Social Media

Archive for the "Social Media" Category

Jan24

Torrent Distribution Experiment

Posted at 10:08 AM • No Comments

I mentioned the free music as viral marketing thing in an earlier post and thought I’d expand on it here.

I’ve just uploaded a bunch of some of the earlier versions of the 99th Floor Elevators, ‘Hooked’ for free download via MiniNova distribution. Think of it as an experiment to see if this has any effect on raising the profile of the 99th Floor Elevators in expectation of new material later this year and newer remixes of ‘Hooked’ also coming from Suesse Records.

Its all packaged as a Torrent and you’ll get five remixes and the original promotional video of ‘Hooked’ that was broadcast on MTV way back when. You can see the video on YouTube (see Elevators blog post here).

The audio files are all 192kbps MP3′s and the mixes included are:

Hooked Classic Remixes

Tony deVit Classic Trade Remix. This was the one that really made things fly for the 99th Floor Elevators, taking the humble white label original mix and stretching it into a near ten minute arms in the air club monster. Much credit must be given to Tony’s low profile engineer/co-producer Simon Parkes.

Originally a national top 30 hit in the UK before being re-issued as part of a Tripoli Trax double twelve inch remix package.

KillerHurts Remix. DJ James Nardi and production partner Julian Dwyer, took chunks of inspiration from the OD404 and Pete Wardman remixes, added their own nails and came up with probably the perfect hard-house mix ever. Available on one sided 12 inch too if you’re lucky enough to find one.

Paul King Remix. Paul basically re-invents/updates the TDV mix for the 21st century with a monster synth riff from the Gods 2.30 minutes in that’ll have arms reaching for the sky. Previously available only as a very hard to find one sided 12inch white. Over nine minutes long.

OD404 Remix. Possibly my personal favorite mix and one I never tire of. Managed to take a Euro house gay anthem and turn it into the Prodigy with kick drums. Awesome.

Phlash Pop Edit. Only ever seen on a very limited release Tripoli Trax white label vinyl 12 and later on a CD single. Phlash! were ex-Tripoli A&R guy and DJ Steve Hill and engineer Mick Shiner (aka Nylon) and if you like your dance bouncy and radio friendly this is the version for you. Infectious stuff.

If you prefer the traditional route of MP3 download then you can grab each MP3 on my Drop.io page where you can either stream or download each track before deciding on the Torrent option.

I use and recommend UTorrent for my Torrents. Its less than half a meg download and spyware free. Install if you don’t already have a Torrent client.

Go to the ‘Hooked’ Torrent download link here. It’ll automatically open your Torrent client and you’ll get a pop up box so you can select which mixes you want and which you don’t want, if you don’t want the whole bunch. Click OK when you’re done and that’s it.

The files are very well seeded (well over 100 seeds as I write) so it’ll take something like 15 minutes to download the whole 74mb collection, depending on your connection speed. There’s a U Torrent beginners guide here and details on MiniNova Torrent distribution here if you’re considering getting some of your own tracks out and about ultra quick.

I uploaded the Hooked files to Mininova lunch time yesterday, by the time I’d left work five hours later Google had already indexed ’99th Floor Elevators Torrent’ and it was being seeded by users. A day later the package has over 100 seeders which means excellent download speed and availability.

Dec28

How Twitter Got My Blogging Mojo Back

Posted at 1:02 PM • One Comment

I’ve been blogging erratically since 2004 but find it hard to maintain enthusiasm and to find inspiration on a consistent basis. My blogging ‘career’ has kind of been like my music career in as much as I find it a waste of time just blogging/releasing music just for the sake of it. Its nice to at least try and be profound.

The other thing that has got in the way is my nine to five job (I envy those who manage to write full time) and more often than not, other online distractions and social media. I spent a stupid amount of time trying out every social network going, falling out with them, then jumping onto the next band wagon.

Twitter, blogging and networking on steroids

I was trawling my over loaded RSS feed reader of choice (FeedDemon for the desktop, Google Reader for the web and just to make sure Sage, in Firefox) and came across a J. Angelo Racoma blog post on Blog Herald, ‘Don’t Give Excuses, Just Blog’ , in the post Racoma writes, ” The point is that if you’ve been busy, then you shouldn’t have to explain yourself. Just write. Just publish. Just blog.”

