// March 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p
p2pnet view Music | P2P:- “Arguably”, says p2pnet regular and frequent poster Robert, “my favourite artist, Matthew Good (right) has decided to improve the connection with his fans”. Matthew’s had a blog since the Matthew Good Band days and “for a lengthy period had users sign up, for free, and they were permitted to comment on articles Matt and other contributers wrote”, says Robert. This, he says,” resulted in great interaction with fans”, but “unfortunately also added a lot of unnecessary stress”. The situation peaked with the removal of comments for almost a year. “Only recently and on select postings have comments been permitted” says Robertgoing on > > > Unfortunately, often the post and comments are removed, as some people just show up to stir up trouble. After much thinking and research, Matt has decided to change his website. He realizes the value of connecting with fans, but how does one manage to connect with fans, add features for social interaction, and keep the bullshit to a minimum? Here’s how… Matt has decided to restructure his site. The blog will remain, with the return of guest contributers and a new paid membership area will added. Paid membership areas never sit well with people, however one should really think about the pros and cons of this concept. I hope this article helps people understand how an artist can use paid memberships to connect with fans, offer interaction between artists and fans and fans amongst themselves, all while reducing the headaches associated with allowing people to comment. For the paid members, videos will appear, one or two per week. The videos will include writing process, and Q&A. Many bands do Q&A, but I haven’t heard of any sharing the writing process. It will appear like a story, one might describe roadblocks and another might cover the breakthrough of said roadblock. The cool part? Fans can comment and even give suggestions and fans feel a stronger connection through the artist simply sharing their experiences with fans. In addition to videos there will be a forum. Forums are clearly not new to websites right? Well this forum includes Soundcheck parties. I don’t mean go and listen to the band tune their guitars, I mean a lottery where paid members can enter and when there is a concert in their area, can listen to the soundcheck, then ask questions, have things signed, learn about what goes into a show, etc. Soundcheck parties engage fans in the live experience, while also sharing the knowledge of what goes into a live show. What about the recording process? There will be lotteries for a few members to have the chance to experience a day in the recording process. Dubbed Listening Party, a few members will get the chance to sit in a real recording studio and watch how it all goes down, which can be very interesting and helpful for up and coming bands, as well as a dream come true for die-hard fans. So we have videos detailing the writing process, Q&A, chances at Soundcheck Parties and Listening Parties, so what else is there? A Social Media section where paid members can connect with one another, as they already have a common connection, Matthew Good. This page will enable members to post a little something about themselves, such as new to a city and looking to meet other fans or they have a band and wish to promote it to other fans, or their photography. With the social media page, fans have a twitter-sized little description section followed by a URL field and this can include “Hey I saw this great story from The Guardian …” and post the link, or “I saw this amazing sunset …” and post the link to their flickr page. It is open to the members to see and given Matt is committed to interacting with his fans, he too will be viewing these posts and following links where he’s interested. So we have an opportunity for fans to share things they like with other fans and even the artist themselves! On the subject of fans connecting, Matt says: “I can’t count how many people whom have met, because, you know, of that shared connection of being a fan. So, you have someone in Chicago who’s now friends with someone from Calgary. Who, you know, 10 years ago didn’t know one another and now they are super close friends because of it. When it comes to my job that’s almost the best thing about it really, is that connectivity, that people can have because of it.” That last sentence is key! It is not just about connecting artists and fans, but fans with fans as well! Now for the part most people have issues with, membership fees. Are these not just extra income for the artist and their label to recoup losses, due to ‘piracy’ or the economic downturn? No, they are not. Sites that can support all those features, as well as handle tens of thousands of connections each day, require hardware and help from people with the technical expertise. Most musicians do not want to become data centre experts, web development experts, networking experts, cloud-computing experimenters, as these all take away from their primary focus, art! Matt and his team have done a lot of research on the subject, consulting experts as well has having highly experienced techie members on his team. They worked out $24.95/yr as the price required to provide these services. Unless you are Metallica or Madonna whom have more money than you can shake a stick at, you really can’t afford to fund all of this yourselves to provide a free service to your fans. Anyone with any technical knowledge of the Web and how it works knows this is not easy to implement, especially to scale well, and maintain. On the subject of the membership fee, Matt explains: “The revenue generated by membership is going to allow us the flexibility to do things, to implement things that we think are great, that otherwise, financially, we would be restricted .. that we can’t do. Or at present can’t do, like say we need to pump in an extra $5000 into site development that right now I’d have to basically pay for. It kind of just rolls back into the site, which is something that’s the basic reason for doing it … Kinda pays off in that respect.” Members of course get to comment on other members’ posts, Matt’s posts, the posts of contributers, etc. Members also can offer suggestions for things to implement, which is the purpose of the forums. The team intends to take these requests seriously and other members can easily provide yay or nay support through the forum. The idea is to include fans in these decisions, as that’s the purpose of the site, to connect the artist with the fans, so why shouldn’t the fans have a voice? Policing the forums can be extremely difficult and requires moderators. How does a fan feel when the artist is overwhelmed with the task of policing instead of focusing on their creative works or engaging with fans? Do fans want an invisible wall of moderators deciding which posts constitute harassment or blatant stupidity? Matt adds this additional reasoning for the paid membership “As ‘democratic’ as people like to make the Internet seem, the reality is, having been involved in it as long as I have been… civility goes straight out the frickin’ window. And unless you have some kind of stop-gab measure in place where people are going to actually be interested in being involved and not be jackasses .. you know .. for them to shell out money for the ability to do so obviously shows it is something that they take seriously. … once you open the frickin’ flood gates it just turns into a three-ring circus.” Additionally, the members themselves have the opportunity to voice concerns regarding the particular behaviour of certain members, whom don’t mind paying $25 to act stupid. Of course some skeptics might think that people who simply disagree with the artist will be labelled by other members as those requiring disconnection from the members area. This is a possibility, but the artist themselves have the ultimate decision. Naturally fans are supportive of their favoured artist and will rush to their defense even if it isn’t warranted. This could lead to some fans teaming up against someone who simply disagrees with certain posts. The hope is that common sense will be applied by most members and occasionally the artist will need to step in and set the record straight. Nothing is perfect, but the fact that members are included in keeping the peace is another form of connecting with the fans, encouraging them to take responsibility that comes with implementing this type of artist-fan interaction. They are a part of it, not just observers! The concepts presented by Matt have lots of potential. And given that Matt does engage in comments, it will be far better than other forums where the band members do not show up at all, leaving the moderating to hired-hands. The real benefit is actually being there to connect with the fans, which Matt does an exceptional job in the current, sometimes-comments-allowed, form. “This new site will amplify this connection by orders of magnitude (powers of ten for the non-mathies)”, says Roberet, adding: ” Fans partake in the creation of the connection medium, not just the exchange between artists and fans.” Artist-to-fans-to-artist. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi March, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? -