Click here to view the embedded video.

Love him or hate him, Kanye West is back and this time, he’s not playing games. He’s going straight for the jugular on race, dropping lines that reflect on  basketball star, Lebron James’ game jersey being burned by fans in Cleveland after James decided to play for the Miami Heat. How he’s been particularly judged by the media due to his relationship with Kim Kardashian, a white woman. Saying that even thought he’s attained this status, he still has to be careful of who he brings home with the media laying in wait at his doorstep to tell the world who he’s seen with.

His lyrics also contain references about how corporate America can’t control him or what he does, despite the money and the contracts thrown at him. He’s just going to continue running at warp speed and making his way in the life the only way he knows how. There’s no turning back. You’re either going to watch him or you’re not, but if you do, then get ready because he’s not going to play by the rules as they are set by others – specifically corporations and white society and media.

Without question, it’s arguably one of the most powerful songs in Hip-Hop today. It’s a game changer in terms of style. substance, beats and instrumentation. Whatever happens, this track is going to be hard to follow. We’re not going to say it’s equivalent to the legendary PE track, Fight The Power, chiefly because Kanye is talking about himself and his view of how the world treats him, while Chuck D. is looking at it from a “we” and not “me” perspective.

In Kanye’s world view, it’s always all about him – what they’re saying about him, how they are trying to bring him down and how he is going to still be standing. He’s In our mind, while his argument is absolutely valid and real, his continued focus on himself as the catalyst for others to hate him because of his skin color and what he does plays into an ego that, while touching on the issues of others, always comes back to what is being done to him and how he is living and dealing with that everyday. The question, is it unfair? Many times, yes. But, if you’re an artist and you live in the spotlight, you’re certainly asking for attention and you must live in the glare of the spotlight that feeds your ego. With it comes all the trappings of wealth, fame and success, but it also comes with media scrutiny and public reactions to moments when what you do is not perceived a unacceptable, regardless of who you are, what you do or the color of your skin.

If you’re Kanye, is it always because you’re black in an unfair world? Or, is simply because you’re Kanye and the ego that drives your talent is so outsized, you only can see things the way you perceive them to be? It’s definitely a little of both, but if you listen to this new track, the perception is that Kanye will always be himself and others will judge as they do, but he’s keeping it moving in the only direction he knows how and whatever they do or say, they can’t stop him. As a black man in America, he makes a strong case, but he never wants to be judged for what mistakes he makes in the process, which is unfortunate. Because everyone, at one time or another, has to step back and take a look at their actions and ask themselves, am I doing the right thing, regardless of the color of my skin?

Anyway, it’s worth a listen. It really is that good. In Kanye’s world, his perceptions are real for him and that’s all that matters. It takes an artist of incredible strength to be able to light up the mic with as tough as these lyrics are to digest. It’s a portrait of our society – one that is as real, brutal and honest as an artist can get. Hard to digest for most for sure, but give it to Kanye for saying what needs to be said.

UPDATE: After listening to this track again, let me restate my position on the “we” vs “me” comment I made in this post. Maybe I missed something and it took the lyrical scientists over at Rap Genius to school me.

In this verse, Kanye shines the spotlight on kids in urban communities, especially Chicago, where Kanye is from, acting like “goons.”

Stop all that goon shit
Early morning cartoon shit
This is goon shit
Fuck up your whole afternoon shit

It’s a reflection on how kids are joining gangs and trying to be tough by killing each other in the streets of Chicago. It’s a call to all those listening that their way of life is, in fact, cartoonish and silly.

In another new track also peformed on SNL called, New Slave, Kanye raps about some black Americans buying into the culture of spending on luxury goods. Despite the success of black American’s in Hip-Hop and the trappings of wealth and acclaim it has brought them, in Kanye’s view, it’s still subservient to buy into the consumer culture, because black Americans who have attained wealth continue to enrich those who are in power by buying these luxury goods. That, no matter how you slice it, slavery still exists – but, it’s now mental slavery that he equates to profit taking from the purchase of luxury goods by the black community that continues to enslave the community, in place of the physical slavery experienced by those who came before them. It’s a powerful, raw and controversial statement, because its some in Hip-Hop that perpetuate the idea that if you make money, you should spend it on bling and display your wealth. That begets the question, if you are critical of that culture, then why buy an $11M mansion in Beverly Hills? It’s a hard question to answer, that’s for sure. One one hand, don’t be part of the machine, but on the other live within the machine. It all depends on whether it’s on your own terms.

What is the single most important feature of any music website?

C’mon, don’t let us stump you that easily. Still thinking?

Okay, let us help. It’s the audio player, of course!

If you’ve got a hot music site, then you’ve got to have a functioning audio player, so your audience can play back music featured on your website or in your mobile web application (notice I said mobile web application, not mobile application). When serving up those audio tracks, nothing is more frustrating than having a song interrupted while navigating between pages of a website. That means you can’t just deploy any audio player, you’ve got to deploy something with persistence across all site pages, allowing a consistent listening experience while surfing with no obvious break in the action.

