Youtube is growing.  No, really FAST.

• YouTube now generates 4 billion views per day, a 30% increase in the past six months.
• It’s got 800m unique monthly users.
• 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

Youtube has new TOOLS for ARTISTS.

• Multiple new site templates are available to choose from.
• The new Youtube Merch Store plugs into 3rd party services such as iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, Songkick and Topspin among other services, to enable artists to sell, well, merch.

Youtube will be monitoring, managing, and MONETIZING consumer generated media more tightly.

• Youtube’s Audio ID / Content ID technology identifies videos that use other artists’ songs.  (Labels can pay to use it, and extract licensing revenues in doing so.)
• Youtube’s Melody ID technology can match “cover song” melodies to existing original songs.  (Again, Labels can pay to use it, and extract licensing revenues to do so.)
• Youtube recently acquired Rightsflow, a licensing and royalty service provider that enables artists and labels to secure rights to music for various media.

Youtube advice to artists…

• Make playlists.
• Shoot videos when touring.
• Video-announce news like tour dates and releases.
• Collaborate with other artists.
• Youtube’s algorithm rewards more frequent uploads, high volumes of likes/shares/comments/etc.  Keep this in mind when creating content.
• Professional quality does not necessarily mean success.  “Raw”, ‘honest’ video can to well when appropriate.

There you have it.  Progressive labels and artists are starting to dedicate entire departments to creating, deploying, sharing, promoting, monitoring, and engaging video content. How can you leverage these new tools to promote your music?

Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gollum Pez dispenser heads in a box.  Tolkien would be pleased, I’m sure.  Now the question — open and eat, or store and hoard?

A ton of your potential fans consume music and video concurrently.  If your content focus is on digital downloads and albums only, you’re missing a huge opportunity to reach your fans in a unique (most bands don’t do this yet) and relevant (if your fans like video, you should be creating video) way.

Here’s a slice of an online music info graph from Grovo (a site that “teaches people how to use the internet”…one of the more lame and uninspired taglines I’ve seen in a while) that shares some evidence along these lines:

Be sure to ask yourself:  Am I creating the right content that’s reaching the right fans at the touch points most relevant to them?   If the answers is “yes”, please share what you’re doing below!  If the answer is ‘no’, spend some serious time with your bandmates brainstorming some ways you can.

The BIG question:  What should the name of the YouTube channel be?  (Pick 1 or 2)

The other big question:  Sure, it might be a fun endeavor for kicks.  But would any YouTuber care to watch?  Let me know what you think.

Why creating a Google+ (Plus) Page is a no-brainer:

• It’s way to early to predict whether or not Google+ will build up a critical mass of followers, but it’s Google.  Don’t ignore it.
• Google search results are likely to weigh Google+ profiles heavily in search engine results.  It’s an easy way to get your band, your band’s music, your band’s videos, and your band’s witticisms indexed immediately within Google.  (Google+ Direct Connect is a hint of what’s to come.)
• Google Plus enables you to actually communicate with your fans more directly and in more ways than does Facebook.
• Google Plus allows you to segment and organize your fan base into circles — friends, family, strangers, groupies, you name it.
• At the very least, it’s another opportunity to generate a free link to your other band properties for a little SEO love.
• It’ll take five minutes.  Step away from your preamp and create Google+ magic while you down a doughnut.

Why it’s semi-brain dead:

• There is currently no way to add your music to your Google+ page, which kind of defeats its usefulness for bands.  However, I’m sure all the big players (ReverbNation, SoundCloud, RouteNote, Nimbit, etc) are hard at work creating a Band App that will plugin.
• You can’t sync with your YouTube account. However, you CAN upload your music videos separately.
• Very few people are using it yet.  But again, it’s early — don’t hold it against Google just yet.

