Internet – Page 18 – HELLO, I'M SETH WERKHEISER

There’s Always More

More of more I think about “content,” and the notion that more of it is always the answer.

Around 2008 / 2009, a directive we got at AOL Music was “fill the search engines.” Nothing was too small to cover, the idea went, since someone out there could search for it.

Since you have all those stories, then you can post them to socials. I remember thinking back then that since we posted 20 times a day (TWENTY), then we could post all of those things to social media, too. So 20 times a day we got to throw a pebble at anyone would listen.

And that’s just one outlet.

When you got 25 music outlets posting 20 times a day, and posting 20 things to social media per day, that’s 500 “pieces of content” per day. In a week that’s 2,500 posts, Tweets, Facebook updates.

And that’s just music outlets.

It’s 2021 (some 12 years later), and now instead of just posts and Tweets, we have videos to watch, (more) newsletter to read, podcasts to listen to, Instagram Stories, and live streams to add to our calendars.

There’s more stuff, but the numbers of hours in the day is still the same.

The Messy Medium

I remember starting to write on Medium a few years ago, here and there, but something always felt off. I just never trusted a place I didn’t pay for with my writing.

“(Ev Williams) keeps talking like this company founded in 2012 is a brand new startup finding its way,” one (employee) told me. “At a certain point you’re not nimble and iterating. You’re just floundering and failing to follow through and execute.”
From ‘THE MESS AT MEDIUM‘

It’s a bummer, too. Ev Williams was a beloved name to me as I started my internet journey, back in the days of Blogger and Twttr.

Oh well. Find a host, install WordPress, and get writing.

Live Stream Thoughts

Working in music it’s hard to ignore the whole live streaming thing that a lot of bands are doing (and a lot of bands aren’t doing).

I’m thinking a lot about the smaller acts, the solo performers, the bedroom music makers, and how a lot of times it’s okay to not do a live stream performance. Like, there’s a lot that goes into live streams – the technology, audio issues, video quality, promotion – it’s a lot!

Remember – music videos are still awesome. You can take your time, plan your shots, get better audio / video, and then you have this music video you made, which can sit on Vimeo / YouTube / etc. for years to come.

And you don’t even need to make it about your music. I know, I know, but hear me out: you know all the cool video press you hope to get one day? On big name media outlets? Do that!

Is there a big holiday coming up? Take Halloween, for example. You could record a few clips of you talking about your favorite spooky movies, and release them every Friday in the month of October.

Those “gear talk” videos? Make your own! And make them your own! Drench them with your own style and wit and humor.

Make a video or two, or four, or 12. Get good at making them – nail the audio, the video, the aesthetic…. all that stuff you learn is a foundation, so when someday you really want to plan a live stream you’ll have the tech know-how and skills to make it great!

NFT Madness

As a young musician, a fledgling artist, a photographer just trying to find some work, do you need to get in on this NFT train?

No.

There are a zillion more people out there who trade in dollars and credit cards who aren’t giving you money already.

Figure out how to sell one more item this week. Read a book or watch some videos about sales. Spruce up your online shop.

Have you seriously done everything there is to sell your wares to people holding debit cards? Explored every nook and cranny of e-commerce, which has a track record of decades? Have you even started an email list, which has a higher conversion rate than social media?

You don’t need to jump on the NFT train anymore than you have to jump on the TikTok train.

Meet your clients, customers, your people where they’re at. They probably get paid in dollars.

Daily Loop #33

Ever have one of those nights where you’re just like, shit, there is so much music I haven’t listened to yet?

So how’d I get to watching an interview with DJ Muggs? Well, as I’ve been getting back into actually making some music again, I’ve been going back to some of the music in the mid 90s that formed my musical taste today. That includes Cypress Hill’s ‘Black Sunday,’ of course, so I had to dig a bit!

And if you watch the video above, he talks about Led Zeppelin, and Kraftwerk, like… fuck, I’m a “rock guy” and I still haven’t submersed myself into any of their records. Which is why I stay up too late on Monday nights, wondering if I could just make a pot of coffee and listen to music until the sun comes up. I mean, I won’t, but at least my frenzied brain will take 45 minutes to slow the fuck down to fall asleep.

LIKES

“Strictly only ever want to be having a good time from here on out,” and “don’t be in a toxic relationship with urself,” @chipzel

“I don’t want a future where only people good at the internet get to make music,” @kazzmlaidlaw

Video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels

Don’t Let Your Likes Disappear

Photo: Lyndsey Hansen Sunderland from Twitter

Each day on social media a 400 page magazine shows up on your doorstep, bursting at the seams.

And everyday, the previous day of wonder and delight has begun its walk into obscurity.

This is why I added the LIKES section to my Daily Loops videos. I know from doing the “blog thing” over several years that there are times when I’ll go back through my archive and find something I forgot about.

In that moment in the past something grabbed me, it was enough for me to hold onto it, to put it on this site, my little corner of the internet. Even if I don’t have hoards of readers, I have me, and I want to re-live and re-experience some of that magic.

So my LIKES section is a collection of things that catch my eye, or my ear. For a bit I was embedding the Tweets or Instagram posts, but I fear that one day they could disappear.

And to think some people aren’t even on Twitter or Instagram, and they can’t see that magic, those bright colors, the rich hues of music and noise.

So now I’m adding those things to my site, adding a link to the source (of course), and looking forward to 2025 when I can come back here and see the magic that got me through the pandemic, this moment in time that people will talk about 100 years from now.

Revue Joins Twitter

I played around with Revue back in late 2019 for Metal Bandcamp Gift Club, but moved to Mailchimp because I needed to control more of the sign up process. Fair enough.

Then today Revue announces they’ve joined Twitter, which is an interesting move, and I think plays into what I’ve been talking about for awhile: use social media to build your email list.

Social media can be great for the quick, off-the-cuff conversations, and lots of good can come from those conversations! But having an outlet for longer form thoughts, fleshed out ideas – email is a great medium for that. And no doubt Twitter is going to make it easy to build your list with this integration.

And if you’re still wondering what you’d even put into your own email newsletter, please read ‘What Would I Even Put in an Email Newsletter,’ which I wrote back in 2018.