Wait, did we say that a user can navigate between pages while the audio player remains persistent and it doesn’t disrupt the audio stream? Yes! That’s what we said. After many years of ugly pop-up players or Flash-enabled players in Flash .swf wrappers that kill your site’s SEO, it is finally possible. Lots of sites are now deploying them. Some are even creating themes for WordPress with enhanced audio player experiences, so you get all that for free or a very low cost compared to custom development. Here’s an example of one theme, the Stylico-DJ-Template, which features a persistent HTML5 player in the left sidebar.

Before we get into the how and why of persistent audio players, here are a few more examples of sites employing these players successfully.

8tracks.com (http://www.8tracks.com)

The best site for hand-crafted Internet radio, where user-generated playlists are all the rage, 8tracks.com recently converted to a persist audio player experience. This advancement will allow listeners to enjoy uninterrupted audio while navigating the site and following their favorite “DJs.” It will surely increase engagement with 8tracks and subsequently, listening hours. check out the player in the screen shot below. It’s at the bottom of the page. (In the interest of full disclosure, the author of this post is a adviser to 8tracks.com and holds shares in the company.)

Beatport.com ( http://www.beatport.com)

One of the earliest and best implementations of a persistent audio player, Beatport first innovated with a full, all-Flash experience. Advances in HTML5/CSS3 and jQuery saw Beatport convert their entire experience into an SEO friendly website. This was smart for two reasons. First, it improved search engine optimization of the Beatport site. Flash is notoriously difficult for search engines to crawl, so converting the experience into HTML would helps Google, Bing and other search engines efficiently crawl the site.

Second, was to enable their audio player to work on Apple iPhones. When Apple decided not to support Adobe’s Flash Player plugin, Beatport customers could not play music from the existing Flash site on an iPhone or iPad. This forced Beatport to quickly innovate and come up with a solution for the mobile web, which you can from the screenshot posted see below.

Play any track on the Beatport home page and the track is added to a playlist found by the drop down arrow to the right of the bright green “add to cart” button in the header. You can jump back and forth and pause/play your track selections and there is a visual representation of the track with a cursor in the timeline that helps you know where you are. Then try and navigate between pages and you’ll see that the player consistently remains fixed and the audio continues to play.

Finding a way for users to listen to music uninterrupted while surfing the site is one of Beatport’s competitive advantages over its rivals, many of whom continue to deploy pop-over players, which are problematic for a number of reasons. As you can see in the screenshot of the DJDownload website below, the pop-over player gets in the way. It pops up and over the left side of the page, making it very difficult for the user to navigate the site. Since the pop-up player is in its own browser window, just clicking on the main page will bring the main page forward and layer the player behind it, making it that much more difficult to use. Today, an audio player should always be persistent 0n your site. The technology is available, you just have to find the right developers to make it happen.

Pandora (http://www.pandora.com)

Another successful deployment of the persistent audio player is on the Pandora website. Pandora is one of the most popular streaming radio services on the Internet. The implementation is also HTML5/CSS3 with jQuery and AJAX, two methods to trigger playback and load new page information in the browser, without stopping the audio. Whether you change your preferred radio station or click into your user profile, the audio player stays constant.

Reverb Nation (http://www.reverbnation.com)

The grandaddy of artist networks and indie music discovery, Reverb Nation recently converted their site and player experience as well. The difference here is the player is on the bottom of the page instead of the top. It’s a different take and we’re wondering what user testing uncovered when they were planning this feature. Does it matter whether the player is fixed to the bottom or the top? Is there an increase of decrease in usage based on location on the page? We’d love to get some feedback on this. Please leave us a comment with your thoughts on the placement of a persistent player experience. Which is better  for the user experience: the bottom or the top of the page?

MySpace (http://myspace.com)

The new MySpace has launched and its got a new player experience as well. As you can see, all the titles we’ve listened to are in a left/right scrollable slider. The player sits at the bottom of the page, which is similar to Reverb Nation. All pages load with AJAX, keeping the player persistent.

Here is a view of the new.myspace.com media library. Click on any track it will play in the player at the bottom of the page. Playlists can be created and shared with other new.myspace.com members. Of course, there is no Facebook or Twitter integration, which is understandable given the competitive landscape, but that is going to make it much harder for MySpace to gain social traction. You cannot cross-post from MySpace to Facebook or Twitter and vice versa, so MySpace is going to have to decide if they want to go down that road. But, we’re getting off track! Back to the player discussion.

A Brief Jog Through Our Experience With Audio Players over the past 17+ years

While persistent audio players have long been available in a downloadable client for the desktop (iTunes) or baked into an Adobe Flash experience, it’s only in the last few years you’re seeing them included on web sites as a persistent web app. And, like all audio players that came before it, it’s not all that easy to implement. I mean, it’s not necessarily plug-n-play type thing. You’ve got some work to do to implement them correctly. We”ll get to that, but let’s first start with a little history.