And he continues, ” But then the deeper issue is that the fact that you haven’t been blogging lately probably means you’ve lost interest or focus in your blogging. The solution here is to set a schedule and stick to it. Find a good pace, so you won’t have to force yourself to write when you aren’t at your best. If you can publish one good post per week, then do so. Quality trumps quantity. But regularity is important, too.”

Coinciding with reading that I’d just started using Twitter again. I’d signed up for Twitter probably six months ago used it for about three days and jumped ship and dismissed it as another web 2.0 novelty. Until my interest was re-tweaked by all the web chatter on the micro blogging format, seemed just about every big name in the blogosphere was using it and using it daily.

Going back to my forgotten profile I started to write about things I’d found online and things I wanted to share, things that gave me inspiration. I spruced up my background wallpaper using one of the many custom profilers (a new cottage industry not seen since MySpace ‘peaked’ a while back). And bingo. You know what I suddenly got it. My followers blossomed from 5 to 105 (and continues up) and it suddenly became clear that Twitter was like the networking perfect storm. On steroids.

What makes Twitter even more persuasive is the sheer amount of tools, online and desktop apps, WordPress plugins and hyper active community available. There is just no way I can get bored with this one. Its like one of those old hyper-active forums I used to hang out at but more addictive, faster and simpler.

So, with the inspiration I gathered from Twitter, I’m taking part online again and for me Twitter is all about taking part, sharing and grabbing snippets of wisdom and blogging leads. If you’re like one of those kids who used to share mixtapes, Twitter is kind of like that but sharing online inspiration instead. Most of the time. I’m learning to sweep aside those, “I’m just making some toast” type posters!

What I’m Using

I’m still getting into the swing of things and don’t really understand this # hashkey business yet but right now I’m using two desktop Twitter clients, Tweetdeck and Twirl. I can also tweet using my IM aggregator Digsby. I use Twitter Tools and TwitMe on my blog and have been playing around with various web based helpers and add on’s like Mr Tweet, Twitpic, Twitterfeed , TwittyTunes and TwitterCounter.

Twitter is a fantastic marketing tool, a terrific way to spread your message to many people at once, in an instant. But to do that, you need to build a following, you need to “find” other people who will, in turn, find you interesting enough to follow.

Related Resources

Developing Your Twitter Muscles (TwiTip.com)
Construct Your Own Top 10 Must Follow List As It Relates To Your Own Niche (TwiTip.com)
Finding Twitter Stars (KeithHopper.com)
How To Use Twitter For Music Promotion (About.com)
Can Twitter Be Used For Music Promotion (14Sandwiches.com)
7 Reasons Why Everybody In The Music Industry Should Try Twitter (Midemnet Blog)
Musicians Twitter Roadmap (MusicThinkTank.com)
Twitter on Mashable (Mashable.com)

Jul16

Digging Those MySpace Add Ons

Posted at 11:54 PM • One Comment

As you would expect with something as ubiquitous as MySpace (much like with Google) and its huge user base there’s an ever increasing army of unofficial ‘hacks’ adding features to the insanely popular social networking website.

Mashable have covered “feeding the Myspace beast” well so far here…and here
“The list of sites that feed the MySpace beast is growing longer by the day: RockYou, Slide, Photobucket, NooZ, Abazab, Umundo, Kiko Events, Frappr, BuddyPing, Sitepal, Stickam, Bunchball, MyPickList and Nabbr are among the more interesting plays….”

Some other interesting recent additions include MyWhatSpace a PC desktop app that lets you separate your MySpace friends into groups and send messages to all the members of any group at once. Sounds like a promising idea in theory but I couldn’t get the small app to run and load past the whole page of Adsense ads that greets you on the login page. Web 2.0 news site TechCrunch were overly gushing in praise for the app this week nevertheless.

There’s a possibility that the service violates the MySpace terms of service. The company has already shut down two other services (DatingAnyone and SingleStat.us) operating alongside MySpace in recent months.

