ASHLEY TISDALE AND TWITTER

Multiple press outlets picked up a piece about the campaign for Ashley Tisdale’s new album “Guilty Pleasure”. I’ve been working on the music side of Ashley’s campaign since her first album in 2006. She is hard working, and cares about her fans! One of the highlights of this campaign has been her use of Twitter. Ashley took to it right away and she understands how important it is to communicate direct.

The key is it’s all her. And that’s why her Twittering is generating lots of buzz and traffic to her site and store! Even a star as big as Ashley needs to understand the first key principle for successful twittering - authenticity.

This article from Reuters poked a little fun at her Tweets, and it somewhat diluted my point about the importance of Ashley’s’ communication with her fans:

“Tisdale is an especially avid Twitterer, with more than 750,000 followers.

“She’s very protective of it in terms of it sounding authentic,” according to Warner Bros. senior VP of new media Jeremy Welt. “There have been a couple of times where we’ve said to her, ‘Hey, why don’t you mention so-and-so?’ and she’s told us, ‘I wouldn’t say that.’” (What would she say? One recent Tweet read, “Happy fathers day!!! Goin to dinner with my family and the most amazing dad ever! I love you daddy!”)”

You may not see the connection in Ashley Tisdale twittering “happy fathers day”, but her 940,000 followers do. The series of seemingly simple tweets provide basic insights into her life (She’s subtly letting her fans know family is important to her), and it all adds up to a lot for her fans. They peak into the everyday activity. You don’t see overloaded shameless promo, or re-purposed press releases. It is exactly this type of communication that makes it Authentic, and why Twitter itself has grown so fast.

Check out the full interview here:

4 REASONS I’M GIVING UP THE NOKIA 5800 FOR MY IPHONE

The Nokia 5800 is more powerful than the Iphone, but it’s trapped by it’s software:

1.) NOKIA’S SYMBIAN TOUCH SCREEN OS DOESNT COME CLOSE TO THE IPHONE

It’s way to complicated and looks and feels as is if it wasn’t designed for a touch screen phone.

2.) TOUCH SCREEN RESPONSE IS “JERKY” NOT “SMOOTH”

You’ll miss the elegance and responsiveness of the Iphone. I quickly learned the “feel” of a touch screen counts as much as the hardware itself.

3.) MUSIC PLAYER ACTS LIKE A PHONE NOT A MUSIC DEVICE

The Iphone can legitimately be your music device. Nokia has some work to do with the music part of the 5800 before you can ditch your ipod and make this your main portable music device.

4.) NOKIA WEB BROWSER IS TO HARD TO USE

With the 5800, you’ll feel like the web and the phone weren’t meant to work together. I am still mystified at parts of the browser interface. Several steps are required to do basic browsing.

Main take away - It’s the software that matters! When you see the potential of powerful hardware and an open ecosystem, you wonder how Apple gets away with providing a closed ecosystem - a great mobile OS. Working outside the iphone/itunes ecosystem was a promise that excited me, but didn’t deliver. After two months of use, the basic software problems overshadow the 5800‘s potential.

Software trumps hardware, closed can trump open if the experience is amazing! The Nokia 5800 is much a more powerful phone, with open standards, yet not as desirable as the iphone because it is locked in by its os.

7 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE “REACHING FANS” PANEL AT SF MUSIC TECH

I had a great time at the SF Music Tech summit today. My panel was entitled “Reaching Fans” with Sean, Dave, Pano, Aaron, and Dave.

Thanks to Brian for a great day! Here is a recap of some of the key points I wanted to discuss:

We are past the tool phase - and into the “Romance the Fan” era

There are than enough tools to reach fans, no matter how advanced or basic. Know how to use them to communicate your passion, listen back, and your fan base will grow!

Your Music is the most important asset and the best way to “Reach Fans”. 

Not all Artist’s are meant to connect to Fans all the time.

Fans are going to seek what they want, when they want it - if your going to connect to them, be preapred for this!

You dont only have to give it away - selling great products from your site IS a way to connect with your Fans.

Many artists think they’re connecting to their Fans but are just pushing info out. There is a difference.

Avoid communication and data black holes - make sure your aware of what everyone else on your team is doing with your Fans. You need someone to QB your direct to Fan strategy across all areas.

The other panelists made some great points, couldnt write them all down. Search twitter #sfmusictech and youll get the best recap of the day!

GREEN DAY QR CODES COMING TO YOU!

Get out your mobile phone, and check out the first in a limited edition series of QR code pieces we made for Green Day’s new album 21st Century Breakdown, in stores FRIDAY MAY 15th!

Green Day QR Code
 
This is the start of several QR code experiments were trying and you can find the Green Day Codes out and about in the US in the next few days. Thanks to David Harper at Delivr for masking this happen! You’ll need a QR code reader for your phone to try this - get a reader in the iphone app store (neo reader is a good free one), if you have a nokia phone, you probably already have a reader in your appp folder, or go here to get one for most other devices!