When we first started out in this business, the most widely accepted method for streaming audio was to purchase a streaming server from Real Networks or lease space on a server from a hosting company who invested in the technology. Using Real’s server technology, you could broadcast at 14.4kbps, which is a fraction of today’s 10mbps download speeds.

Early audio players were rudimentary. They were only meant as a utility to stream audio and not much else. The first image below is the Real Player 2.0, which was released in 1996. Netmix actually used this player to stream our first DJ mixes when we launched in 1996.

Here is a view of the latest version of Real Player 16, which has a persistent player experience. The software also acts as a media library along with other advanced features. As you can see, Real Player has advanced considerably over 17+ years.

Before bandwidth got cheap, Real Networks would power audio on the web for the better part of a decade before being rendered obsolete by HTTP, UDP (User Datagram Protocol) and RTSP (RealTime Streaming Protocol).  At the time, Microsoft would compete with Real Networks, rolling out a competitor to Real Audio and calling it, Windows Media. Here’s the original Windows Media Player.

The latest version is Windows Media 11.

Not to be left behind, Apple joined the party with its QuickTime streaming technology. All were required to employ a dedicated streaming server to deliver packets of data to their respective desktop clients that had to be downloaded and installed  on the end user’s machine. Proprietary and expensive (although all companies offered a version of free for a limited number of consecutive connections), these products became the darlings of corporations who needed a way to stream webcasts for corporate announcements, online trainings and webinars, while also keeping their content secure.

The the big three controlled streaming audio throughout the 90′s until the MP3 format disrupted the status quo. In the meantime, Adobe would work audio player functionality into it’s Flash SDK (software development kit), which provided a way to create immersive, interactive audio player experiences.  The vector-based tools in Flash gave designers and developers creative license to employ unique and highly stylized players that could be persistent across an entire site.

Even though Real Networks developed a proprietary markup language, SMIL, to embed web pages and other multimedia into the Real Player, Flash really took off as the best way to implement audio in a web experience. With Flash, anyone could surf a Flash-enabled website pages while listening to a continuous audio stream that would not stop abruptly when navigating between pages.

The dewplayer is a good example of how designers and developers used Flash to create sophisticated and lightweight audio players. The player has various options, from Mini to one called Playlist, which displays a list of files to play. The player at the bottom of the list below shows an emulated black vinyl record, which actually emerges from behind the white box each time a new song is played.

To get an idea of how complex Real Audio technology was for developers to deploy, take a look at this Real Networks Production Guide published in 2002, we found on a still functioning service site. And, here is a tutorial on how to create a Flash Audio Player using Flash MX.

We noted that Beatport once employed a Flash solution. The entire site was loaded in the browser via a .swf file, which encompasses all the code and graphics needed to display the site and make it interactive. While Flash is still in use today, HTML5 and jQuery can give you similar functionality on a standard web page, without having to load a proprietary file to run a complete web site. One can image how expensive it is to constantly update multiple .swf files that may run a very large web site. Despite the cost, some still prefer to build all-Flash experiences, but they sacrifice search engine optimization best practices in the process.

A disgruntled user posted his dismay over Beatport’s migration from Flash to HTML5. Why do away with Flash? Google is the dominant search engine. Its crawlers – the bots that scour all websites to index them for content and relevancy – could’t penetrate the Flash .swf wrapper to index text within the Flash experience. Sure, there are workarounds to point a browser to scan files that would import text into Flash, but doing so was highly problematic when you could really just build a full HTML5 experience and not have to struggle with search engine optimization for Flash. Ultimately, it’s also cheaper to build an HTML5 experience than hire $175-an-hour Flash developers. Some would say that Flash technology has outlived its usefulness for complete end-to-end web sites.

We’re at the point where the power of Google’s search and its crawler requirements have reduced the necessity of immersive Flash experiences. With Flash’s hold on the media industry reduced, which technology will now provide a similar audio player experience? Now, there is javaScript, which has evolved to offer a solution. Using HTTP, UDP or RTSP, anyone can employ a javaScript player by embedding it on their website and streaming audio from a web server the listener. It’s now possible, because telecom and cable companies have improved the speed and efficiency of bandwidth to deliver rich media to the user’s desktop or mobile device at a faster rate and more reliably than ever before. In addition, a technology called Really Simple Syndication, which is known in web circles as RSS, allow a listener to subscribe to podcasts that deliver downloads of episodic content to a laptop, desktop or mobile phone. All of the aforementioned advances make downloading, transporting and sharing audio across devices easier.

There was a time when Yahoo was focused on creating open source products. During that period, one of their development groups created an immersive javaScript audio player, the Yahoo! Web Player, which could also be installed as a plugin for WordPress. In the screenshot below, you can see that once installed, the player is loaded by a click action on the page. The version in the image below is the full video experience.

