All posts in “Copyright”

Social Media Roundup for March 30

March 30, 2012 / Comments Off on Social Media Roundup for March 30 / Posted in: Blog, Social Media Roundup

Michelle McCudden is a Manager on the Client Strategy & Innovation team at Social Media Group.

The Timeline Deadline is Here

Today Facebook will implement the mandatory switch to Timeline for Pages. If you’ve been reluctant to make the switch, here’s some good news to ease you through the transition: It looks like Timeline will actually benefit your page. A study from Wildfire this week showed that Pages with less than 1 million fans are seeing a big boost in engagement from switching over to Timeline, with sizeable increases to comments, likes and People Talking About This. Larger pages have seen a smaller boost, but are still benefitting. We’re looking forward to more data after the switch this weekend. In the meantime, it’s been interesting to see what some brands are doing to take advantage of that Cover Photo real estate:

Another awesome use for Timeline? Tracing your brand or industry back hundreds or thousands of years. Two of the best examples are the New York Times, which begins its Timeline in 1851 with the paper’s first issue, and Spotify, which traces the history of popular music back to the year 1000.

 

Pinterest’s New Terms of Service

Last weekend, Pinterest rolled out their new policies, with updates to the  Terms of Service taking effect on April 6 and updated versions of Acceptable Use and Privacy policies taking place on March 23. Among the changes are new tools for reporting alleged copyright or trademark infringements, the prohibition of pins or boards promoting self-harm (targeting “thinspo” boards, among others), and an update to the Terms of Service to remove the word “sell.” (Pinterest recently came under fire for their stated right to sell any content posted to Pinterest, with critics sighting concerns about copyright and ownership.) The new Terms also state that users aren’t to post any content that would infringe upon the rights of the creator, as a means of protecting Pinterest against charges of copyright infringement. How tightly this will be enforced remains to be seen. Check out John Herrman of Buzzfeed’s projection of what a board without copyrighted content might look like:


Understanding the Twitter Bug

 

A big story this week has been Twitter’s confirmation that there is, indeed, an “unfollow” bug, making it appear that you are not following someone that you had previously followed. Since Twitter’s redesign late last year, it’s much easier to see if someone is following you or not, thanks to the “FOLLOWS YOU” that appears next to their name.

While there’s some speculation that the bug is the result of the December redesign, others (myself included) seem to remember it starting earlier. Twitter reports that they’re working to fix the bug.

 

SoundCloud and The Battle for Music-Based Social Network Supremacy

December 8, 2011 / Comments Off on SoundCloud and The Battle for Music-Based Social Network Supremacy / Posted in: Blog

A Place for Music?

Although the MySpace of today looks as if it’s barely holding on by a thread, there was a time when it proudly wore the crown of social networks.

At its core was music, a key component in both its initial growth and the tail end of its usefulness. At the time, MySpace’s approach to music was incredibly innovative. They were one of the first web services to allow anyone making music, be it major, indie or an unsigned act, to upload their work to “the cloud” free of charge. Once uploaded, the music was streamable for audiences to enjoy.

This revolutionary approach to online music helped launched the careers of countless artists and forged new networks of friends connected through a shared fondness for a band or genre.

In fact, music played such an important role in the rise of MySpace that the site’s motto was simply “a place for music” for the better part of its glory days.

As the cons of using MySpace started to outweigh the pros, users began to naturally seek alternatives. Facebook offered a superior social experience and a mass migration soon followed. It’s a story we’re all familiar with, only there’s one thing missing. What happened to music on Facebook?

To be fair, Facebook hasn’t completely abandoned music. They’ve experimented with apps, artist pages and have recently started integrating services like Spotify and Rdio into profile timelines. It’s a nice start, but for the most part, it’s clear to any user that uploading and streaming music is not a significant part of the Facebook experience.

Enter The Void

Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, MOG, Turntable FM, Last FM and Ping are just a few of the new services currently looking to fill the online music void left behind by MySpace. While the theme of “listening to music” is common to all of these services, their methods of delivering the experience differs dramatically among one another.

Spotify, Rdio, and MOG rely on licensing deals to secure the rights to streaming content, Turntable FM requires similar rights yet adds an element of gamification, Last FM and Ping depend on capturing and sharing existing listening habits in an effort to pair like minded individuals based on similar taste.

Closely mirroring the model of MySpace, SoundCloud stands out from the pack by allowing any artist the ability to upload their music to the SoundCloud servers free of charge, the result being a clean, intuitive streamable audio portfolio of their work.

SoundCloud

I was lucky enough to participate in Soundcloud’s beta program back when I was writing my music blog. Their dropbox feature was a new, superior alternative to email for accepting demos by the public. Now looking back on this early sign of ingenuity, it’s no wonder the service has gone on to grow at a staggering rate.


In a few short years, SoundCloud has grown to a network of over 8 Million users and now comes in a variety of mobile, tablet and desktop app flavours. Unlike services that depend on licensing deals to secure content, SoundCloud relies entirely on user-generated content, often leaving people to describe it as the “Flickr of Music”.
Like Flickr, SoundCloud’s wonderland of content offers an incredible experience to the listener. By simply following artists of interest, listeners are rewarded with an endless stream of free music including forthcoming releases, demos and rough takes.

Moving Forward

Looking past simply dominating the space of music, SoundCloud has recently expanded into the areas of podcasting and live recording. Possibly, the most interesting development is their recent interoperability venture with Tumblr. Through the partnership, artists are able to seamlessly embed SoundCloud content directly in to their Tumblr blogs, resulting in band pages eerily familiar to those of MySpace.

As we inch closer towards an age of streaming music libraries in the cloud, choosing a go-to service becomes increasingly murky when confronted with issues of copyright, licensing and delivery. I for one prefer the “open” model of SoundCloud, not simply because it’s free, but because its model helps put the control of content back in the hands of the artists.

A perfect example of this creative control is shown below. Taken from Matthew Dear’s forthcoming EP is the song Headcage. Uploaded by his label Ghostly International and made free to stream and download for all.

Enjoy!