The other new service affiliating itself as a ‘MySpace add on’ this past week is Supcast, a free service that allows you to send a text, picture or voice message from your phone directly to your MySpace or blog. Supcast joins a growing list of similar services which include Umundo and Abazab.

Trakzor is another neat idea. Simply put, you add some code to your MySpace profile and Trakzor tracks your visitors. The downside is the app only works if other MySpace users have the Trakzor code added to their profile too. This looks like a service that perhaps MySpace should add for marketers as a premium add-on themselves ?

Elsewhere Frappr, the popular Google Maps mash-up have added a neat hack that adds your MySpace user name to Google Maps and gives you a map of all your friends which you can add to your profile. There’s another unofficial MySpace map service here which maps out users by zip code.

MySpace News Coverage
MySpace Hacked! (TMZ.com) 16 July 2006
MySpace Soars, Hitwise Defends Figures (TechWeb.com) July 14 2006
MySpace vs Yahoo! Mail, or Apples vs Oranges (Jeremy Zawodny) July 12 2206
MySpace Not What You Think ( I Speak Of Dreams) July 11 2006
MySpace the 27.4 Billion Pound Gorilla (TechCrunch.com) June 13 2006
The MySpace Economy (MicroPursuasion.com) June 8 2006
Dont Believe the MySpace Hype (CNNMoney.com) June 7 2006
Feeding the MySpace Beast (Mashable.com) April 19 2006
MySpace Business Lesson:Communication (Wisdump.com) April 18 2006
Scenes From the MySpace Backlash (Wired.com) Feb. 27 2006
Users Crowd Into MySpace (BusinessWeek.com) Nov. 15 2005
Why Murdoch Really Bought MySpace? (GigaOm.com) Aug.6 2005

Nov17

Wirehog. P2p Meets Social Networking

Posted at 2:49 PM • No Comments

Wirehog, a new breed of file-sharing program spawned by the creators of Thefacebook, made its official debut this week. The program, which is integrated with the popular social networking website for more than 250 colleges and universities in the USA, facilitates the transfer of files between digital ‘friends’ who can share anything from documents and photos to music and movies.

Unlike popular file-sharing programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus,whose users have been the targets of recent lawsuits and which allow users to search and download among a worldwide network of computers, Wirehog only facilitates downloading between two acquaintances in a fashion more akin to the file-transfer feature on instant messaging programs. Users connect directly to their friends’ computers and can only access files already designated for sharing.

The RIAA and MPAA pursue illegal file sharers by connecting to peer-to-peer networks and searching for specific movie or music files owned by their members. Once a user is found sharing such illegal files, the RIAA or MPAA download the offending file, make a note of the user’s Internet Protocol address and choose whether or not to pursue a lawsuit against the individual.

Jarad Carleton, an IT Industry Analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Palo Alto, California, likened Wirehog to Aimster, a P2P application that piggybacked on AOL’s instant messaging software. “The theory was that you could more safely trade copyrighted material if you were only trading within a trusted community of friends that you choose to include in your contact list,” he told TechNewsWorld.

But if Wirehog takes off like thefacebook.com, which reached the half-million user mark last month after less than nine months online, it could attract the attention of anti-piracy groups which have lobbied and waged legal battles against programs which ‘encourage’ file-sharing.

Chad Tilbury, the director of worldwide Internet enforcement at the Motion Picture Association of America, said a program like Wirehog could run a afoul of copyright laws. “Certainly, we dont really want to group something like this with these mass engines of piracy like Kazaa and others”, Tilbury said. But he said no file-sharing program would necessarily be immune from litigation.

The Beta test of Wirehog is currently only open to Facebook users from Harvard and Stanford. With more expected to be added soon.

Related Reading

Wirehog P2P Melds Social Networks and File-Sharing [TechNewsWorld.com]
Facebook to Feature File Sharing Device [the Dartmouth Online]
Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Networks [OpenP2P.com]
Facebook Creator to Debut Wirehog [the Harvard Crimson]
New P2P Software Could End Illegal Music Squabbles [the Register]
Grouper Beta Review [PCMag.com]
File Sharing Goes Social [Shirky.com]
P2P Routing with Social Networks [Stanford.edu] 19pg pdf