While the trial site did have a link to the audio only view, we discovered that by clicking on the link for the audio only experience, both Chrome and Safari for Mac returned the audio file in their HTML5 browser based audio players, as shown below.

In the context of this post, it’s important to address this issue, because many of those who are new to development and working with audio on the web may not know that audio links must start using the new HTML5 download attribute, which is appended inside the link tag like this:

<a href="http://www.google.com/.../logo2w.png" download="MyGoogleLogo">download me</a>

Open Source content management systems, including WordPress, are inadvertently driving persistent audio player experiences. Free to download and install, these content management systems are extremely popular with DJs, bands and labels. Anyone with a hosting account can quickly set up a blog and within minutes publish a podcast or embed player widgets from services like Reverb Nation, Soundcloud or 8tracks into their sites pages. When it comes to a persistent experience, we’re just starting to see WordPress themes that utilize jQuery and AJAX to deliver the persistent player music fans are increasingly exposed to from the sites we mentioned earlier in this post. If you’re a DJ, artist, band or label, there will be a point in time your users will expect to be able to navigate your site or mobile pages, while listening to audio uninterrupted.

We’re anticipating your next question, which is probably, “show me some examples of WordPress themes that have persistent audio players?” Ha! We thought you’d never ask. We mentioned Stylico-DJ-Template, which is available for $18 at Themeforest, a theme and plugin marketplace. The theme uses history,js, which:

…gracefully supports the HTML5 History/State APIs (pushState, replaceState, onPopState) in all browsers. Including continued support for data, titles, replaceState. Supports jQuery, MooTools and Prototype. For HTML5 browsers this means that you can modify the URL directly, without needing to use hashes anymore. For HTML4 browsers it will revert back to using the old onhashchange functionality.

 Another example of a WordPress theme using history.js to create a consistent player experience is the predominantly dubstep and mash-up site, sosimpull.com. Notice the player is fixed at the top left. You can navigate between each tab in the playlist and the audio will continue to play.

How do you build persistent audio players?

After a little bit of research, I came up with a list of links that I’m going to pass to you, which should help you get started in building out your persistent audio player experience.

• Let’s start with history,js, which we mentioned already, but it’s worth mentioning again.
• The Future of Web Apps – Single Page Applications - One of the earliest posts I’ve found about how to AJAX your site pages to deliver content into a page without refreshing the page. Features a JPlayer Single Page Web App Demo, the JPlayer using AJAX to switch between tabs but keep the player persistent.
• Persistent Audio Players with JPlayer – Jon McLaughlin post in Google Groups about his use of the “hijax” method to change all internal links to AJAX calls on his site, RedApple45.com.
• JPlayer - The JPlayer web site, where you can download the HTML5 Audio and Video player for jQuery.
• jQuery4U post of the 10 BEST JQUERY AND HTML5 MEDIA PLAYERS

If you need a little help trying to get AJAX into your theme, here are a few links that may help you out.

• How to get Ajax into a theme – without writing a plugin? - Look no further than StackExchange to help sort out this question. One developers answer to this perplexing question.
• There is a WordPress plugin called the Advanced AJAX Page Loader, which may (or not) be useful if you’re not trying to build this from scratch.
• AJAXing a WordPress Theme | CSS-Tricks – A video tutorial from 2010 on how to AJAX your WordPress theme.

Lastly, SEO is very important to this endeavor. If you’re going to AJAX your site’s pages, you’re going to want to do some “deep linking” to content.

• Deep Linking and Indexing AJAX Applications – Google, Hashbang and state maintenance

For developers, this slide deck might be useful. The author is Ronald Huereca, who presented these slides at WordPress Philadelphia in 2010.

After a quick run through of CraigsList, LinkedIn Jobs, Startuply, Digital Media Wire, Digital Music News, Paid Content and Mashable, we’ve come up with 10 pretty cool social music career opportunities that span the country and touch upon various roles, including Product, Programming, Community, Biz Dev and even an internship. No hot jobs list is complete without at least one internship, right?

1. Brand Partnerships – New Business Account Manager at MixCloud

Ever since SoundCloud started putting the squash on DJ mixes with Audible Magic’s digital fingerprinting technology, MixCloud has experience explosive growth. We’ve noticed many top DJs have immediately migrated to the service and are joyfully posting their online mix sets without having to deal with frustrating take-down notifications.

The job is based in London, where it seems all these new digital music ideas emanate from that don’t need to adhere to the restriction of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, but then have to pivot and get serious once they cross the pond. It’s happened to Last.fm and now SoundCloud. Because MixCloud is “interactive,” on this side of the pond, they’d surely have to clear a mechanical for every track.