How to create your Google+ (Plus) Band Page:

1.  Pick a Google account to use. If you’re like me, you may have several.  For example, I have one for my personal self, and another for my GarageSpin alter ego.  Do I create a Google+ Band Page using my personal account, or my band account?  It’s a simple decision, but will impact 1) what contacts you’ll be able to easily import at the outset, 2) where email notifications regarding Band Page engagement will be sent, and 3) how many Google+ profiles you’ll be forced to manage.

Once you move forward, changing your mind will be a hassle, so choose what will work most conveniently for you.  (Creating a band page in Facebook required first creating a personal account, then using that account to create a Facebook Page. A slightly different process.)

Oh, and if you don’t have one yet, create a Google account here.

2. Go to to the Google+ Pages site. This is where Google+ (Plus) Pages can be created for businesses, products, celebrities (i.e. you), and all sorts of craziness.  Click on the “Create Your Google+ page” button once you’re there.

3.  Pick a Category. The “Arts, Entertainment, or Sports” category seems to be most relevant, currently.  Moving your mouse over the button reveals that the category is appropriate for “films, TV, music, books, sports, shows.”  “Band” isn’t listed, but “music” is.  Close enough.  Select it.

4.  Enter your Page Name. On the “Add Your Info” page, you’ll probably want to use your band’s name as the Page Name, unless you have some very creative, wacky, or unique name you’d like to insert instead.

5. Enter your Website Name. Enter the URL that serves as your band’s primary “home base”.  For me, it’s GarageSpin.com.  For you, it might be a social network site, or something else.  (Beware of entering your band’s Facebook band page, Google may not find that very funny.)

6.  Select a Sub Category. One of the options in the dropdown box is “Music Band”.  I’m not sure why Google thought it necessary to clarify a ‘music’ band as opposed to some other kind of band, but such is how their classification schema works.  Select “Music Band”.

7.  Check both check boxes, and click on Create. After reading the Terms of Service, of course.  (We all always do that, don’t we?  Not.)  Some day in the future, you may find it informative to check out the Google+ Pages Contest and Promotion Policies, which, if they’re anything like Facebook Pages’ promotion policies, they’ll change monthly.)

8.  Add a short tagline. Be brilliant in 10 words.  Or be lazy like me — I just recycled my blog’s tagline.

9.  Pick a profile photo. Your call.   Upload a band photo?  An album cover?  A cow?  Be unique and brilliant.  Or be like me, and use the web camera to snap a shot of your over-tired mugshot.

10.  You’re done.  Go forth and prosper. Google+ gives you an ugl,y non-vanity URL that’s impossible to remember.  (I now tell all my friends, “Hey, you can check out my Google Plus Band Page at https://plus.google.com/114814280998470069863!”).  That will hopefully change.

You can now 1) add a link or button to your Google+ (Plus) Band Page, 2) build your circles by spamming all your friends with circle invites, and 3) create “Hangouts” (very cool), and a bunch of other stuff Google is capable of.

Good luck, and have fun.  Be sure to connect with me at my GarageSpin Google+ Band Page.

If you can explain why — perhaps a Google algorithm change?  a once high-ranking post no longer carrying weight? — I will send you the first copy of my very next song to you for free.  (Perhaps posting less than once a month contributed to the drop..?)  Ah well.  I usually try not to think too much about traffic, SEO, and rankings, but yeesh, that’s the most dramatic dip I’ve seen since I launched the blog in 2005…  Onwards and upwards.

[UPDATE:  Here's one theory and another theory.  Many seem to be confused and bewildered as I am.]

I wouldn’t normally waste my time on such a boring post, but I’ve got a minute to kill, so hey.  MySpace occasionally sends email notifications alerting me every time someone sends me a message.  (But the email NEVER tells you what the message is, which is incredibly annoying.  99% of the time, it’s just a band using software to boost its friend base.  I no longer bother reading messages.)

