This is great:

Created by Time, Inc and The Wonderfactory.

[spotted via BrandonHixon.com]

Steve Stoute is someone I’ve long admired and respected for his business savvy. Actually, one thing a lot of people don’t know, is that while I am influenced by many business leaders, it was actually his movements that motivated me to start my own business.

When Steve Stoute started Translation in 2004, I found any piece of news I could find about the company, its vision and its work. I was tired of seeing the limited creative input at label jobs and the limited growth potential up here in Canada. I wanted to do something different and something more.

My business plan and vision for a company was influenced by many different business’ & leaders, however the example provided by Steve Stoute & Translation LLC, help me specify my niche and the extra push to just go for it.

The idea of making money by partnering with corporations outside of the entertainment industry wasn’t new to me, but I was finally at a stage of understanding in my new career to think about it with a more focused and refined mentality – and Translation was making waves. I was paying close attention.

As with any business, the vision grew and a few things changed around, but thankfully, it’s still going strong and its primary objective is still to think differently and create new ways of doing business.

Anyhow, enough with that. Check out this video of Steve discussing an example of alternative routes of generating revenue in the music business:

[via Aura & Roc4Life]

With new websites popping up everyday, it’s rare to be truly impressed with a website concept these days (for me anyways).

This next one managed to really impress me though.

Rather than launching a typical website, ad agency BooneOakley decided to launch a “website” in the form of annotated YouTube videos.

Below is their “home page” with annotated links to the other videos that comprise their entire site.

Click the buttons in the video to go to their other “pages”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8]

Artists should take a hint from this. Even if you don’t do a series of YouTube videos to comprise your website; think past the given functionality of tools and find innovative new methods of using them to benefit your own needs.

You can break new ground while saving your valuable (sometimes non-existent) budget.

I’m getting some ideas now. Gotta go jot them down while they’re still fresh.

My friend, Speaker, Trainer and Consultant, Staci J Shelton held a seminar at the BizCamp 2009 conference in Akron, Ohio titled “Using Social Media To Market Your Brand”.

The video of her seminar has finally surfaced on the net, and I’d like to share it with you guys.

It’s about an hour, so make sure to keep your notepad open and take notes!

While all of us are constantly thinking of new ideas on how to generate revenue in today’s music business, No Doubt has come up with a solution of their own – they’re making their entire catalog available for download – for free.

According to MTV.com, No Doubt will be offering their entire back catalog of music in digital format, for free, for fans who purchase tickets to their upcoming tour. (Technically, it’s not really “free”, as opposed to, “at no additional cost”. But you get the point.)

There are some stipulations – like the deal only applies to tickets priced at $42.50 or more before extra fees, excluding lower price levels and lawn seats. But otherwise fans who sign up online when tickets go on sale on Saturday will get each and every digital song, beginning with the band’s self-titled 1992 debut up through their 2003 The Singles 1992-2003 collection.

That includes The Beacon Street Collection (1995), their 1995 breakthrough Tragic Kingdom, 2000’s Return of Saturn, 2001’s Rock Steady and the 2003 Everything in Time (B-sides, Rarities, Remixes), plus their cover of Adam and the Ants‘ “Stand and Deliver,” the only new recording included in the set.

“Since the band is heading back to the road, we wanted to find a cool way to get people listening to our music and stoke them with a great deal at the same time,” said No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont in a statement announcing the deal for the 80 songs. “With this download, it’s easy for fans to get psyched up to hear our music live once again, and that rocks.”

Although not common, it’s not the first time an act has done something like this. As the article mentions, Prince gave free copies of his CD (yes, a physical copy – not a download code), Musicology, to everybody who attended his 2004 tour.

If the proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger goes through, then we are about to witness the formation of a major power player in the music business, whose main business is not recorded music, but rather live performances. Will this type of concept of giving away free music to boost ticket sales become the norm?

How will this effect the future of the music business?

Will music itself no longer be a product for sale, but only a promotional tool to sell performances and events?

This is not the first incident of offering free music to boost ticket sales, and it certainly won’t be the last; but this is a clear indication of where the major players in the game are leading us as an industry.

Question is, where will it lead us?

