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I don’t know about you, but I think we all find the sheer volume of information – and music – available on the Internet mind boggling. Some of it is good, but unfortunately the majority of it is bad. This is a catch 22 for up and coming artists. On one hand you have they playing field leveled so that you can compete online against the major label acts (with millions being spent on marketing), but on the other hand you now have millions of other artists (just like you) all struggling to reach a limited number of fans online. Because of these pressures, a good online strategy is now a requirement for any musician who hopes to make a career out of their craft.

A favorite book of mine that helps sort out what is happening to those of us on “information overload” in the Internet Age is Steve Johnson’s book, Interface Culture. The author writes about the role of social networking media in the dissemination of knowledge both pre and post Google. I recommend this read to anyone looking to learn more about how people use and share information online.

Currently there are over thirteen million active artist accounts on MySpace (US only) and in 2009 $3.4 billion dollars (that is a ton of money!) were spent on independent music in the United States alone. The numbers do not take into account the underground or unregistered transactions that occur in the music industry nor the countless other artists around the world who are not on MySpace. In addition, as the price of home recording equipment continues to decline, the number of people creating and marketing music will continue to increase. This creates an ever-expanding supply of new artists, each of which will need increasingly more marketing to be heard.

As a result of these market pressures, independent artists are now spending more time on social networks, email accounts and giving their songs away for free than they are creating their music. On the other side, the music consumer is facing thousands of websites and millions of songs to choose from and is spending their time browsing more text, email and free streams with no way of filtering out the content they are interested in. These fans want a personal connection with the artist, but are instead subject to banner ads, pop ups and viruses associated with the consumption of music. Both the independent artist and fans are wasting their time, energy and money on everything but the music. This is becoming an increasingly large problem…

There are thousands of social networks and platforms online, but how do you choose the right one? Should you go with a larger more broad network like Facebook, Myspace or Twitter? Or should you use a more niche focused network like bandcamp?  Should you join all of these networks? How much time should be spent on each and what is the focus? The answers to these questions can quickly spiral out of control and in the end you will probably be left with more questions then you started with.

One solution is Audimated.com (which we endorse) which was built specifically to solve this problem. How does Audimated solve this? In its simplest form Audimated musicians only have to join one network (Audimated.com) and let their fans (who are on multiple networks) spread the message on their behalf. In this way, the artists can stay focused on their music (thats the goal right?) and let the fans be the sales force online.

Why is this approach unique?

Together Audimated and independent artists like you, can solve this problem by revolutionizing the independent music industry with a new model for compensating artists and distributing music. Both artists and fans are rewarded for creating and sharing the music respectively. Here is a little bit more on how it works.

This model should prove as an music overload “filter.” Music recommendations come from the fans, and not from the artists “blasting” would be fans asking for a listen. Good music will eventually “float to the top” of the Audimated charts and browse features and be passed along by interested fans (this is also how the ebay and amazon models roughly work) . Because fans on Audimated are actually there for the music (as opposed to the random old man or robot profile on myspace), you know that your music is being heard and spread by people who are actually interested in the music.

Check it out. As a musician and a fan, I think we need all the help we can get finding good music and getting the word out there.

Deborah@Audimated.com