Comments on: are blogs the heirs to music magazines and radio stations? yes

By: J. Wallace

J. Wallace — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:52:07 +0000

Ahh, blogs! Better than zines in many ways, but sometimes I do yearn for the bad old days of paper DIY xerox rags…still, I have to say that blogging is much closer to the spirit of the old indie press but without the unfortunate consequences of limited distribution and such.

Dave, as always you seem to have your finger on the pulse. I envy your perspective on the biz, but one thing I’d love to have you dish on—what’s your perspective on this industry with respect to the bad old days of youth worship compared to today’s seemingly more open stance on a literal “all ages” policy. I remember the mantra of the Sex Pistols and many others back in the day was “Move over, grandad, you’re obsolete.” We’ve come quite a long way since then, but as I myself approach yet another zero-year birthday and take note of difficult knees and other tricky joints, I wonder how long I could successfully haul myself in an d out of the back door, gear in hand. Studio recluse, that would be my dream musical position. Untenable as it is….touring still seems to be the life preserver of music, but wither the osteopath?

By: pdx97217

pdx97217 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:23:08 +0000

Excellent set of comments. You’re well positioned for world domination, the question is only of endurance. Your internal policy about posting mp3s of bands which have SENT the material to you vs simply burning + uploading is the industry-killer. This both answers the piracy question, and weens kids from corporate rock. How widespread is this policy for music blogs? What’s the affect of music blogs outside of the US?

By: Nancy Tarr

Nancy Tarr — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:53:42 +0000

Nice interview. It will be interesting to see how major artists/labels interact with music bloggers.

By: bear ears

bear ears — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:10:12 +0000

I like to think that readers would be wise enough to notice the conflicts of interest that infect certain blogs and take away some of that authoritativeness.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:09:42 +0000

Excellent responses, Dave with many a truism. You were correct - I enjoyed. :)

By: LewieP

LewieP — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:58:22 +0000

Interesting read.

I am at the point now where my blog is in the transition period between a hobby and a part time job, and I am dealing with the conflict between becoming a tool for marketeers and prioritising serving my readers in a completely open and honest way, yet still earning from it.

I’ve got a Marketing firm that represents a bunch of big video games publishers offering me pre-release copies of games to review for them. Whilst it’s great that I am in a position where, unlike most games journalists, I don’t have strict editorial control over me, and am not forced to give ’skewed’ opinion by advertisers, I do worry that by giving exposure to those publishers with the money to spend on big marketing budgets I am having less of a positive economic impact on the games industry than I could do.

I also decided a while back to ditch adverts as well. I hate adverts taking up my bandwidth and screen real estate, and it would be hypocritical to have them on my own blog.

I am finding social networking on things like facebook and twitter to be quite useful for building traffic and spreading word of mouth about my blog, and I have got linked on a few of the bigger gaming blogs too.

Well, I guess I’ll see where it takes me.

By: j ragel

j ragel — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:49:38 +0000

bravo.

By: josh k

josh k — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:29:09 +0000

reading this i found myself wanting you to ask the IFPI questions related to how they fit into the blog mix.