I’ve been waiting for this album for years. And when I say years, I mean, before his YouTube channel became a hit and before anybody knew who Cassie was.

I remember first hearing his music before he signed with Casablanca; some artists I knew had signed a deal with NextSelection at the time and R. Les was working with Cory Gunz & Latif. Back when I was jamming to “Me & U” before the Bad Boy stamp (I’ll leave that story for another day).

If you’ve heard R. Les’ album, you already know that the music is incredible. But there’s more to it than just that. I truly love this project because it’s a solid example of something I feel very strongly about: real vs fake.

Too many people get caught up in BS when they hear the newest he-said/she-said gossip:

“OMG, did you see that picture of this Rapper A hugging his mother? WTF? I thought he was hard! I thought he was a street thug. What’s he doing being all soft hugging his mother like that? WTF? Like, what’s that all about?”

Or

“Did you see that video on WorldStarHipHop of some random guy talking into his webcam from his bedroom saying he has proof that Singer B is gay? OMG, he even said that all Singer B’s jewelry is fake & that he had to beg Producer C for a song so that he could have a ringtone song for his label to push as a single. I mean, it’s on the internet so it MUST BE TRUE!”

Please go and sit down with all of that.

It’s getting increasingly annoying to watch people pull stupid moves in an attempt to impress. And unfortunately, this quest for constant attention (regardless of what kind of attention it is), has greatly affected how artists create/release their music.

What ever happened to being YOU?

Yes, this is the entertainment industry, but there is a difference between “entertainment” and “fake bullshit”.

Entertainment involves refining existing assets, touching them up and packaging them in a marketable manner.

Fake bullshit is when you pretend to be something you are not and attempt to fool everybody by claiming that it really is you. That’s you lying to everybody; including yourself.

It’s the difference between acting the role of a thug in a school play and pretending to be a thug everyday.

It’s the difference between butter and margarine.

It’s the difference between a Phantom & a Chrysler 300.

It’s the difference between Ryan Leslie and Yung Berg.

As an industry that helps create imagery, trends and what’s “cool”, it’s unfortunate to see that so many people who are IN the industry get caught up they way they do.

That’s like offering the CEO position at a major label to the kid who watches 106 & Park religiously and really believes that everything he’s seeing is real.

The lines between art mimicking reality and reality mimicking art are blurring and we are stuck with a bunch of people attempting to live life like they’re in a music video or gangster movie and then regurgitating that same sense of false reality into the media that they put out.

That’s what we have today; we went from being real influencers, to becoming influenced influencers.

You think the “broken telephone” exercise you used to do in school would cloud a message? Imagine this!

Creating something to make yourself marketable is fine & dandy, and that’s my forté so I definitely understand the need for it, but don’t fake your qualities. You’re not Joey Tribbiani; you don’t speak French. Stop lying!

When you’re asleep at night, if somebody woke you up frantically, would you be “you” or would you be completely exposed because your façade hasn’t been prepared yet?

Can you be you, without a massive disco ball chain?

Can you be you, without a gun in your waistband?

Can you be you, without 3 strippers on your lap and a duffle bag full of stacks of cash?

Can you be you, without any co-signs?

Can you?

Ryan Leslie can.

His whole album shows you that.

The lyrics are him, the melodies are him, the artwork is him and the videos are him.

The whole project is him!

You don’t need to be a producer or songwriter for this to work for you. Working with others is fine; and its encouraged, but the most important thing to remember is to be you!

If you can “be you” well, that alone is going to be your biggest asset and will weigh you above anybody else with 100 co-signs who’s not being themselves.

They might make some moves now; but sooner, rather than later, they WILL fall. And once they do; they won’t be able to come back because their bullshit has been exposed.

The elements will always be your strongest weapon. Just refine them and make sure you can do “you” better than anybody else.

That’s it.

Just be you and make sure you do it damn well.

I’d like to address some of the questions and comments raised regarding my Twitter Exclusive Experiment, where I premiered “Throw It Back” from Mack Maine ft. Lil Wayne on Twitter.

I know it’s been over a month, but hey – it was the holidays.

Better late than never :)

The Use Of Lil Wayne’s Name

While most people realized that I simply put Wayne’s name first, there were still a few people who thought I was misleading.

