Five Favorite Things
This is tough because I'm pretty sure I've said "this thing will change my life" at least 365 times this year. To narrow it down, I'm going to stay topical and list ideas/tools that I think have tremendous potential to help indie musicians help themselves going forward. There are plenty more, but these just came to mind first:
Twitter (Makes it incredibly easy to communicate with fans and show your human side)
Sprout (Makes it incredibly easy to build interactive websites)
Tumblr (Makes it incredibly easy to blog - great for something like a tour diary)
Soundcloud (Makes it incredibly easy to send and collaborate on songs)
Radiohead Video Remix (I just think this idea is inspiring - imagine what other bands could do with an idea like this!)
The Past/The Future
It has been an exciting past couple of months for Artists House. Artists House already has a wealth of information on the website geared towards helping musicians and music entrepreneurs succeed, but this fall we started using social media so that Artists House could be more of a conversation rather than just a broadcast. We started the Artists House blog, are active on most of the social networking sites, and love twitter. So far, we have been very well-received into the music community, and the conversation has been exploding!
Going into the future, we have plenty of ideas. After the new year, we will really be focusing on the conversational elements. We hope to have live streaming video Q&A's (with the AH team as well as with music industry professionals), and we'd like to facilitate Artists House community meetups in various cities throughout the country (dare I say world?). The idea being that online tools and communities are fantastic, but the real potential for growth lies in developing offline relationships.
About Artists House Music
Artists House Music is a non-profit organization funded by the Herb Alpert Foundation. Our website is a free, online resource to guide musicians and music entrepreneurs through the challenges and opportunities found throughout the music industry.
Our main database of musician resources is at: http://www.artistshousemusic.org where you can find thousands of interviews with musicians, music entrepreneurs, and music professionals alike giving their insights and advice.
Our blog is found at http://artistshousemusic.tumblr.com and is a way to connect with the community and get involved in the conversation. Together, we try to analyze the latest music business trends, review new online music tools, and offer thought-provoking ideas and practical advice for musicians.
We are tearing it up on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/artistshouse. We have a daily stream of links to fantastic music articles that we find from all over the internet. It's also the best place to interact with us immediately. It's great to get our community's insights and feedback on what is going on in the music world.
