MySpace, the once illustrious and infamous website that ushered in a new era of social networking amongst the people of planet earth, and giving bands and artists a voice, has quickly become the bane of its own existence due to the free market of musicians flooding in and taking advantage of a site that allows free hosting for their music, pictures, bio, email lists
the works. With many other social networking sites popping up, like Facebook or Twitter, and for tailored-to-artist sites like Reverbnation and Signmeto.com, it was inevitable that someone else would come up with a better, more refined way to host social networking for artists, and force Tom to bring his A-game for individual people to stick around. Sadly, he has not.
With that being said, I have decided it was time to commit MySpace suicide. Let me preface that statement by mentioning I have never had a personal MySpace page, only the one that was operated under the band I play in. And it is this band page I speak of that is being used as the example. I considered at one brief moment in time, in creating a personal account for myself on MySpace long ago, but after taking over our bands MySpace page, I could see that the lack of quality control, terrible coding issues that are easily exploited, page crashes, terrible search engine and preferences (if you have over 5,000 friends, forget it!) and the constant and relentless spamming from glory hounds (i.e. wanna-be bands, actors, comedians, models) that it would be a terrible mistake in me doing so.
Day after day, our band receives 20-30 messages and/or comments on average from other bands or artists asking us (in this case, me since I run it) to Check out our new single on iTunes!, Vote for us so we can get signed to Roadrunner!, New songs posted on our page, let us know what you think!, Come to our show!, Join our mailing list!, in a nut shell, its just a whole lot of LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! from artist/bands with no notability and with no ambition to even really try, because its really easy to be a snake oil salesman when all you have to do is make a few mouse clicks to throw your sales pitch. Sadly, I fell victim to this for several years myself after taking over our page, but have grown a conscience over the last year, and feel it is time to repent for my cyber-sins.
Let us look at it from another perspective
within the last two years we have only had ten, yes that is correct
TEN actual peoplesend friend requests to us on MySpace. We have however, had literally hundreds and hundreds of friend requests from bands/artists. Some of these would also be considered repeat offenders, where they have been denied a friend request or had their accounts revoked. Of these bands, I have never heard of 99% of them that send these friend requests, and the kicker is, Im 99% sure they have never heard of us either! From rappers, folk artist, indie artists, comedians, actors, Hooters models, you name it
they just keep coming in. How are they doing it? They are using a 3rd party software known as a bot that seeks out someones friends list and automatically downloads those contacts and sends the friend request to their inbox. The end result is they acquire another fan when someone reluctantly clicks the approve button, regardless if that person or band has even heard of the band making the request, thus giving them a false statistical ranking for fans. Not to mention, how much more impersonal can it get? Does anyone actually think bands have that much time on their hands to scour MySpace and manually submit friend requests? That would be a cumbersome process to say the least, and that isnt how it works. Think of it from the receiving end, the idea that some random band sends a friend request to you, could make one think (if they dont have two brain cells to rub together) that, hey, these guys sound pretty good, and want to be MY friend? KILLER!? no, no, no you half-witted dirt bag, they dont want to be your friend, they just want you as a statistic to make themselves look larger and more popular than they really are, oh yes, and your email address so they can harass you relentlessly about their amateur, self-imposed accolades and propaganda from the progress of their DIY album, to the battle of the bands that is 10 states away that they want you to vote for them and attend.
As actual people drop off MySpace at record breaking speeds, and move over to more conventional, and less obtrusive & annoying social networking sites, that only leaves one particular customer left hanging around on MySpace
the bands themselves. What makes this even more laughable, is that most bands will approve friendships from other bands that send request on the sole purpose to add to their own fan counts and then steal that said bands fan base contact info with their own bot program resulting in them spamming the ever living shit out of their circle of people/bands as well! Rinse and repeat
It is an endless circle that just wont break, and has become, for lack of a better term, MySpace cannibalism. How the music industry even sees the relevance in this social media platform still blows my mind, as its just a bunch of bands from all walks of life, beating the hell out of each other and vying for one anothers fans, when there are actually no real fans even using that site anymore! Just BANDS!!! Oh, the irony
If MySpace was a venue, then it would mean that everyone would be on stage, and no one would be in the audience. Priceless.
Due to the erroneous efforts of the music industry, more specifically record labels and/or A&R reps still clinging desperately to the notion that fans and/or friends on a bands MySpace page (or even Facebook page) equates to potential or possible future sales, and completely becoming lazy and complacent with finding quality over quantity, I felt it was time to take a stand and prove this to be a pipe dream on theirs AND the bands part that consol this fruitless model. Rather than outright delete our bands account in protest, then pour gasoline on myself and strike a match, I felt I would have some fun with it while the site still exists, especially since MySpace got smart and added a few new features to make things a bit more exciting for my cause
. Unbeknown to them.
I dont even log on to our MySpace page except to clean out the closet so to speak. I often laugh manically like a James Bond villain, holding my cat in the crook of my left arm, occasionally stroking her fine soft fur as I slowly cursor over the deny" button for friend requests from other bands, and then mark them as Spam before moving onto to clicking ignore.