To make it clear, I never stated the song was “Lil Wayne featuring Mack Maine”, nor did I state it was a Lil Wayne song – I wrote Lil Wayne Exclusive.

Granted, some people may not see a difference between “song” and “exclusive”, there is a difference; especially in the mixtape scene.

Countless of emerging artists have used the ploy of stating that their song features a major artist such as Jay-Z or Akon, when it fact it’s simply a verse they’ve taken from a previous recording and placed it on their own mixtape song.

The term “exclusive” was stating that this song features original content from one of the leading artists on the planet right now, Lil Wayne.

This is common terminology amongst the hip-hop community, especially when discussing mixtapes and “street singles”.

That’s it.

Getting 14,000 Downloads Without The Appeal Of A Major Artist

A lot of people made the same comment over and over, “your experiment only worked so well because of Lil Wayne’s name. You can’t do that with an unknown artist”.

And they’re right.

I wholeheartedly agree that the number of downloads would be far less significant if it weren’t for the association of Lil Wayne.

That’s why I used this particular song to try this experiment out with; it had the right appeal.

I didn’t do this from an independent artist’s standpoint; I did this from a marketing standpoint.

I wanted to test out the viral nature of Twitter to promote music.

My angle was more of a test to compare Twitter/social media exclusives compared to the impact of sending exclusives directly to major online outlets via email blasts & the like.

I’ve been testing out different variables with blog promo and online marketing in the past year, so this time I wanted to see how effective it would be to offer something directly to everybody at the same time. This way the excitement of having first listen of an exclusive was as intense for eager music fans and online tastemakers as it was for bloggers who rushed to be the first to post it & send out their email blasts.

To test something of this nature, I can’t use a no-name artist with no appeal. I needed an artist with a strong enough fanbase to at least test the waters.

Luckily, I had a song from that featured one of the biggest artist’s in the industry.

I see it as “testing the waters” to new ideas of using social media for music marketing.

There are so many “Music 2.0 gurus”, however in my humble opinion, the digital landscape evolves far too quickly to really become a guru or expert at it (and most of those who do spend enough time becoming an expert at one of these sites, are often focusing on a site and/or tool that has already passed its prime).

My main motif is to just experiment with new ideas and use all these pieces to build new and innovative marketing strategies. For major and independent artists.

Free Downloads Are Great But How Do You Monetize From It?

This was a mixtape song. The concept of mixtapes are not as familiar outside of the urban genre, however to sum it up quickly for those not in the know; it’s a promotional tool.

Mixtapes are used as a free (mostly) promotional tool to raise awareness of an artist (or DJ, producer, collective, etc), therefore developing a bigger fanbase and higher anticipation for any future releases, tours, merchandise or other revenue streams the artist may be anticipating.

Rather than relying solely on well scripted bios. press releases & storylines to build awareness for an artist (a.k.a “buzz”), hip-hop artists will often promote their music with music.

Genius, ain’t it?

So regarding how you monetize a mixtape song, it’s the same as asking how to monetize a music video that you can viewed for free or how to monetize free promo swag that’s passed around.

I didn’t create the concept; I just use it when needed.

Can This Be Done On Other Social Networks/How Many Followers Do You Need For It To Work?

Yes, I definitely believe this can be achieved on other social networks; whether it be an existing social network or one that we’ve yet to all flock to.

Also, you don’t need 10,000 followers for this to work (Twitter refers to people who add you to their network as “followers”).

At the time of this experiment, I only had about 600 followers on Twitter. I know some people with almost 10,000 followers but they wouldn’t have been able to pull this off.

Why?

Because the quality of your network is far more important than the quantity of your network.

There are social network spammers who get trigger happy with the Follow button, in hopes that the more people they follow, the more people will follow them.

But follower numbers don’t necessarily equate to a good network.

All these “network spammers” do is create mass followers and then use their account for relentless promotion. Their followers (myself included) have learned to just glance past their tweets or even unfollow them.

I’m by no means a “social media professional” or anything of the like, but it’s not that difficult to figure out that people don’t like to be spammed.

In my humble opinion, one of the keys to social networking is right there in the name of it: you have to be social and you have to develop a real network.

Why does that concept seem so hard to grasp for some?