So today, fed up, I finally decided to turn notifications off, and clicked on the link in the email titled:

“To turn off notifications, update your account settings.“

However, doing so takes you to a page that says:

The Occupy Wall Street movement is pretty impressive, growing from a mere 1,000 protesters in New York City to 15,000, plus thousands more in cities in over 25 different countries.  Cardboard boxes, pepper spray, celebrity visits, union participation, arrests, Reddit support, and lobbyist nightmares are all part of the story, and good stories inspire songs, some good, some bad.

Here are a couple Occupy Wall Street protest ditties circulating YouTube currently, answering the question WWBDD (What Would Bob Dylan Do).  Sort of.  What do you think?  Inspired and provocative or bandwagon-jumping and opportunistic?

“Occupy Wall Street” by Jeremy Gilchrist

This guy’s got a nice voice, and seems a little more serious about the issues…

“Occupy Wall Street Protest Song” by Remi

Remi always makes me laugh.  If you’re a “The Times They Are a-Changin’” fan, you may like this as well.

“Occupy Wall Street” by FacingMecca

Way to throw down, FM.

“Smile” by Jay Samel

Who’s the guy who keeps creepily whispering “the 99%”..?

Will Facebook be offering a music service?  Probably not, as it’s more likely that music services will offer an App within Facebook users can use.  (There’s a difference.)  Facebook’s strategy is still to become the world’s leading platform utility for the sharing of media.  In any case, it does look like some kind of free streaming model may be offered in the near future, via a number of partners.

Will consumers use a music service through Facebook?  That’s hard to answer, but my gut instinct tells me mass adoption is unlikely.  The most successful consumer products and platforms often integrate some combination of 1) ultra-simplicity in usability and design, and 2) some element of “wow” factor that’s new and unique.  Integrating a great user experience like Spotify into Facebook risks cluttering and complicating it.  It also places template-driven restrictions on design that can lessen the likelihood of a “wow” experience.  Why not just use the ‘native’ version of the service?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I am saying it’s going to be quite a challenge solving both problems above.  Music service developers will need Facebook guidance and flexibility to create a well-integrated experience, or the offerings may fall flat.  That’ll be challenging, as the Facebook Profile, Wall, News pages are already cluttered with quite a few actionable modules and calls-to-action.

Further, if multiple music platforms are launching simultaneously, how differentiated can they really be?  All said, I’m excited to see where everything lands.

What do you think — will music services sink or swim in Facebook?

Not only does Digg Digg enable a huge variety of share buttons, including Google +1, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc, it’s also incredibly customizable, letting you pick the type, size, pages, and placement of buttons throughout your site.  Perfect for lazy-but-anal folks like me.

So how do you add the Google +1 button to WordPress? Here’s what I did, though there are plenty of customizable options in Digg Digg, as well as plenty of other plugins that attempt to offer similar functionality:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, under “Plugins”, click on “Add New”.
2. Do a search for “Digg Digg”.  Download and install the plugin.
3. Click on “Enable Normal Display”.
4. Select “Horizontal” to display the Google share button (and other share buttons) horizontally.  (Selecting “vertical” will stack them, which can add a lot of white space under your posts.)
5. Select the page types you want the share the button in.  (Might as well select all of ‘em.)
6. In the next question, include “All”, exclude nothing.  (I’m not quite sure what that does, and I don’t particularly care.)
7. Check the box that let’s Digg Digg modify your post excerpt.  (Recommended.)
8. Now the fun part.  “Turn on” the Google share button (and others you’d like to use) by selecting an “integration type” for it.  (I chose “before_content” for the Facebook, Twitter, and Google +1 buttons.)
9. Pick a button size for each.  (I went with “compact” for each, and “compact 20px” for the Google button.)
10. Leave everything else, and click on “Save Changes”.

That’s it.  You’re now part of the hip “early adopter” crowd that’s using Google +1.  (Well, actually, you’re a little late.  Google +1 is already on more widespread that Twitter’s Tweet button.)  You can get pretty fancy with Digg Digg, and play with it’s “floating” functionality, or dive under the hood for deep customization.  Enjoy.