Nick Edelstein

Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Creative Twitter Hurdles Simfy on FB

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Creative Commons guidant les contributeurs

Some very interesting things happened online today.Twitter launched a photo sharing service. Simfy beat Spotify to Facebook. Facebook’s behavior re: Pages brought some artists to reconsider their methods of fan interaction. Creative Commons is now on YouTube. Overall it was a great day of progress, introspection and optomism.

The Twitter photo sharing thing doesn’t suprise me, honestly. NPR did an exposé on Twitpic’s Terms and Conditions clause recently, which generated a bit of negative buzz. Even Ellen DeGeneres announced she would never TwitPic again. So naturally Twitter has seized an opportunity to play hero. More suprising is Simfy! Talk about the underdog. Nobody predicted this: German music streaming service Simfy launched their Facebook player just a week after news broke that Spotify was working on FB integration. Awesome.

So, is Facebook commandeering mid-level artists’ Pages? Some successful, non-major-label artists such as Zoe Keating noticed their Pages have been reclassified (not replaced) as “Community Pages.” The official status they previously held has now been granted to a new, Wikipedia-fed Page. While it’s not clear whether the Wiki Pages were auto-generated or made by FB staff, this mystery doesn’t stop at reclassification. When I type “Zoe Keating” into the search bar, her Page doesn’t even show up! That’s right. When I do a blanket search for her name, select “show all results” and narrow the search to Pages, it does not appear. Since it’s been a few hours, this is unlikely due to propagation delays. Weird. Unsettling.
Update: Keating’s Page was restored to “Official” status hours later, after hundreds of emails and tweets and comments had been published. Other affected artists are still struggling. Luckily this did not affect any of the Pages owned by NESS Records.

In other / better news, the creative commons license - first discovered by this artist via the European community Tribe Of Noise – has now become so mainstream that YouTube offers it as an alternative to standard copyright. YouTube announced today that it now supports Creative Commons licenses and launched a huge library of 10,000 CC videos (read the official press release here). Awesome, yes. In no way do I wish to diminish the awesomeness. However, this illustrates one HUGE way that major-label artists, major news orgs, etc. will be and have always been separated from us independants. Those 10,000 videos in the library. They are from major networks. Part of the launch, the coverage, the hype. With me? No? Look at iTunes: major artists get iTunes Exclusives and other special extras. Major artists get first crack at major breakthroughs in social media and tech. Dave Matthews had a custom Page and vanity URL before any indie artist, for example. This will forever be a hurdle that indie artists attempt to jump.

I fondly remember the days when being on iTunes was impressive. It was brand new … most people still didn’t have iPods … smartphones were only found in the hands of businessmen. Telling people your music was on iTunes gave you instant street cred and often times, before you could finish uttering the sentence, you’d converted strangers into fans. Now, everyone and their brother has their music on iTunes. Who knows if an opportunity like that will present itself again?

… now, who doesn’t wanna watch Bill Cosby playing piano on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno?!? http://bit.ly/cosbyonleno

Tags: Bill Cosby, Creative Commons, facebook, itunes, Jay Leno, piano, player, Simfy, Spotify, streaming, The Grooves, The Tonight Show, tribe of noise, twitter, video, YouTube, Zoe Keating
Posted in Press | No Comments »

Choose Our Setlist for Shure

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

That’s right kids, we wanna know which song is your fave. We have five planned already but need a sixth, and it’s gonna be your Fan Favorite. Plus, we’re letting you decide the order! We’ll have 30 minutes to wow the judges at Nashville’s Wildhorse Saloon (this Tuesday, January 25^th) and want to open with the song that got us this far – “Foolin’ Yourself.” The rest is up to you! Leave a reply, tweet, Facebook post – whichever platform you fancy most. Click on a song title to stream it free via Bandcamp:

- Foolin’ Yourself

- Collusion Collision

- Daphne

- Tripping

- Steal Me

- Fan Favorite

What will the order be?!? Check back in a couple days to find out plus discover which song was chosen for slot #6 ~Nick, Aaron, Andy, Bryan, Bill and Tim a.k.a. Nick and The Grooves

PS: Thanks to Live Fix for being interested and inspiring creativity

Tags: Bandcamp, facebook, giveitvoice, hevenstone, Nashville Tennessee, Shure, sm58, twitter, Wildhorse Saloon
Posted in Tour Diary | 2 Comments »

Countdown 2 Shure

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

It’s 1/11, and we are officially 2 weeks away from the Shure “Give It Voice Tour” regional finals in Nashville, TN. It is also the 2nd day of “snowpocalypse” here in Atlanta. I am seeing signs of cabin fever in a few of my friends’ Facebook updates, but none of that here! Plenty of indoor chores for me on the ole’ PC. Especially in getting ready for this Shure concert.

Big concerts are a great excuse to invest capitol in sprucing-up the band’s appearance. What better way to do that than with a custom bass drum head, right? Aaron certainly agreed The company we chose is Vintage Logos and they’ve worked with all types of clients – Indie to Major to GRAMMY winners like Train.

Here’s the design, featuring our new logo from Andrew Reifman:

Tags: Aaron, apple, atlanta, facebook, giveitvoice, headphone, iPhone, ipod, music, Nashville, redgorilla, Shure, tour
Posted in Tour Diary | No Comments »

End Game: Tough Choices

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Those of you who are my fans on Facebook know I enjoy playing chess. When I was a kid my dad schooled me in two games: chess and poker. I believe his goal was teaching me to choose wisely – to plan ahead and weigh the consequences of my actions regardless how small or insignificant they may seem in the present moment.
Chess – like Life – gets tougher as you progress and in a sneaky fashion; that rogue pawn seems harmless until you realize it blocks your only escape route.
In the beginning there are many choices that appear fairly simple; yes/no scenarios such as whether or not to eat, brush teeth, tie shoes, etc. As we grow older we begin to see consequences: weight, cavities, tripping We also make room for bigger decisions: “College? Grad school? Marriage?” We size-up our options and plan our future. We have slightly fewer choices – less pieces on the board – and begin to feel the weight of our opponent’s offense. The impending doom of each mistep can be stifling and so we begin to customize a support system of family and friends, but what happens in the End when we have less to lean on?
Ever since I was a boy, I always struggled with my End Game. I used to find this odd because there are [usually] significantly less chess pieces on the board at the End. Closing the deal is supposed to be the easy part, right? Wrong.
The key to a strong End Game is perspective. It isn’t about the fewer number of pieces onboard, but the greater number of possibilities. Being able to see the space … working dozens of moves ahead to find the safest outcome, avoiding the most hazards …
The more space we have in our lives, the more freedom we have to control our own destiny, the more responsibility each choice carries. When we enter the grown-up world of mortages and marriage, do we invest all our dollars in stocks and bonds, or spend some on entertainment and wardrobe? Don’t have coupons? Suddenly the brands of foods and drinks you cherished as a kid no longer appeal, especially if they’re not on sale. But financial planning is only the tip of the iceberg. The End Game layout is set up during earlier stages of play, which are somewhat unpredictable due to the humanity of our opponent. In fact, we may not even know we’re playing the End Game until they cry “checkmate!”
Such is Life! Nobody can predict the future or plan for the curve balls. So do we play defensively and go for a safe bet? Or do we raise the stakes and follow our dreams? Maybe a little of both? What if Life decides to re-raise, trade queens, and employ a secret weapon? When, if ever, do we recourse and initiate the proverbial “backup plan?” The more “tied down” we become in our responsible adult lives, the less uncertainty we feel but it’s only an illusion. Every choice we make plays a role in our End Game. Winning in Life may involve giving up some seemingly important pieces, but if you’re willing to take that risk, the payoff can be really sweet.