I’ve introduced several artists to Twitter and in all honesty, only a handful of them are approaching it with the right mindframe. The rest only post promotional messages and then complain to me that they only have 40 followers and haven’t seen the benefit of being there.

If you’re an artist, of course you’re going to want people to know about your music, but don’t forget that it’s still a SOCIAL network.

If your name isn’t Jay-Z, people will need a good reason to pay attention to you. So don’t just spam them, talk with them.

Talk to people and interact. If people care, they’ll find out more about you and might actually respond when you do post a promotional message.

That’s what I did. I interact with my network, I engage in conversation with them often, and now we’re seeing the results of how they supported me when I decided to promote something.

14,000 Downloads Isn’t That Much

Okay. To some people it might not be that much.

But think about this; I posted a message on Twitter telling my network that I had a Lil Wayne exclusive, another message saying that I wanted to try an experiment, and then at 11pm on a Friday night when the majority of young, hip-hop fans are out with friends, I posted one last message with a link to the song.

Those few tweets resulted in over a dozen retweets in the span of ten minutes which resulted in over a dozen popular websites & blogs posting the song – which finally resulted in thousands of downloads.

No major push.

No month long build-up.

Just a couple tweets.

It might not be the biggest download total you’ve ever seen, but 14,000 downloads in 48 hours, for an upcoming artist, based on those few tweets on a Friday night isn’t too bad.

And remember – this was just an experiment I decided to do at the last minute.

At least I’m trying new things. That what matters, isn’t it?

How did we get over 14,000 downloads in 48 hours?

Last Friday, I spoke with Mack Maine and he told me his upcoming mixtape with Don Cannon, “This Is Just A Mixtape” is finally going to be released and he wanted to get some buzz going around it.

Maine and I go back a few years, so when he asked me to help get the word out, I didn’t need to think twice.

I was on the road all day so I didn’t have a chance to listen to the songs until about 9:45pm on Friday night. I was debating on whether to wait until the next morning to take any action but I was anxious to hear them so I decided to listen and prepare a plan right away.

One of the songs prominently features Lil Wayne so I posted a message on Twitter stating that I have a Lil Wayne exclusive and asked which top hip-hop blog/site I should send it to first before sending it to the rest.

I decided to put Wayne’s name first to grab more interest but also because several Twitter applications cut off the message after a certain number of characters; so this way we can capture the most interest immediately, but I was careful never to say it’s Lil Wayne featuring Mack Maine – I just emphasized on the exclusive cameo from a well-known name.

Several Twitter folk suggested different major hip-hop websites, but the after thinking it over quickly, I thought “why not just post it on Twitter and have it spread organically?”

There’s always so much talk about how effective social network marketing is, but we don’t really have too many solid examples to go by; not in urban music anyhow. So why not create it ourselves?

That prompted the following tweet:

As I began to upload the song, I  asked my Twitter network to kindly retweet my upcoming message featuring the song & download link so that we can showcase the real power of social media as well as the influence of online tastemakers. (A retweet is when you re-post someone’s message on Twitter verbatim and include their username to give source credit).

The result?

That was the initial reaction from Twitter, however it doesn’t stop here.

Tastemakers emailed the song to their mailing lists, bloggers posted it, torrent users seeded it and DJs already began playing it in the club that same night.

You can see some of the websites where it’s already been posted on by clicking here. (Search results may vary since there are always typos and naming differences)

Another unique point about this; I posted the song on SoundCloud as opposed to another online file distribution site – so all zShare, Sharebee, MegaUpload and other links you find online were all created from other websites, bloggers and users.

Interestingly, most people completely overlooked the online streaming option and went straight for the download button (likely to race being the first person to post the song on their site).

This is interesting because the main focal point of a SoundCloud page is the online streaming player, while the download button is not as highly visible.

My Twitter message with the download link was posted at 10:35pm on Friday, November 28th.

Within 24 hours the song had been uploaded to several top hip-hop websites & blogs as well as a plethora of smaller, upcoming websites with thousands of downloads and hundreds of comments.

It’s a little difficult to track ALL the download links and it took a while to find the ones I did and then eliminate the repeats. Once I did that though, I calculated the total number of downloads after 48 hours of my Twitter post.