Job Description:

• The focus of this role is to develop new business for Mixcloud from leading brands and agencies.
• There will also be some day to day account management of key accounts.
• Managing contact databases, target lists and the sales funnel.
• Some ad trafficking in DFP.
• The role may also require some more general business development, since we are a small team and we require flexibility and a willingness to pitch in with everything.

Here’s the full link to the posting: http://www.mixcloud.com/jobs/

Make sure you email your LinkedIn resume to jobs+sales@mixcloud.com. Don’t send a CV (that’s resume to us North Americans) as an attachment.

2. Product Manager at Reverb Nation

This established artist network is “home to over 2.67 Million Musicians, Labels, Venues and Industry Professionals.” RN is the grand-daddy of artist platforms, but now has its work cut out for it with new offerings from BandCamp, Official.fm, and MySpace jumping back into the fray. The company is located in the warehouse district in Durham, NC. We’ve been to their offices twice just to say hello. It’s a cool space with lot’s of fun people and a great vibe. There’s a Whole Foods just up the street, lot’s of organic fare in the neighborhood restaurants and a few watering holes for after-work Happy Hour. You’re also a hop, skip and jump from the American Tobacco campus, home to the Full Frame Film Festival and the Durham underground start-up community, located in the basement of this massive, renovated tobacco factory.

Job Description:

• Manage/develop new products and maintain existing products
• Conduct day-to-day status updates with our product team and development team
• Report on product performance to senior staff
• Define and manage KPIs for all aspects of your product
• Collaborate with other designers and product managers to come up with visual designs that solve problems
• Oversee QA of all products and services that are released to the site
• Coordinate integration projects with external partners
• Research competitors and best practices
• Crank out work (headphones) as well as communicate with others (meetings)

You’ve gotta have 5-years of experience in product development on music platforms and an expert knowledge of OmniGraffle (ha, sounds like me!) in order to be considered.

You’ll want to head over to this link: http://reverbnation.theresumator.com/apply/G96Jaj/Product-Manager.html to submit your resume or LinkedIn profile.

3. Director of Business & Legal Affairs at MySpace

You’re probably asking, “MySpace…really?” Yes, MySpace. With a hot new advanced, mobile-ready look and under the direction of new owners who aren’t global news barons, there are certainly opportunities for MySpace to grow in 2013, but they will have their challenges. There’s no clear path to revenue in the user interface, artists can’t sell their music direct to fan through the site (unlike their competitors), and there’s no sharing into Twitter or Facebook, which makes the site ultimately reliant on itself and word-of-mouth marketing. It remains to be seen if MySpace can carve out a niche for itself, but with a strong Director of Business & Legal Affairs, maybe there’s a growth opportunity with the right mix of compensation and equity.

Job Description:

• MySpace Music is recruiting for a Director of Business & Legal Affairs, based in its Beverly Hills, CA office.  The Director will be a key member of the team responsible for the licensing of music content from major and independent record companies and aggregators, music publishers and performing rights organizations, for the company’s digital music service, both domestically and internationally.
• The position reports to MySpace Music’s Senior Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs.  Among other things, the ideal candidate will have a proven track record in music licensing from working within the music business and a firm understanding of the digital media space.

What you’ll do all day:

• Provide full-service business & legal affairs support for MySpace Music’s domestic and international operations.   Represent, advise and liaise with internal clients, including business intelligence & analytics/reporting, marketing, finance, operations, technical/engineering and sales departments.
• Negotiate and draft a variety of music-related contracts including sound recording, musical composition and public performance licenses, label exclusivity waivers, artist “live” performance/talent agreements, venue agreements, “live stream” production and sponsorship agreements, master recording and musical composition synchronization licenses, original web series production agreements and technical infrastructure agreements, among others.
• Analyze copyright laws and contracts and prepare memoranda which advise and make recommendations to Myspace and MySpace Music management.  Provide advice on deal structures, business strategies and statutory and contractual compliance.
• Collaborate with Myspace and Specific Media in-house attorneys.  Liaise with and manage external counsels’ performance of assignments (including conduct of litigation), advice, costs and response times.
• Identify, assess and inform management of legal and commercial risks / benefits.  Recommend constructive solutions.

Go to LinkedIn to apply for this job. It’s HOT. Over 50 interested job seekers have clicked through to view the posting: http://linkd.in/UHiYdj

4. Community Manager at Shaker

We have no clue who or what Shaker is, but they’ve posted a job on Startuply.com for Community Manager. We tried to Google Shaker to no avail. Heck, maybe you know what Shaker is and will post a comment here, because we sure as heck have no idea. If you feel so inclined as to take a shot in the dark, Shaker needs someone to help them out. Here are the details…

Job Description:

• The online community manager will help with crafting and implementing the company’s online community strategy, managing engagement and interactivity with its audience, and fostering community spirit. This role coordinates with the internal graphic and marketing teams to support their respective missions, ensuring consistency in voice and cultivating a strong community around the brand.

