So yesterday I came across this sentence written by Diana from Life Is Good.

Brilliant.

Normally I’m no good at these “tag” things, but this time my mom tagged me.  And everyone knows when your mom tags you, you have to figure out how to do it or you look like a jerk.  So, here’s the rules:  

Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not allowed to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird/random/odd facts, habits and goals.

Here goes:

1.  I don’t wear shorts in public, and I don’t wear any shoes that tie.

2.  I once believed that oatmeal was made out of old women’s teeth.

3.  I am overly sensitive to the sun, and would not be friends with it if it were a human.

4.  I pretend to forget things.

5.  I have been to all but five states in America.  (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Montana and Alaska)

6.  I don’t like people touching my nose.  Seriously.  Don’t do it.  And I don’t like nose air either.

7.  I don’t smile in pictures or typically look at the camera.

8.  I’ve never had surgery or stayed the night in a hospital.

9.  I have a tattoo of an ancient Egyptian god on my ankle and Jesus still likes me.

10.  I’ve never seen my pancreas and often think it’s weird that there are parts of my body I will never see.

So that’s it.  Ten random things about me.  I’m sure there are more like my OCD tendencies to want to straighten tables at Taco Bell, or alphabetize my groceries as I put them on the checkout conveyer belt, but we don’t need to get into that stuff.

So no I am supposed to tag six people and I have the hard decision of who that should be.  Do I (A) choose people that I know will respond like Cool Dad or maybe Culmer or do I (B) call out the folks that would never be involved in something like this in an attempt to lure them in like Carlos?  I do have one more idea, and I don’t see it working well, but I think I want to “Tag” some folks that we would all like to hear from.  Here goes.

Seth Godin - Yeah, that’s right.  I tagged Seth Godin.

Barack Obama - Who wouldn’t tag this guy?  He’s following me on Twitter you know.

Jay Maynard - Duh.

Peter Cetera - For one reason and one reason only.  His dance moves.

Hasselhoff - Yep, “The Hoff’s” got a blog.  You know you want to read it.

MC Hammer - Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em.

So we got pretty much a lot of the same answers on the first post, but there were a few good points, pointed out by some folks. Now, first I would like to point out that I am not suggesting that we throw out Myspace all together. From a marketing end that would be stupid. I realize that it’s something that has to exist, but I still hold to what I say in that an artists Myspace page needs to point to something that doesn’t suck. We all (mostly) agree that Myspace sucks, but I think all of us see the usefulness of it.

If we all agree that it sucks, but has to be there, why not have that point to something that doesn’t suck. Shaun made some great points in the comment section about spreading yourself out there enough that no matter what avenue people are on there is a way to find you. That’s an obvious good call. Tim also made some good points about the reach of Myspace over anything else out there. But again, why spend the time, where there could be a giant button that directs the reader to something more personal and that, again, doesn’t suck?

Dale over at IdeaDen is neck deep in artists online presence and rebutted with this post, which also states that while Myspace sucks, it also may “rule”. Dale writes:

It allows people to modify….er eh…destroy their profiles and make their site look more like a drunken programmers product after a Mountain Dew shortage. Despite all of its shortcomings, one thing remains true…if you want to find out about music and connect to the bazzzillllions of people looking for it…then Myspace is king.

Well written and true. As sad as that is. I think my big question is, What Next? What happens when Facebook is the “kind of sucks, kind of rules” thing and we are on to bigger and better? How many artists are leaving behind too many un-updated sites that are causing more confusion for their career than it is helping it? Do they need to hire someone full-time simply to make sure all of these social networking things are consistent? Or do all of these places simply point to one consistent place, and that being the “.com”?

Just thoughts. Thanks for all the input. What do you guys think?

I have talked to a lot of people in the past month or so about bands web presence and sooner or later during the conversation these few sentences are spoken:

Me: “What do you think of your Myspace page?”
Random Artist (Popular or Not): “Myspace sucks, I hate it.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard those words in the past month or two and how many times I have had to hold my tongue from saying, “I freaking told you”. Myspace is on it’s way out, but there are still so many artists using it. Why? Because they have to. They have to until it fades away and becomes another un-updated useless site and then eventually redirects them somewhere else.

Remember a year ago when a common question was “Are you on Myspace?” or “I will just look you up on Myspace” was a phrase coupled with saying goodbye. Now those words are replaced with two simple words. “Myspace Sucks”. Which I guess was sort of three words before something altered the english language.

I understand that there are artists that still need to use it, and it will be around for a long time, but guess what? Facebook will do the same thing in six months. So will Virb, and yes, Carlos, so will Twitter. One thing that isn’t going anywhere is the internet. That (I have a hunch) will be around for a while. Along with all of these social networking things disappearing so will easy to remember domain names, and almost every “.com” that you can think of. There’s really nothing we can do about the “.com” thing for bands, until someone invents a “.band” and that is strictly for musicians. (Don’t steal the idea, I need that to pay for my kids college.)

What I am tying to say is that eventually people will need their “.com” to be a central point for all things social networking. That will become the hub of everything online and it should be. That’s where people will look for you. That’s where Google will look for you. So why not be there? And along with that, why not make that the most reliable place to learn about you on the web? Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Yet hundreds of artists are spending time and energy on a Myspace page, that if you didn’t notice today, will have problems that you can’t fix.

I spend a lot of time checking out the “web presence” of all of the artists that I am working with, which unfortunately means sitting there waiting for their Myspace page to load. Today I was checking one of the artists pages and noticed that the “Shows” part of the page was all out of order and repeated over and over several times making the page unbelievably long. I scrolled and scrolled to get to the bottom and ten minutes later I made it. I shook my head, looked at several other artists with the same problem, and went to some other page. Once again, confusion that can be avoided and issues that can’t be fixed when someone else is in charge of your info.

So what do you think? Myspace still cool or suck? I think I know the answer, but lets talk it out.