So, as of 10:35pm on Sunday, November 30th, the total number of downloads from the links I was able to track?

14,281

Over 14,000 downloads in 48 hours!

Skeptical?

I don’t blame you, although I do invite you  to check it out for yourself.

Do a Google search for the song and track all the download links from the websites listed. Eliminate the repeats and then add them up. The number will be higher now that more time has passed.

This just goes to show the true power of not only social networking but also of a great network.

I just posted a few tweets and one link; now there are dozens of download links, dozens of articles/posts, hundreds of tweets and thousands of downloads.

This result is thanks to everybody who participated in this experiment. Together, we created a great example of the power of social media.

In case you missed the song, you can check it out here.

Not bad for an impromptu idea on a Friday night, huh?

UPDATE: I’ve posted a follow up to this post to address some questions I’ve received regarding this whole experiment. You can read it here.

Did you see my social media experiment last night?

Rather than have any one particular website break a new song like in the past, I decided to break a new Mack Maine & Lil Wayne song via Twitter and have it spread organically.

I will do another post on Monday to discuss the results but for now, just check out the song and enjoy!

Click here to download Mack Maine ft. Lil Wayne – “Throw It Back”

[Update: The results of this experiment are in. Click here to read the results.]

Ariel Publicity has just launched their Cyber PR Urban blog, as a service to aspiring artists & musicians in the urban music genre.

Cyber PR Urban’s Christina Duren, was kind enough to reach out to me for an interview for the launch.

Below is the transcript of the interview, in which we discussed social media, and how artists today can use social networks to their benefit:

Cyber PR: With the music industry shift into the digital world, what would be the best advice to give an artist looking to start a social networking strategy?

Me: I’d suggest for artists to first figure out what their goals are. A lot of people (artists, DJs, producers, managers, labels, etc) jump into things without first understanding the medium, the purpose or even themselves.

What I mean by that is; what do you wish to achieve by starting an online strategy? Do you want to sell music, concert tickets, merchandise, or are you just focused on raising your brand awareness at the moment?

Most people will say they want to do it all, and that’s fine, but you need to have a strategy.

One of the most useful pieces of advice I can offer anyone is to draw it out. Go get a big whiteboard and write down each of your goals on the board in a circle. Then figure out if there’s a way of connecting each of those goals to one another. You’re basically playing “connect the dots”. If there is something on the board that cannot be connected to anything else, then you either have to find a way to make it connect, or push it to the side for the time being. What this does is it allows you to understand your overall strategy and how each of your goals interacts with one another.

Too many people try to do too much at the same time but never figure out how to take full advantage or make the most use of all their avenues. How many times do we see startup record labels that also claim to have a fashion line, a sports agency, an energy drink and 18 other products or services? These people don’t have a strategy. They have a bunch of dots on the whiteboard that don’t connect. Connect your dots – that’s the first step in creating a real strategy; for your brand and for your career.

Once you have this in place, then coordinate how you will execute each phase of your promotional plan. If you have a team of multiple people helping to update all of your sites and networks, then make sure you’re all in sync with one another. There’s nothing worse than an artist whose MySpace page conflicts with information on their website and their Facebook group.

First coordinate then execute. If you don’t handle yourself like a professional, nobody will take you seriously and you’ll be left complaining about how hard it is to break into the industry with the rest of the procrastinators and unorganized artists.

What would be your top 5 social networking sites recommendations you would give to an artist to get on to promote themselves online?

It depends on what your goals are and what markets you’re focused on, but for the most part:

Twitter
Kyte/Qik.com
Facebook
MySpace
YouTube

What was your goal in starting MakingtheMogul.com?

It actually started with the name oddly enough. I came up with the name Making The Mogul a few years back. I had started my first internship at a major label and Donald Trump had just launched the show, The Apprentice. Everybody used to joke around calling me “the real apprentice” due to my work ethic and the fact that I’d never go home until the last bus ran.

At the same time, Diddy had taken over the Making The Band franchise and it was a major hit. I barely watched any television, but those were 2 shows I’d always make sure I caught. I loved the drive and hustle that was needed to survive and succeed.

With those 2 being amongst my favorite things to watch at the time, I always thought there should be a show that mixed The Apprentice with Making The Band. A show where people compete to make it in the business side of the music business.

