Forget Major Labels: You Want To Be Signed With Major Web Media
On Sunday The Huffington Post was purchased by AOL for around $300 million dollars in a move for a bigger market share of the web for both parties.
AOL is looking to become a serious web media player and has been on a content acquisition spree recently acquiring the technology blog network TechCrunch, Thing Labs, Brizzly and most recently About.me.
The Huffington Post will expand their influence and take their growing empire to a more global and a more local audience.
All this got me to thinking that the promise of Major Labels in years gone by was that they had the power to get you to a broader audience. They did this through traditional routes: radio, tv, movies etc. But on the internet, where we have seen so many Major Labels fail utterly at everything, they can give musicians nothing more than deep pockets and connections. Yet FANS, the one thing that musicians need the most, they can’t offer you.
Now a major web media company like AOL/Huffington Post, could offer you a lot of exposure for your music. With multiple blogs, sites, pages, exposures, audiences, a major web media company would be able to get your music to the right group of potential fans for sure.
Now I realize AOL/HuffPo aren’t in the game of signing artists but I’m simply trying to shift your thinking so that maybe instead of trying to befriend the old guard, you should start looking at where the new gate keepers hang out and devise a plan to get signed/noticed by them.
All hail AOL’s new Queen and Editor In Chief of all AOL content Arianna Huffington!
Music Consciousness
Voyno
Category: Music Business Commentary, Social Media
An interesting contribution to the debate about getting the industry working again. What I’m wondering is, how does it turn into a living for musicians? Getting exposure is great of course, but if no one buys your music, you still need to find a way to turn that exposure into money.
I guess maybe in this model, musicians could see themselves as ‘content providers’ and get paid directly from AOL or whoever for getting people to their sites.
Hmmm, I feel a blog post coming on…
Good call. Money and exposure don’t always go together, but I think a smart company like HuffPo/AOL could get something interesting going.
Thanks for your thoughts!
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