As spam-mail pours in from all these artists and glory hounds, I will without hesitation, open the option to Remove Friend and then proceed to delete the email message without even reading it. The only time I even look at the email before following these steps, is if happens to mention MY band somehow and looks legitimately like a message to us
but that rarely happens, if not all. Ironically, after months of doing this, we still havent dipped below 10,000 friends. My goal is to actually decrease our friend count below that mark by the end of the year, just to see if its possible.
Next, I follow pretty much the same process with comment approvals, except I do one thing different
I send advertising rates to the prospective artist and/or band. This is the one I have the most fun with - I will politely tell them that I had denied their comment as spam, but for future reference, if they wish to post their advertisements on our page via our comments section, I would be more than happy to support their endeavors if they are willing to pay for the advertising space. I then supply a rate chart with a sliding scale depending on the size of their advertisement, and how long they would like it displayed on our page, along with my Paypal account info so they know where they can submit payment. This normally results in a very angry and venomous reply from the artist/band in question, or them removing us as their friend. Either way, I dont care
I was being honest and fair, right?
Now, once again, our page still exists since most people, and the industry use MySpace as a quick go to page to do their research on artists, as futile as it may be. However, I am not completely cold and callous, nor without a kind bone in my body. Actual people, or bands that we look up to or are friends with locally or nationally that are reading this can breathe a sigh of relief, as they will always be on our friends list, if that really matters.
So yes, we have a Facebook page, but let me point out the difference in how it is to MySpace. This is not a vote of favoritism or a sales pitch on why Facebook is better, but just an example and the hard facts of why it is more realistic and reliable source for bands to use when it comes to free.
1. The one thing that Facebook has done well in is that they keep Bands and individual users/people separated. Bands cannot create a personal page. Some bands do, but most have them removed by Facebook eventually. A bands fan page has limitation compared to a personal page, and I believe this was done on purpose to keep said bands from using Facebook for spamming and other abusive, snake-oil salesmen tactics. Bands are forced to keep it real, yo!
2. Bands fan pages cannot friend, become a fan or even like another bands fan page or discussion group. Only individual people who have an account on Facebook can do so. We have roughly over 1,000 on Facebook and over 10,000 on MySpace, so statistically speaking, if we use this as an example, it is highly plausible that on any given artists MySpace page, it would be a safe guess that 10% or less of a bands fans/friends are actual or potential fans, the other 90% are other bands. That is a huge significance in actual fans that might have purchasing power - Talk about bloated numbers!
3. Although there are a few Bot programs that have been developed to help garner bands more likes on Facebook via finding exploits in their coded database, much like on MySpace, most of them are quickly thwarted by Facebook, or band accounts that are found to be using such software, have their fan pages removed. So in a nut shell, even though it is possible, it is far more difficult for bands to develop completely false statistical numbers. Facebook has also went as far as offering paid advertising for artists who feel they want to fairly and legitimately increase their fan base, and guess what
it works, and works well, that is of course, if you are willing to spend the coin. Most bands wont, but those that do, reap the benefits in increasing their fans significantly. Also, as a more cost effective method, a band can ask their fans to suggest them to other friends to like them, although this often proves to be a challenge, it sometimes returns results if the band has a loyal fan base. Bottom line a band cannot push themselves onto potential fans through spamming methods, they either have to buy advertising, or have their current fan base act as a their street team. This forces the band to have to prove their notability and creditability. I like it. I like it a lot.
4. If you have a personal page, you need not worry about thousands of bands contacting you to become a fan or liking their page due to the restrictions above. However, you might see your friends attempting to swindle you into checking out their buddys band, or a band they are a fan of by sending you a suggestion. This cuts down on the potential spam, and keeps it to a dull roar to where you can take the time to actually check out said band
or click ignore. Pretty simple, right? Otherwise, you might see a small advertisement on the right of your screen, and once again, you are in control and can choose to investigate, or ignore.
What this boils down to is that it is far more difficult for artists to not only raise their ranking with false positives from passive individuals who will click on a fan or friend request without any form of research or investigation, because after all, its just a mouse click, what could possibly happen? Well, if your on MySpace, you already know what could happen. Also, it keeps it to actual PEOPLE being a fan of the band, not other bands. Once again, just keeping it real!
Regardless of all this banter, for myself, I can attest that we actually have a REAL and official website, a real .com domain, and a place that has existed before all of these social networking sites and will probably continue to exist after all sites go away. The very same content you can find on Facebook, MySpace, Reverbnation ect. ect. can be found on our actual website
without the false statistics and self glorifying propaganda of course. It also includes an official forum for fans to hang out and discuss the band, and a real mailing list that you can sign up on, and most importantly... a store to buy the latest merchandise! And one other thing about it, it is maintained far more often than the social network sites and is THE place to visit if you want to contact the band directly.
In the meantime, Ill keep slicing the MySpace wrist with a butter knife, if for nothing else but the pure entertainment value.
