Musicians embracing the Web
Musicians are starting to rev it up on the Web, with the realization they can actually control their fan clubs through their websites. After catching this piece of news in Yahoo the other day, and I can’t help thinking this is THE way to go, if I was a musician.
So, instead of using Myspace or Facebook, they start thinking, “Why not have my OWN website where my fans can mingle with each other and BUY my music from there?” This is not exactly a new concept, but for these guys, it’s like someone just switched on the light for them! Hey, why rely on Myspace when you can have your own mini version of Myspace?
If I was a musician with my own fanbase, I have at my fingertips instant traffic which I can direct to my website from all the media resources available at my fingertips. Obviously, that’s awesome. Previously, celebrities tended to be rather indifferent to the Web. But it’s catching on.
Among the largest sites revolving around a personality, one would probably be Oprah.com. A huge and old site, it ranks as one of of the ways you can catch Oprah in action, when she’s not in a television show.
But, sites like Oprah still radiate a feel of the Web’s shortcomings. Most people still prefer watching TV to downloading and streaming shows. I still cannot catch an F1 race on the Web, because 1) It’s too costly. 2) It’s too slow. Currently, I think infrastructure is still inadequate to have everyone uploading and downloading Gigabytes of data a time, especially in real time. This is the only limitation, but it’s a big one. In fact, I too, prefer old fashion TV over Web streaming, any day.
At any rate, many celebrities are starting to realize the Web has a lot more potential for them, if simply just to get in touch with their fans, and more importantly, keep them buying their records, books, and other products. Just as many businesses now realize that blogging can be useful, this awareness seems to be spreading to the entertainment world. Soon, we’ll be seeing many more politicians getting into the act. You know what, a blog is in itself - a mini social networking site.
All this makes me wonder, if current trends are signaling the slow demise of these once almighty social networking sites? In fact, Facebook has quite recently reported that its traffic dipped, although that was just a little. Maybe people are realizing almost everything they can do on Facebook, they can also do it elsewhere!
