David Emery OnlineMyCast
27 July 2006
We’re in the middle a movement, a revolution, a “wave”. Just like when we had punk in the 70s, or the hippies in the 60s (or even all that rubbish in the 80s).
It’s happening right now.
The music industry is completely changing – which everybody is aware of, obviously. With the rise of the internet and things like the iPod the game started to change completely but that isn’t the revolution – that’s just the catalyst.
Of course, we’re not even really there yet. MySpace – the biggest indicator of all this – has had a profound effect, but it’s only just starting to really disrupt things. The kids these days – the same kids that were responsible for punk – can’t conceive of a world without both the internet, but more importantly can’t conceive of a world where they are not connected to their friends 24/7. They post their whole life on their MySpace, and the repercussions this is going to have, and the new way of thinking this brings is going to change everything.
The new musical artists coming on the scene are only just starting to represent this. As much as I am loath to mention the Arctic Monkeys in this context – it’s pure cliché at this point – I do so only to point out that they aren’t really representative of what’s going on. They weren’t on MySpace until just before they were signed, and their connection to this new wave only comes because that’s what their fans were using, not them.
What much more interesting is the artists that start on MySpace, putting out their music the moment they make it, interacting with their fans in a way that just hasn’t been possible before. This doesn’t necessarily mean that record companies are going to disappear – they have plenty of skills still appropriate and needed, but it means that the system changes completely.
It’s also worth remembering that this effect almost every type of media – witness the affect that YouTube is having on video, for example.
What I find even more interesting is that this “new wave” or movement, even though many millions of words have been written about it, still doesn’t have a name. Sure, you see phrases like “The MySpace Generation” banded around, but nothing that really fits.
I’m not about to coin a phrase here though, I don’t think. Maybe something like “iCast”, or “MyCast”. I, or course, can’t stand mashed together words like that (see the article a few posts down) but it seems so indicative of what’s going on right now, and it does all boil down to easy personal publishing – that’s what is driving all this – so “casting” fits nicely.
May need some more thought, though…