Holy crap, I was on the front page of Saturday’s [tag]Tennessean[/tag] newspaper? Awesome!

Sorry… I got a call today on my way back from [tag]Saranac Lake[/tag], [tag]NY[/tag], that I was not only in a story but on page A1 of the big regional paper in [tag]Tennessee[/tag]. I’m a little excited about that.

Anyhoo, it’s all about using digital tools like [tag]Second Life[/tag] and [tag]Twitter[/tag] to further one’s music career. Check the article out while it’s still available online for free here.

…or just read it here:

Music marketing goes high-tech
Fan-hungry indie bands play in whole new world

By NICOLE KEIPER
Staff Writer

Nashville musician Matthew Ebel’s payout for a 15-date March tour was modest — he took home about $500 between CD sales and tips, playing to crowds of 30 to 50 folks a night.

But considering the singer didn’t have to leave his pajamas, much less his ZIP code, the jaunt wasn’t exactly a bust.

Ebel’s trek was inside “3-D virtual world” Second Life, where his digital avatar counterpart, avian pianist Hali Heron, provided real-time visuals for the live, Internet-streamed sound his owner cooked up back in the real world.

“It’s not enough to pay the bills,” Ebel says, “but considering they’re concerts that I played in sweat pants in my house, (there’s a) return on investment.”

The growth of social networking — from podcasting networks to MySpace, Facebook and Second Life’s virtual-reality socializing — is, in the eyes of techie indie musicians like Ebel, shifting the music-business model “for the benefit of the independent performer.” It works best, Ebel says, “if you stay on top of it.”

For Ebel, smart investing in a music career means keeping on top of fresh ways to share and market music online, like working the growing Second Life live-music circuit. He obsessively uses Twitter, too — a service that fires quick news updates to friends and fans via Web, instant message or phone.

Staying on top of changes, however, isn’t always easy. For less tech-obsessed musicians, keeping ahead of social networking’s light-speed expansion is a head-spinning task. And it’s a task whose benefits still aren’t totally clear. Ebel’s tech-savvy do-it-yourself marketing may have helped him ditch his day job, but it has not made him a megastar.

New realm is growing

For those who are already stars, keeping abreast of the techie curve already seems to have its uses.

Nashville piano-pop star Ben Folds jumped into Second Life last October, holding a launch party for his supersunnyspeedgraphic LP, and left with a pile of press clippings from The New York Times, Billboard and the Chicago Tribune, among others.

“Not only did his MySpace hits go up tremendously, so people were being turned on to him through it,” says co-manager Ken Levitan, “but the press that fell out of it, in a sense, was very, very big.”

Young local singer Jeremy Lister just got into performing live on Second Life, and the response was fun, he says, but not exactly big. Lister figures he’s pulled in 50 to 100 new fans through his performance with friends Sam Brooker, Ruby Amanfu and Semisonic’s Dan Wilson.

“Obviously things like MySpace are a lot bigger” for marketing one’s music, he says. “But (Second Life is) growing. And it was fun for us to kind of be pioneers.”

Second Life is growing — maker Linden Lab claim 6 million-plus users. But Lister’s approach is probably the more common one among musicians: He’s long been up on social networking as a marketing tool, but as the landscape broadens, he’s still focusing most of his promotional efforts on MySpace, which topped 100 million users last year.

Glenn Peoples, editor of music-industry blog Coolfer.com, says, “I don’t run across any band that does not have a MySpace page.”

MySpace gains rivals

The use of MySpace by so many folks as a marketing tool, however, leads some techie fans and musicians to flee for less cluttered pastures.

“Every band in the world jumped onto MySpace, (and it) unfortunately became nothing more than a giant spam pot,” Ebel says. “It became a place where all the bands in the world started promoting their stuff, so nobody actually wanted to hang out, because everyone there was only trying to promote their stuff.”

Some are migrating to Virb, launched in mid-March by the company that built music-focused social networking site PureVolume three years ago.

Virb’s thrust, says director of business development Todd Palmer, is a clean, more easily customizable networking hub. That’s already been enough for some early-adopter bands and fans to switch.

Web designer and blogger Michael Eades thinks Virb offers a “much, much better design, intuitive interface and a whole lot less clutter to get through,” and that on MySpace, “there is no context in which to find good new music.”

Context, in the over-saturated social networking world, might prove to be a big driver. Peoples figures that’s one thing the smaller, emo/punk niche-focused PureVolume got right.

“They’ve done a great job in just really finding their niche, and they have a really good brand awareness,” he says. “And I think that helps people sift through a lot of the crap. … We might be looking at the era of the niches.”

The social networking curve does seem to be headed there.

MySpace competitor Facebook thrived on its original students-only niche. Billboard reported in April that radio megalith Clear Channel is launching station-themed sites that cater to a local community’s music fans. Google’s site orkut wasn’t marketed specifically to Brazil, but has gained a massive niche following there.

Niche-specific features are emerging as a driving force, too.

Recent addition Kyte, like Twitter, focuses on users who want mobile connectivity, allowing them to watch and feed video content through their cell phones. More complex destinations like Second Life appeal to techies like Ebel.

Artists refine own niches

One of social networking’s strengths as a marketing tool, according to Levitan, is its ability to help an artist define his niche.

Folds enjoys a particularly tech-savvy fan base, so keeping on top of tools like Second Life makes sense.

“Ben was one of the first artists to do really, really well on iTunes, so he’s always loved that,” Levitan says. “He’s always stayed very attached to his Web site and his MySpace page, and wanted to communicate with his fans. … It’s always been very, very important to him to stay on the cutting edge of doing those kinds of things.”

As to whether or not launching a career off Second Life tours is likely, Coolfer’s Peoples figures it’s a long shot.

“You’re going after people who may or may not be music fans, avid music consumers, the type of people who go out to shows,” he says. “Maybe somebody’ll have some success there; I think it’s probably too small an online crowd to really have a huge impact.”

So far, that’s been musician Ebel’s experience exactly — his online fans, he says, “are not typically the types that’ll go out on a Friday night to watch a live show. So it’s difficult to translate any kind of online marketing into actual butts in seats.”

MySpace gets results

Perhaps the reason MySpace continues to dominate despite user gripes is that it can help get butts in seats.

Universal South online marketing director Ethan Opelt spends the lion’s share of his workdays navigating MySpace, and sees palpable results in using it for tour marketing. Locally, with artist collective Movement Nashville, Opelt’s MySpace-led promotional efforts helped make the bands AutoVaughn and Bang Bang Bang some of the local rock scene’s strongest draws.

“I’m a MySpace rat,” he says, “and it’s been very effective.”

What level of techie music-marketing attention will be most effective largely just depends on the artist, from Peoples’ perspective.

“I think there are some bands who probably have made part of their reputation on how they use technology, and they’re gonna be trying everything and they’re gonna be the early adopters,” he says. “And for a lot of bands, I think it might be smart just to let the technology play out a little bit and see how it goes, and not worry about adopting every little thing.”