We ended up getting one TV series that was almost amongst those lines, BET’s “Ultimate Hustler”. I say “almost” because the show didn’t seem to have a defined goal; if you win The Apprentice, you work for Donald Trump, if you win Making The Band, you get signed to Bad Boy, but if you won Ultimate Hustler, you won a car, a new wardrobe and I think some cash. Didn’t make much sense to me.

We also had AOL’s web series, “Tha Biz”, which was more along the lines of what I wanted to see, but it was only aired online and didn’t really receive much of an audience.

I figured if nobody else is giving me the content I want to see, then why not create it myself. Years later, I decided that a blog was the best format for me to deliver my story. I might incorporate video and other elements into the blog later on, but for now, the blog is my main platform.

So my blog is my version of the show/story that I always wanted to see – the journey of a young professional in the music business. That’s MakingTheMogul.com.

What benefits have you received an music industry professional by starting a blog?

I’d definitely say exposure. When you work behind-the-scenes, it’s your job to put others in the spotlight, but that doesn’t necessarily put your name out there unless make a point to do so yourself. The problem is, a lot of people who attempt to put their names out there, do so in a very pretentious way. I call those people Diddy 2.0s. They suffer from the same complex as many confused artists who watch too much TV and don’t realize that there’s so much more to it. They see people like Diddy or Jay-Z who are making major business moves, and then fantasize about doing the same without first realizing just how much work goes into it.

For me, starting a blog was my way of putting my name out there without doing so in a pretentious way. If you read my blog, you’ll notice I don’t really discuss what projects I’m working on or whom I affiliate with that much. Once in a while, of course; but I generally only mention names when relevant. I prefer keep the subject focused on issues and opinions. My blog is about sharing information. Someone might learn something on my blog, and I also learn a lot from my readers. I’ve been very surprised to find out who reads my blog, but just through the comments, emails and channels like Twitter, I’m able to interact with others and converse casually. So we all learn from each other. I’d rather do that and have my name associated with being a source of information through my blog, rather than participate in the circus of Diddy 2.0s who just want attention.

Also, being in Montreal, Canada, the blog has helped expand my reach. A lot of my clients are US-based and I make it a point to reach out to different cities and go to conferences, events, etc to network, but I only have so much budget and time. The blog helps me keep my presence relevant at all times and helps me connect with people in cities I’ve yet to visit.

Even when I’m sitting on my couch at home in Montreal eating dinner & watching a movie – my blog is actively working on spreading my name and turning the handle on the doors I plan to open.

A recent NYU study found blogs to be more effective than Myspace in generating album sales, do you feel that blogs will be the new wave of the music industry in getting music promoted or just a phase that will soon fizzle out?

Blogs are essentially vigilante media outlets as opposed to the filtered voice of a major corporation, so when you’re reading something on a blog, you’re reading the voice of someone who actually listens to the music that they are reviewing and/or featuring.

This generally translates as conversation as opposed to a promo/advertisement that you’d get spammed with on other platforms. Between a conversation and an advertisement, which one do you think an audience will likely respond to? That’s what gives blogs a one-up on MySpace and often times major media outlets.

In terms of whether or not I see this trend lasting or not; I don’t believe that blogs will always remain in the format they’re currently presented, since mediums constantly change and evolve; however the concept behind personal tone vs advertisement will definitely stick around and will remain a staple in marketing communications. It’s been around for a while, but it’s become so much more accessible and globalised, while localized at the same time. That form of communication and accessibility is here to stay and anything that’s effective at attracting an audience like that will be used to promote music and nearly everything else in the marketplace.

Bloggers are continuing to get higher and higher in priority for labels, to the point where some blogs are getting first priority for exclusives before radio or television outlets. You look at that and then you see things like Perez Hilton getting a label deal with Warner. These are clear indications of the fact that times are not only changing, but that personal tone is becoming a serious player against blatant advertisments.

Times are changing.

Bloggers are the new A&R.

I’d like to know what you think. What do you agree with? What do you disagree with?

Leave a comment below and let me know.

