Sat, 11/12/2011 - 15:49
I teach high school journalism, and I assigned my students to write about social media. When I give an assignment, I do it first as an example - that's important for this one because I am asking them to do a longer, more in-depth piece than they usually do.
I'm getting really into this one. I'm writing about how I use Facebook to share music, connect with favorite artists, discover new music, discuss music, etc. Then I thought that some of you good folks might perhaps give me some info and quotes I could use in my story.
We all swapped Facebook pages early in 50/90, and I've listened to those - just heard a new song by Val Cox last night! Also, I'm "fans" of favorite artists like Grateful Dead, Zappa, Railroad Earth, and Johnny Cash. And my friends and I post videos on Facebook of classic faves - last night a buddy shared an epic Black Sabbath song from 1971. Through Facebook, I discovered the genre of Afropop and the endless joys of the Spotify site. And I've used Facebook to promote my own music, although not nearly as much lately as I used to.
So my questions are: What does Facebook mean to you as a musician and/or as a music fan? What, in your opinion, is Facebook's importance/relevance to music in 2011 and beyond?
I thought this would be an interesting discussion here, and if you'll allow, I'd like to quote you in my article (it's not for publication, but I'm having fun writing it and it will be helpful to some good young writers). That will also allow me to show students how to use online networking to add to their stories.
Thanks!
Sun, 11/13/2011 - 16:23
#2
Thanks for the post, TC. I know what you mean about the downside. I don't feel much of a need anymore to perform - you know, go out and actually meet folks - because I can record here at home, post it, and a lot more people are paying attention online (like the good folks at FAWM and 50/90) than when I perform.
Weirdly, after I began writing my article, I went to the local library and checked out a book called "Plain Life - Walking My Belief" by Scott Savage. He and his family give up their urban life to convert to the Quaker faith, and the book is the story of how he walks the National Road from Barnesville, Ohio to Columbus to give up his driver's license. One parallel story is his reflection on our lack of real, face-to-face community.
And here I am, sitting at a computer telling you about this. But at least I sat outside while I was reading - that's something, I suppose.
Sun, 11/13/2011 - 16:59
#3
"So my questions are: What does Facebook mean to you as a musician and/or as a music fan? What, in your opinion, is Facebook's importance/relevance to music in 2011 and beyond?"
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I thought even a "non-user" can contribute -- if only "users" answer, then you have a skewed "universe" -- ha, ha.
I have a facebook account and I check it a few times a week. I really don't use it that much and I really don't use it at all to promote my music. However, I do think I should learn about it -- but, dang, there are only so many hours in a day! If I want to hear a band's music, I google it and then go to their website or youtube offerings. To be 100% truthful, I just don't like the main facebook interface -- the "wall" or the "news feed", or whatever it is called. If you have tons and tons of friends, the information overload would become incredible!
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 07:39
#4
Here's the real issue that never seems to get mentioned nowadays, though many of the things people complain about with regard to facebook are actually secondary effects of this one fact:
Facebook is a private service, it is provided for free (as in lunch) NOT provided Free (as in freedom).
"Who cares?" is the usual response from people when i mention this. Well, that's exactly the response that enables Facebook to maintain its stranglehold on the web2.0 world.
I do recommend the book Free As In Freedom by RMS to anyone interested in the important but subtle distinctions and the huge repercussions involved in these concepts but in my view, the way it relates to your question is this:
FB is privately owned, and supports itself through advertising. This means it costs nothing to the users. It does mean, however, that FB can make any decisions it wants about the site's interface, availability, functionality and content (including user submitted content) so long as it complies with the law. Of course, FB's users are international, and it is only bound by the laws of the country/state it is physically based in (as far as where its servers are located). Court cases may come up (eg in an EU court) which set a precedent for international law but international law is really in its infancy now, it is behind the technology to the degree that it hardly matters to a company like FB (or Microsoft or Google etc).
That's fine, so long as FB keep providing a platform where we can all do what we want. Every time they change the interfaces or functionality though, it provokes a huge backlash of complaint, none of which changes anything. Why? Because FB has a captive market. Yes, there are other social networking sites but most of them are also proprietary, and much more importantly, none of them are on the same network as FB.
And that's the issue. The internet is a genuinely free platform, the WWW is a genuinely free platform (both of them Free as in freedom), social networking platforms aren't. You can't set some new part of the network up yourself and plug it into the existing FB network, like you can with the web and the 'Net. Instead you must sign up as a user/client with FB the company, in order to use FB the networking platform.
If you want control of how your stuff is distributed, promoted, and perceived, you're screwed, unless FB decides otherwise.
As a small example, you know you can now no longer send PMs to members of a page? This has made FB pages pretty much obsolete imho. And it doesn't matter who complains, because FB doesn't answer emails from users, and doesn't base its decisions on what the users want.
