MySpace

Before I start, please let me acknowledge the comments so far, thank everyone for reading, and especially thank Glynn for really cluing me in on all of this social networking stuff. As you read through my comments about these various sites, please do not forget to consider whether you think these things are working in establishing that all important relationship they were designed to foster. As they said in school, if not, why not?

Forgive me, and I know that this may set some of you off, but remember, I’m in charge here:). I find MySpace to be loud, obnoxious, and ripe with in your face advertising, faeries, butterflies, and puppies. But you already know that. Its popularity has suffered with the onset of Facebook, but it still remains a biggie, with more than 250 million users. Again, you all know how it works, what you can and can’t do there, etc. Although I think that this place still caters more to the younger set, what with the sparkly paper doll cut outs, and top music searches containing someone named Gucci Mane, I could simply be out of touch. And Kid Cudi. Who in heaven is Kid Cudi?

Aside from being there because, well, it’s so big that you have to be there, what’s the upside for an artist? You get to post concert dates, you get to post pictures and video, and you get to have fans post comments. The downside is that you have every band, wannabe star, singer, writer, agent, radio station, record label, wanting to be your friend, and posting, within their comments (if you’re not careful) rather blatant plugs for their own material (Hi, Chad & Jeremy, love you, here’s our new video (song, etc.)). And you get to post songs for purchase or play.

Is MySpace crucial, in the context of supporting brand awareness? Well, yes, no and maybe. If you have no central hub to allow for fan input (comments, images, reviews), or nowhere else to promote shows, sample songs, and provide dates and venue info, then it’s a tool for that. If you have a fan friendly web site, where you can create iconic graphics and logos as part of a web site design (please do give me a break with the MySpace “skins”), as well as allow for sales, fan input, discussion, reviews and concert dates, then no, you don’t really need to depend on what MySpace provides. Yes you should be on MySpace, but perhaps minimally, with links to, hopefully sometime, where it’s really all going on (your main web site). Right now you can have chat and pictures on Yahoo, video on YouTube, concert dates and historical info on the web site, but so far there is no complete one-stop place to get it all in the C&J universe.

So what about the C&J MySpace experience? That I’ll leave up to you. There was a time in the past where MySpace would have one set of concert dates that wouldn’t match what was up on the web site, and sometimes neither would match what appeared on the concert schedule page, accessed through their web site, and you might not know that unless you paid close attention. That’s been fixed, and fixed as well were the random comments from other bands and such wishing to promote their own work. Right now it’s got a series of older YouTube videos (most of which have been there, it seems, for at least a year), a discography, list of 60’s TV appearances as well as a short bio, and a few links. The only major, changing pieces, or additions, in recent months have been the new concert dates, a recent posting about the passing of Gordon Waller (which also appeared on the web site), and the video promo for the DVD release (which doesn’t appear on the web site).

And kudos should be given for maintaining a clean, subdued, and fairly adult setting on C&J’s MySpace page, amidst the weirdness surrounding it (just check the recent log in page for relevance to your daily life. Meet Russian women? Was Kanye’s apology sincere?) But, and there always seems to be one, you can only do so much within the confines of MySpace profile design. And in this case, on this site, less is certainly more. In short, it’s looking as good as it has in quite a while.

At present, I guess, MySpace may consolidate some services for the Chad & Jeremy fan. And, as it was one of the first, it probably still has some number of mature (I will not use the word “older” here) users, who have not yet figured out that Facebook is probably really where they ought to be. But Facebook is a different animal in a lot of ways.

Anyway, brand awareness aside, does this work at all for anybody in terms of social networking?

Finally, Anita, I hope that the Sheldon Hall show is all you have hoped for. You won't be disappointed. Dxzenia, thanks for pointing out the absence of Twitter in their announcement in MA. I see that they have "tweeted" 3 times today, so I hope it was an oversight. And I agree, Twitter does require a commitment from both sides, so maybe that's the real struggle.

And, next, Facebook, Facebook friends, groups, and fans. Or maybe Yahoo, we’ll see. And I haven’t forgotten about KRLA and their creepy and disloyal treatment of our boys back in the day.