One of the things I used to love about going to Tower Records was the listening booths they had in the store. They would have anywhere from five to ten new albums that you probably had never heard of before. Sure, you went in to buy the new Green Day album, but you ended up checking out some cool hip new indie band at the listening booth and ended up buying two CDs. Although Tower Records is gone thanks to the declines in CD sales, digital music stores have found a way to embrace that same concept through social recommendations online.
From iTunes to Amazon to BoomKat and eMusic, digital music stores have mimicked that element of discovery that I once enjoyed experiencing in a physical music store. Similar to the way the Tower Records booths satisfied my audible appetite, social media is booming in the music industry because it enhances our ability to discover new music. Whether it is hearing new bands on your favorite Pandora station, browsing your artist recommendations on Last.FM, or reading your friends’ music-related Tweets and Facebook status updates, social media allows us to discover more music.
Although there are dozens of social media sites dedicated to improving our music experience, few sites have focused on how social media can enhance our ability of discovering live music. Upcoming.org and GetDarker.com are two sites with unique ideas that will pave the path for future use of social media and music.
Created by Yahoo!, Upcoming.org allows you to easily find which of your favorite bands or artists are coming to your town. After creating a Yahoo! account, the site can link up to your Pandora, Last.FM, or iTunes accounts. Next, the site scans your account(s) to see which artists you have been playing lately. Once it finds your artists, you can “add” them to your Yahoo! account. Now anytime one of those artists is coming into town, you will be notified by email. Thanks to Upcoming.org, missing your favorite band is out of the question.
While getting notified about your favorite artists coming to town is great, what if you could see a live performance from your computer in real time? Well now you can! Although few artists have yet to embrace this tactic, it has gained popularity in the dubstep music scene. For example, every Tuesday DJ Darkside hosts an event on his website called Get Darker TV. A video stream is set up on the site, and you can see and hear the DJs and producers perform live. If you miss a performance, you can stream the set from their website or download it from iTunes in the form of a podcast -- there’s no way for you to miss it. It’s a great way to discover new up-and-coming DJs, and see more famous producers in their prime.
Upcoming.org and Get Darker TV are two examples of a fresh new way to use social media to discover new music. Each year, more and more social media services are emerging that help make discovering and listening to music more social. First it was peer-to-peer services like Napster, then it was streaming internet radio, and now it’s about social music. As our appetite for discovery grows, so will our thirst for innovation in social media and music.