If you can promote your music on FB now, you can't count on that continuing. It could stop at any minute. That is INHERENTLY unstable, like any proprietary networking model. It shouldn't have become possible for this to have become so popular actually, looking at the history of the WWW in particular, i guess that's a sign of the almighty buck in action.
And that's what i think of FB as a promotional platform for music. Great while it's here, but anything's a bonus, and it could cave in at any moment. And i think abybody (and most people do) who take FB for granted, as some sort of essential service that it is their right to expect, have got a sharp shock or two coming to them in the future.
It's a sliding scale though, record labels are all private, radio stations too. There's no "perfect" way to promote music, and nothing is perfect. But i think the trend towards using FB as a default music platform is very dangerous for the medium and what's left of the industry, not to mention the state of music as an artform, because the foundation it is built on could shift at any moment, at the whim of some faceless businessman.
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 16:40
#5
Kevin - Of course a "non-user's" comments are welcome! I know what you mean about only so many hours in a day - I used to try to juggle Facebook, Soundcloud, a blog on Banjo Hangout, Songcrafters, and my own website. Had a Myspace music page, too, but I stopped that a couple of years ago. Now I'm down to here and Facebook for posting music - haven't even touched my website in months.
But I like the Facebook interface - certainly cleaner than the unwieldy Myspace. I know people complained mightily about Facebook's recent changes, but I was OK with them.
I rarely go to artists' web pages anymore. I do check out YouTube, and I love Spotify - it's replaced Pandora for me.
Calum - lots to think about there, and well-said. I imagine lots of artists post their music on Facebook precisely because it's free, and a decent website is usually not. I don't think any default music platform - Facebook, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc. - can replace having one's own well-done website. At least if you're looking to make a name for yourself and/or pursue music as a career. That may change, I suppose.
I think my students take Facebook for granted, as in they are growing up in a world where every thought and whim you have can become instant public knowledge. And they also take for granted that all music is available online, even if illegally. It's an interesting time to be a teacher, writer, and musician.
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 20:08
#6
Two thoughts on Calum's post. The first is that most of the music put on facebook (at least that I see/listen to) is put on there from another serviced. Bandcamp or Reverbnation or Youtube primarily. That means facebook is useful for promotion for however long they allow links to songs and especially if they offer pages (musician/band page or just fan pages both work equally well with these type of apps provided by third parties.)
And secondly, facebook will be replaced someday. The more they screw with things and make people unhappy the faster that will happen. Google+ is cool, but won't overtake FB unless FB does something to really irritate their users. But something will take it's place if/when it is needed. IMO, it'll be because of technology. Just an opinion.
I like some of the changes they have made and don't like some of the others. I wonder how much it is the 'don't like change' phenomenon that humans exhibit so well.
Tue, 11/15/2011 - 05:36
#7
in my opinion bandcamp is the closest to being a free alternative to having your own website. By a long shot.
Also, i'm sorry to say those two responses don't really deal with the underlying issue, which is to do with freedom, not money.
As long as the default platform for sharing information is proprietary, this will lead to problems and dead ends. The internet and web have been and continue to be successful because they are open, there are lots of things that would have crippled both the 'net and the web long ago if they had been proprietary. A similar fate awaits FB. Myspace has already shown that it takes a superhuman effort to maintain interest in an essentially closed medium.
It's all fun and games till somebody loses an eye.
Tue, 11/15/2011 - 15:45
#8
I agree with Calum here. The reason i don't use Facebook is that I don't trust it. It's that simple. I do use other sites but I have serious doubts regarding Facebook and Google and what they wish to do with personal information and also what other people can do with the data that they store. Please Chip, have your students explore the potential dangers involved in using Facebook.
Tue, 11/15/2011 - 16:32
#9
Not really with all the heartburn over Facebook. Don't trust it? Good! Nor should you. Facebook has the bare minimum of my information, and I don't do any of the apps or play any of the games that ask to share it. Which is pretty much all of 'em.
It's a good way to stay in touch with your existing 'fans', not such a good way to go trolling for new ones... unless you get awfully good word of mouth. I post dates and songs on my account, but I am a notoriously bad self promoter. I don't push it.
More interesting maybe are the few pro types I follow on FB. They Might Be Giants posts a lot - tour dates, videos and whatnot, but it's clear that it's not actually THEM doing the posting. Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens does all his own posting - not just music stories but news stuff that interests him, and his followers tend to have pretty interesting discussions. It's generally good stuff. My 50/90 fart-rock anthem World Of Tomorrow was inspired by a news link he posted.