Here’s what you’ll do all day:

You’ll need to take a walk on over to Startuply.com to apply: http://www.startuply.com/Jobs/Community_Manager_6506_1.aspx

UPDATE: Ah, ha! We now know who Shaker is! They make a Facebook app that is a virtual community; “Chat with your friends, meet like minded people, listen to music you love, and even host your own events to get your people together!” I was wondering where I’d heard about them before, but totally forgot. Thanks to Chuck Fishman at Official.fm for reminding us!

5. Music Content & Partner Relations (US / Urban) at SoundCloud

This gig was posted to Startuply on December 17th, but it’s not listed on the SoundCloud Jobs section itself. We checked here and it’s nowhere to be found. But don’t let that stop you. Maybe those cats took a long break for Christmas and forgot to post it to the main site. Or, maybe they didn’t. Could it be another shot in the dark? Maybe, but maybe not.

If you got legs in the Hip Hop community, this gig is for you. It’s all about networking and getting Hip Hop and Rap artists into the platform. Funny that given the popularity of EDM on SoundCloud, the company might struggle with this and need someone to actually work on it all day. Now’s your chance to bring the funk and the noise! Here’s what they’re looking for…

Job Description:

• SoundCloud is looking for someone with the passion, organization, and rolodex to establish SoundCloud as the most legit way to share sounds in the global urban and hip hop scene.  Do you have the charisma and motivation to hustle in folks whose single tweets make more than you will in your lifetime? Are you able to captivate artists, their managers, labels, booking agents, and the folks organizing the events where all these playaz hang? If this sounds like you, then we’d love to have you build, own and manage the process of getting more Hip Hop / Urban up on our platform.

Here’s what you’ll do all day:

CNET reports this morning that Instagram, the popular social photo app for iPhone and Android that was recently acquired by Facebook, is updating its terms of service as of January 16th, 2013 to allow for the service to sell your uploaded photos to others without having to notify you or compensate you.

What does this mean for individual artists or bands that are touring, in the studio or at press events? It means that whatever you end up uploading yourself or whatever your fans upload, could potentially be sold to a 3rd party service without compensating you or notifying you that it did so. Here are a few examples:

• A fan snaps a pic of your performance at a local club. The club scours Instagram for all photos of bands taken at the bar and purchases the rights to use those photos. The club then adds those photos to its Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest accounts and also uses the photos in advertising and marketing on flyers, or shares them with news organizations. While you may have requested no photos be taken during the performance, it will be extremely difficult for an artist or band to control the image once the picture is taken.
•  You’re hanging out late night in the studio. A superstar artists calls you up and says he wants to come lay down some tracks with you, but wants to also keep it on the down low. The artist shows up and you start jamming together. One of your groupies snaps a photo using Instagram. After January 16, 2013, Instagram has the right to take and sell that photo to a 3rd party without compensating you and without you being able to sue for damages. Of course, Instagram says in its terms that the person who uploads the photo must have the right to do so, but your groupie just snapped the pic without signing a non-disclosure. You’re quite possibly out of luck. Fox News has acquired the photo and you and the superstar artist are now splashed on the cover or home page of every major celeb rag.

What does an artist do? First, if you’re certain you do not want any photos from your Instagram account sold to 3rd parties, you must delete/remove all your photos from the Instagram application (I did that myself this morning). Second, consult with a music industry attorney who can advise you on what notifications to include on your tickets, flyers and other promotional material at shows and make sure to get folks hanging out with you in the studio to sign non-disclosure agreements. We’re not attorneys, so our advice is just that – advice. Make sure to get an attorneys opinion on these matters and make absolutely sure the attorney is well versed in digital rights and copyright.

Remember, once your photos are on Instagram, after January 16, 2013, you’ve lost control of your likeness and image. And it doesn’t matter whether you delete the photos on January 17th, Instagram can quite possibly use photos that were deleted after the date of the change in their terms of service.

Social media can certainly be advantageous for many artists. But, as more social services look for revenue, you – the user – must keep abreast of these changes to insure that you have as much control as possible over your images or you will be out of luck when someone snaps a photo of you and Instragram profits from your likness and image.

Nokia UK released two very cool new video commercials on YouTube to promote the new Lumina 820 along with their free Mix Radio service. Both commercials employe electronic dance music inspired rhythms and we always love that UK accent. We’re not sure who the subjects of these videos are, so we’re asking you to identify them. Just post in the Facebook comments section or blog comment section below. We’re curious to know!

See larger image Nokia Lumia 820 4G Windows Phone, Black (AT&T) (Wireless Phone) List Price: $399.99 USD New From: $399.99 In Stock Release date November 10, 2012.

8tracks.com founder and CEO, David Porter, doesn’t just run the ship, he mixes it up as well. Here’s his latest 8tracks mix of deep, minimal house music he titled: NOW. This is rockin, so sit back, strap on your seat belt and enjoy the ride.

