“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm

I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theatre years ago and even then, that simple, pointed line stuck out to me.  Now years and years later more often than not I find myself replaying that line over and over in my head when it comes to the web.  We live in a time where nearly anything is possible online.  We can not only find out where you live, but we can get an image of your house and take a look at your unkept lawn.  We can communicate in more ways than ever, we can build programs that change the way money is traded and we have the ability to access things we’ve never seen before.

I touched on this a little yesterday and took a beating on Twitter because of it.  No big deal.  Opinions are opinions and sometimes I have different ones than others.  But here’s where I’d like to go with this.  It’s not an ethics thing, it’s not a financial thing or even a safety thing.  It’s just a simple musicians ‘web presence’ thing.

Now, more than ever, record companies are being pounded with the newest shiny thing to advance the career of their artist.  Companies are popping up everywhere saying that they can increase your Facebook following by ten-fold, companies are offering to manipulate your audience and increase your Twitter Followers, more plays on your Myspace, you name it and there’s a company out there that can offer it to you with little to no involvement on your part.  And honestly a couple times a week I’m asked if SkörInc can do some of these things.  And it’s at that moment I hear Mr. Jeff Goldblum’s voice repeating that line from Jurassic Park.  Now obviously, if SkörInc builds some gimmick app for you, dinosaurs aren’t going to storm out of the jungle and eat you, but I think there’s some absolute value to the question, ‘Just because we can, does it mean we should?’.

“But Brody, two days ago you were talking about spaghetti and throwing it all over the place and seeing what sticks right?”

Yeah, I was talking about that.  I was talking about that because that’s what I believe we are all doing as an industry.  That doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t answer the question, ‘Should we?’.  I think there’s value in taking risk, but only if the risk is looked at from a perspective way beyond the possibility.  Beyond the ability of ‘pulling it off’ and truly asking yourself, ‘what happens if we pull this off?’.  ”What does it benefit?”

Now, I’m not going to lie.  This is something I have to ask myself daily just to make sure that I’m keeping with a ‘greater purpose’ for the artists I work for.  Sure we can pull off some crazy stuff.  Four years ago we were broadcasting live, mulit-camera concerts online and even Ustream was telling me we were ahead of the game and pushing limits.  This week alone I have heard of four different events being broadcast online.  Technology moves quickly.  But the point is that I wholeheartedly felt that pushing to ‘pull that off’ was important enough to take a shot and see if it would work.  Turns out it’s sort of a cool thing.  There’s that spaghetti again.  But there was a “why” to it.

And maybe that’s where I’m going with this.  What’s the ‘Why’?  Sure, you might have figured out some way to quadruple your Facebook fans, but if your artist isn’t engaging, why does it matter?  Just because you can manipulate the system doesn’t mean you should.

It seems that we always land back at the content of things.  Content has always been and will always be king when it comes to your online presence.  So if you can connect with them through Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr or Gowalla, then do it.  But if the “why” behind all of it is “because we can make money”, don’t bother.  In fact, in my opinion, if “to make money” is your only “why”, you’re wasting your time.

Obviously I’m a little all over the map on this one, so you can tell it’s something that I daily go back and forth with.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.