R. Stevie Moore, who I won't attempt to describe here, posts incessantly, some music, some not, and some utterly bizarre crap (which is actually a decent decription of R. Stevie, but I said I wasn't gonna do that). Sometimes it's too much - I've come close to shutting him off a few times, but generally there's enough signal to make the noise acceptable.
But generally, I think you can use Facebook as a tool, with mixed success, without selling your soul to Zuckerberg.
Fri, 11/18/2011 - 10:53
#10
Wow Calum, thanks for mentioning Stallman. I hadn't thought about him for years but I spent hours after your post reading bits of that online book you mentioned and googling about for referenced details. One thing I found musical after all that is this HUGE repository of public domain music scores and recordings that Stallman helped save after some lawsuit threats brought it down for a while: the International Music Score Library Project http://imslp.org
I had dinner with him once in '88 when he visited Data General --- he had come to speak to a different group there, but come dinnertime I was one of the several hanging around late at work and got gathered up --- and I've always enjoyed his take on the world. A true eccentric genius. The heavy lifting that created GNU/Linux was done by Stallman and not Linus Torvalds, but of course that last piece (kernel) of the puzzle was important too.
What of facebook? Yeah I participate. I actually joined once, got cold feet and decided to quit, only to find that you could NOT quit! They would suspend your account but the bits you uploaded would stay there (presumably until you changed your mind and rejoined). This caused me to write their unanswering support department criticising their idea about who owns what information. You'd have liked that letter, Calum. 
Several months later I got an email informing me that user data and accounts could now be truly deleted, and I did so. A few months later I checked, and it did seem to be the case it was deleted, at least effectively so as far as accessibility from the outside world. Thus comforted, I later re-joined Facebook as part of my ReverbNation scheme to conquer the world and become the next Shel Silverstein / Tom Lehrer. So far, it's not going well 
Well, I play on it some, but as far as being useful for pushing my music, not so much. The wind shifts. This recent addition of the 'timeline' where it becomes easier for people to see everything you've ever entered on Facebook for all time is one. I'd encourage any longtime user who might have some old college-party photo or utterance they'd rather not be seen by their current or future stodgy employer to read this and go through your timeline once: http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/ccp/students-fed-up-wit... but you probably already know that.
Fri, 11/18/2011 - 16:01
#11
I'll be finishing my article this weekend, I think - took me in a different direction than I thought. Thanks for your input.
Roddy had mentioned in his post that I should share with my students the dangers of Facebook - we discuss those issues in class and then, kids being kids, they go and behave like they know it all. But most are good kids, savvy to the online world, and they will be OK.
But as I dug deeper, I decided that one pitfall (danger is too strong a word, I think) of FB is letting it replace authentic human interaction (I write, as I post in an online forum to be read by people I have never met in person). Yesterday, I went and jammed in the park with a local musician, a guy I met at an open mic, and we had a good time. But most of my music-making energy these days is spent recording at home and then posting online. Of course, I don't have as much free time as I used to, and the computer is so darned convenient. But I'd hate to think that it's making me less willing to go out and interact with people in person.
Also, listening to music online - FB, Spotify, YouTube, whatever - does not motivate me at all to spend money on buying that artist's CD or go see that artist perform. Quite the opposite - I have my music right here at home, so why go out? If I had had the internet 20 years ago when I was single, going to a lot of shows, buying concert t-shirts, online music would have pushed me out the door, I think.
I try to balance my interest in technology with a sense of slow-down-and-observe introspection as I get older. I don't always succeed, but I am going to get offline for a while now and go check out my garden.
Sat, 11/19/2011 - 22:38
#12
I understand your point about the internet limiting face to face interaction, but I also think that it can work both ways. Through Facebook, Twitter etc., I have often found out about house shows and concerts at lesser known venues that I would never have been informed about otherwise. The other thing I love about the internet is it makes it really easy to keep track of my favorite artists' tour dates. If there's a band I really want to see, I'll just 'like' them on Facebook, and then whenever they announce a new tour, I'm sure to see it pop up on my news feed.
I do agree, though, that nothing replaces playing music with other people or for other people. The internet is best used when it's to facilitate those two things.
For me Facebook allows me to keep in contact with other musicians and songwriters. It keeps me motivated, inspired and connected on an artistic level. I stay in touch with several fans of the The Bottle Rockets from across the country that I've met going to their shows. It allows me to keep in touch with members of the band. I've received advice from Eric Ambel a mixing engineer from NYC (also the guitarist who played the riff on 'i love rock and roll by joan jett' about all sorts of musical questions.
It does very very little to promote my music but I've used facebook to share links to posts of other musicians and bands.
The downside is that I don't feel compelled to go out into the local community and hit the open mics and make connections that way because I have a built in internet support system on Facebook from 50/90 and FAWM. My band is playing out a bit now so I'm still out there a bit, but not as much as a few years ago.