Sennheiser, a leading manufacturer of headphones and microphones for the pro can consumer audio market, recently launched the Inspired by DJs: Day and Nite Portrait Series to promote its new Amperior headphones. Based on the popular HD 25 DJ headphone, Sennheiser says the the Amperior, with its brushed aluminum finish, is geared for both the street and the DJ booth.

The campaigns home destination is its Inspired by DJs website, which hosts video interviews with DJs from around the world, including legendary turntablists, Q-Bert (USA) and DJ Fly (France), as well and British house music producer, Bob Sinclair, and Detroit’s iconic techno artist, Richie Hawin. The videos are also available on the Sennheiser’s official YouTube channel.

“The Day & Night interviews explore the source of their creativity, asks if inspiration strikes by day or night, and looks at who the world’s greatest DJs see as their own mentors and sources of inspiration. We wanted to show the personalities and also the work, commitment and passion that has made them the best in the world,” said Katrin Huss at Sennheiser Consumer Electronics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To drive interest to the campaign, Sennheiser and Bob Sinclair teamed up for a One Day & One Night in London contest. Entrants submit photos, video and stories about their favorite nightclub experiences on the Sennheiser Facebook page. 5 winners will be chosen for an all-expendes paid trip to London for a night with Bob Sinclair. 50 runner-up winners will receive a special edition box set of HD 25 DJ headphones and Amperior headphones to take their sounds on the road.

As far as social music campaigns go, this one is very basic in concept and execution. Sennheiser closes the loop by driving interest to its destination web site, then points entrants to the company’s Facebook page to enter the contest. We thought it fell short in a couple of areas:

1. Content Syncronization – The Sennheiser YouTube Channel features videos that have yet to make it over to the destination website. In fact, Qbert’s video lives on YouTube, but is curiously not yet embedded on its respective page on the website.

2. Poor SEO – The Inspired By DJ site has a fixed layout. Clicking on any DJ in the left sidebar loads content in the right content pane. While this has a bit of a cool factor, so that the page doesn’t reload, the site loses a bit of SEO juice by limiting the opportunity for Google to link a page URL with keywords to a page with a corresponding H1 tag.

In the code samples from the site below, we see that the meta tags contain no reference to the DJs and DJ Fly’s div block contains an H1 style, but the URL bar remains fixed on the overall page URL: www.sennheiser-sites.com/inspired-by-djs/#.

<head><script type="text/javascript">var NREUMQ=NREUMQ||[];NREUMQ.push(["mark","firstbyte",new Date().getTime()]);</script>
<title>Sennheiser - Headphones &amp; Headsets - Microphones - Integrated Systems</title>
<meta charset='utf-8'>
<meta content='Sennheiser - Headphones &amp; Headsets - Microphones - Integrated Systems - Service &amp; Support - Discover True Sound - Top-quality products and tailor made solutions for every aspect of recording, transmission, and reproduction of sound. ' name='description'>
<meta content='Headphones,Headsets,Microphones,Integrated Systems,bluetooth headphones,ANC,ANRPilot headset,studio headsets,audiology,RF wireless,sennheiser.com' name='keywords'>

<span id="the_content2" style="display:none;">
<div style="color: #FFFFFF; padding:10px; height:586px; background: url(DJFly_bg.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat;">
<h1 style="color: #FFFFFF;">
DJ FLY <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">(<a href="http://www.myspace.com/djflycom" target="_blank">www.myspace.com/djflycom</a>)</span>
</h1>
<p>
Exploding out of Lyon as part of the Scratch Bandits Crew, super star turntablist, scratch virtuoso and producer DJ FLY has taken the global DJ scene by storm over the past decade. As well as breathing in the rarified air at the top of the DJ world – winner of regional and national DMC titles and of the DMC World Championship in 2008 -, DJ FLY is a legendary performer – wowing crowds with energy and personality. <br>
<div align="center">
<iframe width="356" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WN38V270QWg?rel=0&autoplay=0&autohide=1&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
<br>
Influenced primarily by Hip Hop, with an affinity for Soul, Rock, Electro and Dubstep, DJ FLY’s original sets smoothly integrate tracks from artists such as “Busta Rhymes” to “Chase And Status”. <br>
<br>
His talents have taken him beyond the borders of his hometown: DJ FLY soon conquered France and destinations abroad as he met with the same success on tour. He has performed solo and alongside artists such as Method Man, RedMan, Raekwon, Nas and Akon as well as with other renowned DJs such as DJ QBert, Grand Master Flash and A-Trak.  
</p>
</div>
</span>

3. No Social Sharing Buttons – The Inspired By DJ site lacks any social sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest, even though the main Sennheiser site contains those features in the left sidebar, as shown below.

In addition, the main site has yet to implement Facebook Open Graph Objects tags for articles in the site

<head></head>

 element, which cause’s its sharing tools to display the site’s H1 and not the H1 of the story itself. When delivering content into social media, it ‘s important to get the right content into a page, so that when it gets shared across the social web, the context remains constant.