6 REASONS THE NOKIA 5800 IS BETTER THAN THE IPHONE 3G:

1.) OPEN ECOSYSTEM - phone not tied nokia software
2.) BETTER SCREEN RESOLUTION. Much brighter and crisp plus a 3.2 MEGAPIXEL VIDEOPHONE - with great resolution and camera like display
3.) WIRELESS FILE TRANSFER VIA BLUETOOTH. Youll get addicted to moving files this way
4.) DRAG AND DROP mp3’s from desktop to phone library
5.) BETTER BATTERY LIFE
6.) THREE BUTTONS ARE BETER THAN ONE! It’s a nice concept for the iphone,  but its a much better phone having the flexibility of a few more real buttons, to compliment the touch screen interface.

These things mean alot, and i was suprised at how unwilling I was to give these things up once I was used to the expereince, Nokia truly has made some improvements to the “super music touch phone experience”.

Once you get past manually setting up the 5800 to connect, you have a lot of flexibility to move files and music around. I love just draging my files from my imac to the 5800 via bluetooth! Slower, but so slick moving music with no wires! And having a great video phone in the age of you tube is a not acceptable iphone. 

COMES WITH MUSIC
The 5800 is a “”comes with music” phone, but Comes with music is not yet available in the US, so I focus on core phone feature set. Unless the phone and core experience are amazing, around a phone people really want, I don’t think Comes with Music can be a game changer.

So can the Nokia 5800 stand a chance against the iphone? Not yet…

 

 

MAVERICK RECORDS TOP 10 ARTIST PLAYLIST

I spent five years running new media for Maverick Records from 1999-2004. It was a time of transition where new media was gaining steam and the labels were taking heat. I rember fighting with people alot to do the right thing.

While new media was my focus, we put out some great music too! These Maverick Artists make a great mix, with a thread of quality throughout. We had the right concepts to break them on-line but the social infrastructure of web 2.0 and the blogosphere wasn’t quite in place. Some of these songs and bands should have been bigger, and i can see them actually doing better today with more place to get the word out!


BEST OF MAVERICK RECORD PLAYLST

LIGHTS TALKS FACEBOOK CONNECT, TWITTER!

You saw my post about how cool LIGHTS was at SXSW. Ill let her speak for herself! Follow her @ http://twitter.com/lightsnoise

LIGHTS' VIDEO BLOG 24

LIGHTS EVOLVES HER ARTIST SITE WITH FACEBOOK CONNECT!

The Facebook party is winding down, and LIGHTS blew away an always tough industry crowd. It was hard to resist her energy, even if you missed the announcement that LIGHTS launched what could be the first ever artist site using facebook connect.

It was more than an industry showcase! Convincing Artist’s to take a chance on new technology can be tough (thats a big part of my job!). They need to have an understanding of where things are going to truly apply new ideas to their art. Its often a riskier proposition than people realize. But when an Artist has a vision for new music AND new media - you can create the perfect storm of innovation the music business needs.

The “Connect” technology is amazing - and it has that feel good moment when you log into LIGHT’S site with your facebook account. But it never would have happened if the Artist didn’t have a strong enough vision for herself to try something new.

LIGHTS is the future, as much as facebook connect is the future!

Thanks to LIGHTS, Ethan Kaplan, and Raquel and Dave at Facebook, for making the show, the art, and the tech happen! When they work together, things evolve.

LIGHTS PERFORMS AT SXSW FACEBOOK PARTY

While SXSW is mostly know for music, I’ve found the interactive portion is much more exciting. It is the ultimate in music and social networking, as everyone here is twittering, blogging. It’s the only time all year, I fell like I can’t keep up with it all! There are so many people here using leading edge social technologies that it gives you a taste of what it will be like if they catch on. SXSW interactive was the first place i discovered Twitter several years ago - and it only got me excited because everyone here used it - so you got a taste of what it COULD be. So more than just the panels, it’s a chance to be a part of a hyper connected future, while enjoying some good music.

This year, “LIGHTS”, one of my favorite artists on Warner Bros, is playing at the invite only Facebook party. It will be a great party, and a great show, so if your down at sxsw, hit me via twitter, and I’ll see what I can do to get you in.

www.facebook.com/lights

NOKIA MUSIC EVENT AND WHY IT MATTERS!

Not much coverage in the US music press about the nokia muisc event today.
It wasn’t groundbreaking but it was siginigcant:

1.) Three new music phones - any company the size of Nokia producing cool phones with an attempt to monetize music is a big deal. The phones are cool!. Music service may need some work, but its a great start.

2.) Nokia is Planning a Virtual Music Store in India - india is a very tough market to “Sell” music in, so again when someone like Nokia is opening any type of Music store - it’s is a good sign. Nokia launched a similar service in UK and got a good response.

And where will “Comes With Music” launch next? If your an iphone user, stay tuned for the 5800 review, and see what your missing!




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