Then today I was just floating around cyber-space and one link led to another until I found myself here.
Let me explain what I have found. This is the personal blog of Amanda Palmer (singer/pianist for Dresden Dolls). Apparently she is one of the musicians who have found themselves addicted to social networking and very involved and in touch with her fans as a result.
This entry is entirely about how she turned a lazy Friday night into a profitable and fun adventure all thanks to Twitter communication. Palmer writes: "i twitter whenever i’m online, i love the way it gives me a direct line of communication with my fans and friends." She has nearly 30,000 followers and one Friday night when she was just hanging around with a bottle of wine and her macbook (dangerous combination), she "posted a twat to my fellow Losers Of Friday Night On Their Computers (aka LOFNOTC) that read:
i hereby call THE LOSERS OF FRIDAY NIGHT ON THEIR COMPUTERS to ORDER, motherfucker. "
The entry goes on to show how this started a chain of events which she has no intentions of... but were really awesome nonetheless. She writes how they hung out viaTwitter for about two hours and came up with a list of things that the government should do for people; no tax on tea or coffee, . On the spot it was turned into a t-shirt, and someone proposed the catchy phrase, "DON’T STAND UP FOR WHAT’S RIGHT, STAY IN FOR WHAT’S WRONG".
And just like that, for $25 a pop, Amanda Palmer made over $11,000. FROM TWITTER ALONE. And it's not even going to stop there because they are shipping everywhere in the world without any extra cost. $25, and you get this beautiful baby sent to your front door:
I think it's extremely creative. And I wouldn't mind at all telling the world I stay in at night and surf on my computer as I drink wine... we all do it... but now we can finally admit it in a cool and witty way.
I would like to meet Amanda Palmer, because she seems very easy-going and funny. She writes:
"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."
This is perfectly in line with the conclusion I've been drawing- the internet is the future of music. Musicians will begin to harness direct communication with their fans in order to know exactly what the fans want and to communicate on a much more personal, friendly level. These are the musicians who will be successful in the years to come... Amanda Palmer may be leading the pack! What do you think? Do you ever tweet with your favorite musicians or initiate/participate in any communication together? Ever searched for someone famous on facebook, or sent them a message on myspace?
Let's have a round of applause.
Final Thought:
I also recently heard about a program called "eJAMMING AUDiiO", and the capitalization alone made me hesitant. However turns out to be a pretty cool and somewhat simple idea- Skype.... but for musicians. Instead of the video software Skype has, this is only audio (but they are working on completing the visual aspect). Yet the audio is very high quality which makes it better than Skype for musicians. You can make music with people all across the world. So if you are in a band but your guitarist lives in a different state or something, you can call them up, throw on a pair of headphones and jam. The software also enables recording and editing so anything you play together you can have already uploaded and saved onto your computer. Rock on.
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