Category: Internet

BLOGS AND MP3S

Here I am in 2024, reading a post linked from Kottke.org, and listening to my music files using an app called Swinsian.

Back in my music blog days I got a lot of samplers, pre-release CDs to check out before anyone else.

One of them was rough cuts and demos of ‘De-Loused In The Comatorium’ from The Mars Volta. I remember this on a CDR, shipped in a padded mailer. That was in 2003, before I moved to NYC. My goodness, this is a gem.

Bands used to post demo MP3s on their websites, too. I have a handful of those, too.

I’ve also got some files that don’t play, which I think maybe are tied to the iTunes store? Thankfully I don’t have too many of those.

YAHOO NOISE

The directories on Yahoo used to be edited by people, and as you can see from the image above (which I snagged from the Wayback Machine), it went deep.

The Yahoo Directory closed in 2014.

I’m inclined to write “imagine if we had something like this now?” But, anyone could build something like this for their local scene, for their state, their region.

And no one needs to make the BIG ONE, the supreme list of whatever. Everyone could have their lists of favorite bands, or art supply stores, or camera shops, whatever.

There are giant directories that exist like this today, I know. But they’re all flooded with SEO nonsense, scraped, void of humanity.

I think, if anything, we need to get back to human-curated directories and inspire everyone to make their own… de-centralized, as it were. This way there’s not one thing to rule them all, everyone just finds their favorites.

THE OLD MUSIC WEB

We need to get back to this.

The site is still active, and some of the links still work, but wow, remember when local scenes used to have websites like this?

I also found this page called Escape. There are lots of broken links, but it is still a reminder of what old websites used to look like.

I love how innocent and pure this bit of text is:

“An amazing unofficial Mudhoney page. It has everything about them, their side projects, and other sordid details.”

Like, there was a time when you couldn’t read every interview a band ever did online, or see all the photos they posted on Instagram.

Makes me think I should start an un-official band page or two!

STYLE

This is from Steph who makes Obsidian, from ‘Style is consistent constraint.’

Collect constraints you enjoy. Unusual constraints make things more fun. You can always change them later. This is your style, after all. It’s not a life commitment, it’s just the way you do things. For now.

Having a style collapses hundreds of future decisions into one, and gives you focus. I always pluralize tags so I never have to wonder what to name new tags.

Great example here is this video from 2yn:

SELF PROMOTION

Years ago, “self-promotion” meant posting something on a social platform, and most of your followers saw it.

It was great when it worked!

Then came algorithms, and now self-promotion feels like a constant battle.

It’s not you; it’s the system.

You can’t post just once because 90% of your audience won’t see it. This is why I’d always tell people, “Promote your new song a few times a week, at different times of day!”

But then having to post, plan, and schedule starts to feel like screaming into the void.

Oh, and then Instagram says it wants videos. Twitter removes links. Facebook and LinkedIn limit your reach when you include a link. Also, don’t say “link in bio!”

At this point, it’s not even self-promotion – it’s tap dancing, juggling, or card tricks in Times Square, along with 900 million other creative people doing the same.

SPOTIFY IS UNSTOPPABLE

From Variety:

“For the fourth quarter of 2023, (Spotify) reported revenue of €3.67 billion”

That’s $3,946,534,500 in US dollars. Oh, and they added “28 million total monthly active users overall, to reach 602 million.”

In one quarter.

And you’re still posting “check out my new song” on Twitter, or wasting your time publically shaming a company that made almost $4 BILLION in one quarter.

They’ve no shame, they’re rich. They do what they want.

The question is this: what’s our next move?

STOP LOOKING FOR FOLLOWERS AND GET SUBSCRIBERS

How will you get new followers if you’re not on social media?

Someone asked that recently.

They also said they reach about 10% of their followers on Instagram.

Think of the energy required to get 100 new followers on any social media platform. ONE HUNDRED. You need a hit, a nice mention, some serious work.

Then, when you send out your next big post to 100 new followers, just 10 of them will see it.

You now need 1,000 new followers to reach 100 of them.

What about 10 new email subscribers?

These might be people who follow you on Instagram but aren’t on the platform very often. You can DM folks who like a bunch of your posts and send them the link to subscribe.

If you sell stuff online, you can easily contact those people and ask them to subscribe to your newsletter (or add this as an opt-in during checkout).

You could probably email 10 people this week who love your work and send them the link to subscribe.

Heck, this is probably 50 people now if you do all three of those.

Maybe “just” half of those people click the link to sign up.

That’s still 25 people you can reach 100% of the time.

That’s more than twice the number of people you can reach if you get 100 new social media followers.

And it can be done in a few days, with a few emails.

Small effort, lasting results.