Originally posted at CyperPRUrban.com

Here’s an interesting video I found of Jimmy Iovine discussing his views on today’s music industry and his vision on the direction it’s taking. (Note: The video is about a year old)

He offers advice for new artists as well as talking about possible distribution models, what makes a great producer and the future of Interscope and the traditional record label.

[See post to watch Flash video]

“What Are You Doing?”

That one, simple question is the basis of one of the hottest social networking tools around, Twitter.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s basically micro-blogging mixed with instant messaging. Essentially, it’s more or less the same as Facebook and MySpace’s status field, but it’s meant to be updated more frequently and you can reply to other users as well.

It’s pretty easy to update and follow other people’s “tweets”, as the limit to each message is only 140 characters.

You can stay logged in from the home page, or install a Twitter client (I’m using TweetDeck right now). You can also update via text message or by adding Twitter as a buddy on your favourite instant messaging client.

Check out this video to see how others use Twitter for both business and personal:

Shout out to Aura and CJay who are featured in the video!

If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can sign up for one here. It takes less than 1 minute and you’d be surprised how useful this tool can be.

Artists, DJs, producers, managers, bloggers, journalists, general fans… anybody really can benefit from it. It’s easy to use and takes only a few seconds to update your audience on any news or event you want to share.

It’s also great for general fans who want to stay updated with instant news and have a platform to communicate with others you might not have any other means of contacting.

Make sure to add me  and browse around my Twitter friends; you’ll find a lot of interesting people there.

I don’t know if it’s because of my newfound love for Macs, but I found this video pretty dope.

AC’s being making noise for a couple years and now he’s decided to go a new route with his latest mixtape, “Attack Of The Blogs”.

AC released 20 different songs to 20 different blogs which pulled together as a scavenger hunt style contest. The mixtape came out about a month ago, but I just saw the video about 10 minutes ago and thought I’d give AC and his team props for their creativity; not only for the song and video, but also for their approach. They’re thinking of new ways of marketing and having fun with it.

Anyways, I usually don’t do spur of the moment blog posts (I’m going to try to do them more often though), but here is a link to download AC’s new mixtape, “Attack Of The Blogs”.

And here is the video that made me post this:

(Props to the director, Steven Tapia, for his creativity on this one)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLN6jIt9VwU] 

I remember seeing this video last year, but it found its way back to me… and now I have a blog, so I decided to post it up.

This video is a great example of viral marketing done right. Plus, it’s just effin hilarious.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4] 

I was sent this video that I want to share with you guys.

When you set out to create a viral video using controversial content, you have to be careful with how controversial your content is and how you approach it. You might want to push a few buttons, but don’t blatantly offend people; especially not with racist content.

The guy in this video has a company that produces “controversial” video skits for the web and mobile devices. Funny thing is, in the Press section of his website, he has a cartoon depicting a suited exec-type asking him how to get bloggers to talk about their company, and his reply being “Easy. Create something that doesn’t suck so bad it doesn’t make people want to kill themselves.”

Well buddy, you definitely kept to your word with this video. I don’t think anybody wants to kill themselves after watching this video – but they probably want to kill you.

“But Moe.. controversy sells, plus he got you talking about him, and that’s the whole point of controversial marketing isn’t it?”.

Yeah, controversy sells; for sure. Some people make a career of it including Howard Stern, Wendy Williams and even that other one there.. what’s her name… Ann Coulter.

These people know that by sparking controversy, they will generate a reaction from a mass audience. And when you have the attention of a mass audience – any mass audience – there will be companies kicking down your door to give you money; usually for access to that audience in the form of advertising (gossip, tabloids, etc).

These shock jocks and controversial personalities generally have some sort of plan before they open their mouths. (Well, maybe not Ann Coulter.)

I don’t know about this guy though; he doesn’t seem to quite “get it”. I watched some of his other videos and his “controversial content” is not really what I’d call controversial; it’s more sarcastic criticism than anything else. Seems like he stepped out of his element on this video and wanted to try something that would “take it to the next level”, but unfortunately failed miserably.

Apparently, there are petitions circulating calling on Verizon Wireless to terminate their relationship with this guy and his company.

Seems like he might’ve just Don Imus’ed/Kramer’ed his reputation and career.

Oh yeah.. the Verizon thing? Turns out he recently struck a deal with Verizon Wireless to distribute his “controversial videos” through their VCast & Fios services.

