free and instantly—illegally or not. Though many saw Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails as pioneers of a new digital age of free music distribution, many critics rightfully felt that only mega-bands with massive fan bases could implement such models successfully.
As we approach the two-year anniversary of Radiohead’s milestone in digital distribution, the question has still not been answered. Is it possible for new bands to survive without signing to a record label?
Radiohead already dismissed the In Rainbows giveaway as an experiment, returning to regular distribution through independent label XL Recordings. Trent Reznor, on the other hand, has three big simple words for new and unknown artists: “GIVE IT AWAY.”
A day after praising the Ghosts-like distribution model of Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication through TopSpin Media, Reznor posted a long ramble yesterday on the Nine Inch Nails forums detailing exactly what he thinks aspiring musicians need to do to survive in today’s music climate.
Basically, he says, artists have two options. Those who aim to become pop superstars need only give up the rights to their music and sign up with a major record label. For everybody else, social media is the ticket.
“The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now),” Reznor conclusively declares. “So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).”
Recognizing the hopeless futility of the music industry’s ongoing war against file-sharing, Reznor seeks to instill the same sense of awareness in starting musicians. Yet, at the same time, he does not mean to say there is no hope for money-making in music anymore. On the contrary, his argument is that, like Ghosts I-IV or Ill Communication, music packages offered through innovative online music distribution sites like TopSpin Media, TuneCore, and/or Amazon, when combined with bonuses, will actually sell.
Still, as Reznor sees that music alone will not bring in the heavy cash all by itself, the experienced rocker conveys the importance of a band’s total image towards the ultimate goal of success. Highlighting the power of social networking in the age of Web 2.0, Reznor strongly encourages new bands and artists to create a large fan base that will, in the long run, make the band real money. Being highly creative with their music, bands, Reznor thinks, should also be thinking of themselves in terms of total product, brand, image.
After suggesting artists shoot quick videos, play shows consistently, and start interesting online communities, Reznor sums up the core of his advice in one key statement: “Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.”
After all, isn’t this why social media exists? No need to wait for the latest band’s song to come on the radio, just login to SoundCloud for a sample. No need to pay street teams to post album promos all over the city, Flickr will take care of photo advertising. Stop complaining that MTV doesn’t play videos anymore, because we have YouTube and Vimeo.
All in all, the music industry veteran proves once again that he understands the immense power of the Web and social networking in revolutionizing yet another form of media. Though we have yet to see this kind of model proved successful in any quantifiable way, his vision seems well thought out enough to be tested. Future rock stars: take heed.
(image source: Nine Inch Nails' Official Photostream on Flickr)
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Twitter is an online information network that allows anyone with an account to post 140 character messages, called tweets. It is free to sign up. Users then follow other accounts which they are interested in, and view the tweets of everyone they follow in their "timeline." Most Twitter accounts are public, where one does not need to approve a request to follow, or need to follow back. This makes Twitter a powerful "one to many" broadcast platform where individuals, companies or organizations can reach millions of followers with a single message. Twitter is accessible from Twitter.com, our mobile website, SMS, our mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, our iPad application, or 3rd party clients built by outside developers using our API. Twitter accounts can also be private, where the owner must approve follower requests.
Twitter started as an internal project within the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, and engineer, had long been interested in status updates. Jack developed the idea, along with Biz Stone, and the first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006. The service grew popular very quickly and it soon made sense for Twitter to move outside of Odea. In May 2007, Twitter Inc was founded.
Our engineering team works with a web application framework called Ruby on Rails. We all work on Apple computers except for testing purposes.
We built Twitter using Ruby on Rails because it allows us to work quickly and easily--our team likes to deploy features and changes multiple times per day. Rails provides skeleton code frameworks so we don't have to re-invent the wheel every time we want to add something simple like a sign in form or a picture upload feature.
There are a few ways that Twitter makes money. We have licensing deals in place with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft's Bing to give them access to the "firehose" - a stream of tweets so that they can more easily incorporate those tweets into their search results.
In Summer 2010, we launched our Promoted Tweets product. Promoted Tweets are a special kind of tweet which appear at the top of search results within Twitter.com, if a company has bid on that keyword. Unlike search results in search engines, Promoted Tweets are normal tweets from a business, so they are as interactive as any other tweet - you can @reply, favorite or retweet a Promoted Tweet.
At the same time, we launched Promoted Trends, where companies can place a trend (clearly marked Promoted) within Twitter's Trending Topics. These are especially effective for upcoming launches, like a movie or album release.
Lastly, we started a Twitter account called @earlybird where we partner with other companies to provide users with a special, short-term deal. For example, we partnered with Virgin America for a special day of fares on Virginamerica.com that were only accessible through the link in the @earlybird tweet.
What's next for Twitter?
We continue to focus on building a product that provides value for users.
We're building Twitter, Inc into a successful, revenue-generating company that attracts world-class talent with an inspiring culture and attitude towards doing business.
