The Internet is my Manager

When you hear a new band or a new song, where do you hear it? The radio? No most likely from some source on the internet such as Pandora or YouTube or someone posted it on their Facebook page. In some of our other posts, we've talked about different uses for sound and music, but today I'm here to talk to you about how we distribute music.

When we think about music 10 years ago, the only way to get a new song was by buying a CD. And the way to hear new music was either by the radio or a friend told you. As an artist, the best way to publicize your music, you needed to hire a manager but now and days, the role of manager has switched more to the internet. Where being popular on Facebook or Twitter is more important that skill and talent.

Kristin Thompson, a reporter for Future of Music, participated in the 10th San Fran MusicTech Summit in San Francisco, CA. Here she interviewed several different artists and drew on some conclusions.

First she asked about what technologies these artists used.

As you can see, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube are where over 40% of the artist promote their music. And as this trend continues, artist become more and more comfortable with the internet.

So the question to ask yourself is where does this leave managers? Is it too easy for musicians to be promoted and is that necessary a problem? Is artist success based just on popularity or still focused on talent?