Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Power of Myspace and Google

Dear Christine Harold,

I thought your points about Myspace and the new additions of "influencers" in marketing strategies was very interesting to read, for many reasons. You opened your argument with the mentioning of Myspace and its popularity and effective business marketing in music. The big point was the generational difference in the business. "For the half-million bands with profiles on the site, Myspace has provided the tools for a kind of open source marketing, allowing up-and-coming acts to gain far more exposure than they ever could under the traditional big-label/big radio approach to distribution" (2). I agree with this statement in the power of advertising music by the means of social media. Myspace is a much more popular and simple venue people use to discover new artists and music. People can connect easily and there are many features that make it much more accessible and interactive. You can leave comments to the band and stay updated much more easily through Myspace because it is the newer method of communication and collaboration.

I also thought the point Malcolm Gladwell made was interesting, that "ideas spread through culture more like epidemics than by way of top-down corporate campaigns" (6). I think it's much easier for people who are new artists and trying to expose their work to larger groups of people are much more intriguing to people than the ideas of larger and more well-known corporations, especially with the almost unregulated nature of the internet. I honestly believe people do not like to be under the impression that they are being controlled, so they try to deviate from the usual social norms and followings of "professional" structures. However, I do still think big businesses make their way into these new areas of interest.

James Gleick takes a similar approach in the perspective of the internet by focusing on the power and nature of Google. He defines the search engine as "the oracle of redirection...Google defines its mission as 'to organize the world's information,' not to possess it or accumulate it." People are under the misconception that Google holds all the answers when it fact, it's an organizer of the information accumulated by people. This article continues the idea that the people have more power to share information, rather than music like in your example of Myspace. There is a much larger focus on the public rather than the passing of ideas by one large source.

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