Archive for the ‘Technology and Music’ Category
U2 Live on YouTube
If you’re a fan of U2, you probably already know this, but if not, here’s the latest:
U2 is going to be streaming a concert live via YouTube. Fans will be able to watch the band’s live performance at the Rose Bowl on U2’s YouTube Channel.
The event takes place on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 8 p.m. PT. The show will also be re-broadcast the following day. This will be viewable in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, U.K. and U.S.
Get your music on Rock Band
Soon, you will be able to use tools provided by video game Rock Band to upload your music to the game’s community to be played by anyone. Approved tracks will go into the Rock Band store and on XBox’s Live Marketplace. For every purchase and download, you can receive a cut.
This is revolutionary! I’d like to see if any of you actually try it out.
More information is available on Rock Band’s website here.
Second thoughts on Twitter
I finally think I “get it” when it comes to Twitter. I think my initial problem was that I was taking it far too seriously. And I was only following people who were using it for announcements and posting links. That gets old really fast. But once I started adding actual friends and people that I found interesting, the conversation opened up.
I think that’s what makes Twitter useful – the interactivity that it brings. It’s a way to have short conversations with not only your friends, but also celebrities, people you admire, bloggers you read, etc.
So I would like to remind you artists out there using Twitter: FOLLOW PEOPLE. I think this is probably the most important thing you can do. Also use the @reply feature. You don’t have to reply to everyone who addresses you, especially if you have a lot of followers yourself, but you do need to engage your fans in conversation. Bringing your fans into the conversation allows them to feel they are connected to you, and in the music industry of 2009, that is a MUST.
So that is my Twitter tip of the day.
Tags: twitter
The Twitter Debate
I’ve been using Twitter off and on since it came out. Mostly because I keep reading all these blogs about how important it is in social marketing and how EVERYONE should be tweeting, NO MATTER what.
Is it just me or is there just really no true usefulness for Twitter, though? Because I see some people who twitter every minute of every day. At this point, the only question I have: Where do you find time to do this? I, personally, never have that kind of time. Owning one’s own business doesn’t leave you much time to chat about whatever it is you happen to doing at any given moment. But there are people out there doing just that and I find that many of those tweets just seem pointless.
I’ve read a ton of blogs, also, about how useful Twitter can be when communicating with not just friends, but peers. But even though I follow some of the top social marketing experts, and people whose blogs I read regularly, I’m seeing a lot of small little links and posts that I feel would be better served with a blog post, where more information can be imparted about such things.
In fact, I think the problem posted at The Viral Garden here is also at play here. How can you have a conversation about anything when you can’t type but a certain number of characters? How can any sort of understanding come from such short conversations?
So what gives? Is this really useful? Am I missing something huge here?
And that is still my take on Twitter. Is it fun? Sure it is… some of the tweets are downright hilarious. Some have good links of things to check out. Unfortunately, I feel obligated to tweet myself and none of my tweets are funny or useful or interesting. So I don’t tweet so much. And then I read a tweet about how one should tweet all through the day. Why? Is quantity really more important than quality?
Comments are more than welcome…
Music in Video Games
I promised a post about this a few weeks ago, I believe, and I’m finally getting around to it.
This is basically in response to a blog that Bob Lefsetz wrote: Rock Band/Guitar Hero. For once, I actually find myself disagreeing with Bob. He seems to think that music in video gaming is more of a fad and that it’s just that – a game. I couldn’t disagree more.
Me? I see it as a musical opportunity.
First of all, some background information on myself. I am an avid video gamer and have been since Pong. No, seriously, I’m not kidding. I owned Pong. And then there was the Atari system (remember Pitfall?), followed by iterations of Nintendo, Sega, Playstation and XBox. At some point, I have owned nearly every major gaming console. I also have one handheld – a Nintendo DS. When I’m not working, I’m probably gaming.
When it comes to music and gaming, the first game to really stand out for me was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Remember that one? With the 80’s music? The 80’s was my decade, so I actually bought that game FOR the music. This game took commercial music and integrated it into the gaming experience in a way that no one had seen before. As far as I’m concerned, this was the beginning of music being integrated into gaming.
Of course, now, we have games that allow us to be part of the music itself. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. These games give those of us who have never figured out how to play rock instruments a chance to get our feet wet and pretend to be rock stars. And those games took off. Why? The music! And the wonderful thing about these games is that new music is being consistently made available for them as downloadable content.
This makes the games more about music than gaming, in my opinion. This doesn’t encourage people to be lazy and not learn instruments, as Bob states. People who have a passion for music are going to learn to play and write and sing outside of a video gaming environment.
I think that It’s an entirely new way to interact with music!
Now just think what this could mean. I believe that it won’t be long before any band or musician will be able to upload content for users of these games. Think of the exposure you could get for your act through an avenue like this. Not only would people be hearing your music for the first time, but they would be experiencing it in a way that wasn’t available even several years ago. And in doing so, that music stays more firmly planted in their minds than if they’d heard a song on the radio. And at the same time, users are paying for that downloadable content, so there’s a profit to be earned, too.
It’s already begun… At the E3 Convention this year, Activision, the makers of Guitar Hero, announced that Guitar Hero: World Tour will have its own music studio where users can create their own music and upload it to the commuinity to be heard and rated. The studio provides a large array of mixing and editing tools. It could very well become a place where new musical talent is discovered.
I know if I were a musician, I’d be jumping all over that.
Any new medium you can find for your music is good. That’s how I see it.