<html lang='en'>
<head><script type="text/javascript">var NREUMQ=NREUMQ||[];NREUMQ.push(["mark","firstbyte",new Date().getTime()]);</script>
<title>Sennheiser: Headphones, Microphones and Wireless Systems</title>
<meta charset='utf-8'>
<meta content='Headphones, Headsets, Microphones and Wireless Systems - Sennheiser Discover True Sound - www.sennheiser.com' name='description'>
<link href="/assets/application-dc3ffb692385bf88b0f61915192657f0.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="/assets/application-7e2d2d16e8b018239cd62ad6be7e9e00.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src='http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js'></script>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]>
<link href="/assets/browsers/ie7-a22d94c4a525623a781dd45e4fb585c9.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]>
<link href="/assets/browsers/ie8-c8e024da5b07b220181401405c63a13a.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->
<script>
  //<![CDATA[
    var _gaq = _gaq || [];
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-29729271-1']);
    _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'sennheiser.com']);
    _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

    (function() {
      var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
      ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
      var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
    })();
  //]]>
</script>
</head>

In the screenshot below, we can see that the content for the share is incorrect. Facebook is pulling the title of the main page and not the title of the news item. Implementing Open Graph tags for Ojbects would help scrape the page and ensure the correct content is shared into a Facebook wall post. Notice that only the photo and a portion of the URL of the page is correct: http://en-de.sennheiser.com/news/the-word-on-the-streets-what-are-the-hottest-clubs-around-the-word-tell-sennheiser-your-tips-to-win-one-day-one-night-in-london-with-bob-sinclar; the title and description are not.

4. Confusing “Call To Action” - We’re not sure what the call to action is here. There is text above the Bob Sinclair video embed that says: “Call To Action,” but does not click through to anything. Most web users have never heard the phrase, “call to action,” which is an insider’s term for inserting content that will drive a user to take an action, for example, visit a web page, enter a content or buy a product.

While the video of Bob Sinclair is embedded in the center of the page, there is no mention of the contest until you scroll below the fold to the Latest News section, which provides links to content announcements in the form of news; very uninspiring!. There is no continuity here. What’s missing? Maybe graphics around the video that promote the contest. Simple to do and simple to execute, but it seems as if there was no interest in getting creative. We guess there was some “compromise,” despite the “without compromise” line under the “Inspired by DJs” header.

Launching the contest without wrapping the DJ in contest imagery or mentioning the contest above the fold – well, we can see where that is a #FAIL.

5. Where’s Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram as part of the contest? – Why only Facebook? Companies need to understand that in order to leverage the social web, you need to attack all the channels, not just one.

6. Poor Image tagging – We noticed that on the Inspired by DJwebsite, all of the home page DJ images are not using the “alt” or “description” elements in their respective image tags. While each image uses the DJs name in the file name, i.e. “square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg,” the image tags should also contain more descriptive information for Google to pick them up and rank them higher in an image search.

<div class='js_tile tile-position-2 tile-size-2'>
<a href='' onclick='document.getElementById("the_content0").innerHTML = document.getElementById("the_content1").innerHTML;return false;'>
<img alt='' class='js_imagetoggler' data-src-mouseout='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg' data-src-mouseover='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar.jpg' src='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg' />
<div class='info'>
<span class='link'>
DJ Bob Sinclar
</span>
<span class='debug'>
tile-position: 2
</span>
</div>
</a>
</div>

<div class='js_tile tile-position-2 tile-size-2'>
<a href='' onclick='document.getElementById("the_content0").innerHTML = document.getElementById("the_content2").innerHTML;return false;'>
<img alt='' class='js_imagetoggler' data-src-mouseout='square_DJFly_SW.jpg' data-src-mouseover='square_DJFly.jpg' src='square_DJFly_SW.jpg' />
<div class='info'>
<span class='link'>
DJ FLY
</span>
<span class='debug'>
tile-position: 2
</span>
</div>
</a>
</div>

While they’ve put a good amount of thought into this campaign, Sennheiser could have taken it one step further and really made a strong, creative impact. Hopefully, other companies will learn from where Sennheiser fell short. Regardless, Netmix hopes the Sennheiser campaign is successful. And, if you feel so inclined, maybe you’ll pick up a pair of Sennheiser Amperior headphones from Amazon through Netmix.

(Disclosure: We get an affiliate commission if you buy through Netmix and can use the extra pennies!)

See larger image Sennheiser Amperior Headphones, Silver (Electronics) List Price: $349.95 USD New From: $269.00 In Stock Used from: $169.00 In Stock

Netmix scoured the social web for stories on the new MySpace. Can the site make a comeback or is it simply impossible to compete with Facebook, Spotify, Rdio, MOG and other entrenched players in the digital music space? We’re collected Tweets, video news stories and articles from the social web.

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