“Condé Nast is merging Pitchfork, the digital music publication it bought in 2015, with men’s magazine GQ — a move that will result in layoffs at Pitchfork, including the exit of editor-in-chief Puja Patel.”
In the early 2000s we had music blogs, today we’ve got AI generated playlists.
Not sure how this gets any better.
ALSO:
“In 2017 Vulture called Spotify’s RapCaviar playlist “the most influential playlist in music.” Among other things, it’s credited for launching the career of Cardi B.
But as Ashley Carman reported at Bloomberg this month, even RapCaviar’s influence is now on the wane. The reason, of course, is artificial intelligence.”
In an effort to completely remove myself from social media, I am moving my WORK HISTORY from LinkedIn to my site, which is a platform I own and control. This will help me tell more of the story of my work experience. I hope it’s helpful. Enjoy.
Soon after my stint with AOL Music, I joined the “Content Optimization” team. Around 2006 is when AOL decided to move away from their “walled garden” system, and get out there on the open web.
The problem was no one on the open web – the bloggers – really knew about the CONTENT we were making.
I remember we had a sports vertical called Yardbarker, and they made features about NFL teams. My job was to reach out to bloggers and get them to link back to us. For real, I’d spend all day digging around for NY Giants blogs, and get them to link back to our photo gallery of some Giants feature.
We also added stuff to Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, and Netscape (which was a user-generated news site at one time), all so people could find our AOL content.
I remember I helped increase the Technorati ranking of the Fanhouse Sports blog from 50,000 to 3,473, and now here we are 18 years later social media absolutely destroyed blogs and Technorati. I was on this team through the rest of 2006 I think, and I think I was making about $20/hr or so as a freelancer.
In an effort to completely remove myself from social media, I am moving my WORK HISTORY from LinkedIn to my site, which is a platform I own and control. This will help me tell more of the story of my work experience. I hope it’s helpful. Enjoy.
In April of 2006 I started my very first for-real web job, as a web producer at AOL Music. It was just a three month contract gig, covering for someone on maternity leave, with zero guarantee of anything afterwards.
I got this gig because I put my music blog (Buzzgrinder) on my Monster dot com resume, and a headhunter found me. I left a full time job with five weeks paid vacation for this gig, and looking back it was one of the best moves I ever made.
This was someone else’s set up, but I was able to plug in my iPod and listen to my own music while I worked. I wrote copy for weekly new songs and videos features, built and scheduled music main page graphical elements, and wrote daily headlines for Music Main news section.
Some of the people that worked at AOL Music recognized me from the referral traffic that Buzzgrinder sent them, which blew me away.
I remember seeing artists come in and perform acoustic in conference rooms, which was sort of the start of AOL Sessions.
I had typos on pages that were seen by millions. This is where I learned a valuable lesson from a co-worker, when he was sitting beside me while I got “talked to” for my mistake – “we’re not saving lives!”
Oh yeah, I auditioned to host The DL, which was AOL Music’s “music show,” but Sara Schaefer got the job and MURDERED IT. They picked the right person for the job on that one.
My time with AOL Music music last just 3-4 months (I can’t really remember how long it was), but I met a lot of amazing people along the way.
Oh yeah, around this time in 2006 the #1 music site on the internet was MySpace. Wild, right?
My desk is on wheels, so sometimes it faces east; sometimes, I swing it around so I can look west.
I use a standing desk that I bought in 2019 or so, before the pandemic. Attaching the power strip to the leg was a recent move, to make it easier to wheel around, with the cords getting caught under the wheels.
Yeah, the cords take away from the “minimal aesthetic,” but I need power, and my external HD plugged in, so whatever. This really works for me. I can’t stand having a lot of stuff on my desk while working, so having a small desk makes that easier.
Thanks to @Beth Kempton for these #meetthewriter prompts.
Tis the season to hear from almost everybody how frazzled, burnt out, at wits end they are! No energy! No motivation! No drive! Exploited and driven to exhaustion, with no energy to make things better, let alone make dinner tonight.
A wonderful interview with Tina Roth Eisenberg (Swiss Miss), talking about creating and hosting Creative Mornings, and so many other gatherings of people.
“Be really clear why you’re gathering people.”
It also mentions The Art Of Gathering by Priya Parker, such a wonderful book and something I’ve been re-reading as I’ve been hosting more Zoom calls.
I mean it – career / work wise I’ve been WAITING. Hoping that someone would come along and just drop the perfect job / gig / NEXT THING in my lap. That’s how I’ve been for many years in my career… fortunate enough that some things led to other things, but in the last decade a lot of that work was work I settled on because I needed the money, which duh – is plenty okay, of course.
But now, lately, in these past two years, I’ve been deliberately carving out something, and in the last few MONTHS I’ve leaned hard into this “why not get together more often with energetic people?” space, and I swear, things are buzzing for me now, and I love it.
Its conventional wisdom of more fans, more readers; more subscribers are somehow the answer to every problem.
This makes sense of course for someone who does podcast editing (like the author of this post); sure, reach out to your network, and find paying clients. Word of mouth. The power of your reputation.
BUT… what about the artist who posts about their new work on Instagram and only reaches 12% of their followers?
This is why social media pushes more – because 12% of more is at least better, right?
Whereas, if you could simply email and reach 100% of your fans, and former customers, with a message about your new offering, you could earn a living, or at least pay your phone bill.
I’ve been thinking of making videos for social media, and starting a YouTube channel. These two things are sort of expected, right? If you’re seeking to make an impact, more people seeing the thing can’t hurt.
But what about the almost 700 email subscribers I have already?
If I make a great video for them, and it’s so good they tell three other people, then I’ve done my job. If it’s a dud and no one watches it, then I’ve learned something new.
But to take the time to build a whole new YouTube channel from scratch?
Why don’t I hone my message, my style, my technique with nearly 700 who’ve already bought into what I’m talking about?
It’s just crazy to me that people are having a hard time earning money making something so many other people clearly want.
Well, part of the problem is that people aren’t paying for it, right?
Right. They’re accustomed to getting it for free.
That’s the hole in the business model.
Most people ain’t paying for shit.
There was a time when Limp Bizkit sold a million albums in one week. Now artists on labels with managers and lawyers are lucky to sell 50,000 in a month.
You used to have to pay money to go see a movie. Now you pay a few bucks a month for a few streaming services and never buy another DVD
Yes, a small percentage of diehard fans support via Patreon, or Substack, or whatever, but for the most part there’s been more entertainment options that exist in the world.
Think about the 100 or 200 or 1000 things we read a day, and watch, and listen to. In a DAY. A MONTH.
I pay my ISP $56/month, and some streaming services. I don’t think I spend $100 a month on everything, and I can fill my eyes and ears with “content” every second of every day.
And we’re all paying that $100 every month, and more (much more), and a few people are making money from making the things that everyone loves.
Again, from the interview: people are having a hard time earning money making something so many other people clearly want.
I started my HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter in late 2021, writing all about email marketing in the magical music world, in a very niche sort of way. It’s not for everybody, and that’s just fine.
But it’s for 500 people right now, apparently.
This happened mostly without social media. I deleted Twitter, stopped posting on Instagram, and Facebook? My goodness, I never log in, really.
All that time saved creating “assets” for social media platforms, and “engaging,” now I just spend that time on writing. Hell, I moved to a summer schedule, posting just once a week, down from three times per week.
Most of the subscribers come from Substack, and recommendations from other people who also have Substack newsletters. And I picked up two new clients from writing the newsletter.
Maybe this “not being on social media” thing will work out fine.