Seems like just yesterday that Verizon cut their ties with Akon for controversy surrounding one of his performances. Let’s see how/if they handle this.

Here’s the video. Let me know what you think in the comments.

UPDATE: Turns out this video/issue is bigger than I thought. The video is actually almost a year old and stirred up quite a controversy when it was first released, but stayed within the tech circles. It’s only recently gained wind due to the contract he signed with Verizon.

As best described on Liz Burr’s post about the issue, “I guess nobody cares until you try to be somebody.”

The video is here.

Ash Roth decided to do a video for the mixtape joint, Roth Boys, and you’ll never guess who showed up

Check it out below and make sure to grab the embed code to post it on your site/blog/myspace.

Imagine you’re back in grade school, and your teacher asks you to draw a picture of a cat. What would you draw?

You’d probably draw a round head, two triangle ears, a small rounded nose with whiskers, an ovalish body, four legs with little paws and a long tail.

That’s a cat.

But what if your teacher asked you to draw a picture of a rapper? Not a particular rapper, but just… “a rapper”.

What would you draw?

Some people might draw a guy with baggy jeans hanging below his ass, unlaced Timbalands on his feet, an oversized jersey, a couple chains hanging from his neck down to his belt, and a fitted Yankees cap tucked so low that you can’t see his eyes.

But is that what “a rapper” looks like?

If so, Asher Roth never got the memo.

The skinny, white boy from Pennsylvania (now based in Atlanta) looks and acts more like a college frat boy than a rapper. Yet, hip-hop mogul Steve Rifkind is banking on him.

In fact, Steve Rifkind not only signed him to SRC Records, he also calls Asher Roth“the best lyricst he’s heard in the past 10 years”.

This coming from the man behind Akon, David Banner, Big Pun, Wu-Tang and countless other hip-hop icons.

That’s a BIG look.

He was discovered on MySpace by upcoming music mogul, Scooter Braun, who was the one who brought him to the attention of Steve Rifkind. The two entered into a joint venture and signed Asher. (I’m definitely going to have a feature on Scooter on the blog. He still considers himself an “upcomer” but believe me.. he’s been making major moves since before he was able to legally buy beer).

I met Asher Roth a few months back, and while he’s co-signed by some of the biggest names in hip-hop today, it was a welcomed surprise to see that it hasn’t gone to his head – he’s still very humble and very approachable.

But rather than having me spend an hour telling you just how talented dude is, check out his website TheDailyKUSH.com and peep the music as well as the videos – you might notice a few surprise celebrity appearances (check the video below to see Akon’s reaction when Scooter makes him hear Asher Roth for the first time).

For those of you who are still curious about what a rapper looks like; listen to this song:

Asher Roth – The Lounge
[See post to listen to audio]

Also, make sure to peep Asher Roth’s upcoming mixtape, The Greenhouse Effect, with DJ Drama & Don Cannon, available for free download on June 13th by signing up at http://www.thedailykush.com.

I recently started working with Scooter and the entire Asher Roth team, so you’ll definitely be seeing some updates about him on the site. Rather than always staying curious about who I work with and what I do; I figure, this will be a good way to show you the progress of a project and share this experience with you.

If you’re interested in joining the team and being a part of this project, please leave a comment below or email me at makingthemogul@gmail.com and make sure to put “Asher Roth” in the subject field.

Site: http://www.thedailykush.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/asherrothmusic
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Asher-Roth/10884537233
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedailykush

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6i_5hEKsEY]

Looks like ATL producer Polow Da Don, just pulled an early Swiss Beatz move. Apparently, Polow used a few of the premade music loops that come packaged with Garageband to make Usher’s new song, “Love In This Club”.

Before anybody gets it twisted, I’m not putting anybody on blast. I’m a fan of Polow’s work and as companies and agencies become more creative with their marketing efforts, don’t be surprised if this was done intentionally and meant to leak out. I’m not saying it is, but you never really know.

Anyways, check out the… ummm…. the ummmmm…. the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHvnpoVTGY]

The guys over at The Real have been making quite a bit of noise with their brand of “hip-hop sketch comedy”.

Check out the video below on Def Jam’s Secret To Success.