Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

So I have tried all of these services. Granted, I have used Friend Feed and Ping way longer. I have been using those two for years. But this blog post is about why I will keep paying attention to them and ignore Google Buzz.

Strategy Fail

Now there has been tons of “buzz” about how Google Buzz has a horrid privacy issue because they expose a person’s email address. I don’t care who has my Gmail address. For years I have used it as a place to send email I don’t want to ever see. It is pretty much my spam catcher. So please send all spam to rockmymonkey@gmail.com. I can give you a 100% chance I will never even see it. I have two email addresses that I check almost daily. One is at RockMyMonkey.com and the other is at this site. Contact me there. My Gmail has been ignored for years. I never even look at it. So the privacy issue is not an issue. Since I never look at my gmail I don’t want any social network through that account. With Friend Feed I don’t have to worry about that at all. Friend Feed is like Google Buzz without the annoyance of being forced to have it connected to Gmail.

Plus, what if I am burnt out for the day and just want to zone out on Social networking? Sure Social networking is a business tool for someone like me, but it is also a place for pure brainless fun. I try to keep my social networking updates about 90% fun and 10% business. Otherwise my followers get annoyed and stop following me. So I do a lot of social networking after i am done “working” for the day. Sending links to sites like Giant Bat Farts is work, but not anything like email. I want to keep those things separate!

Now Ping.fm is great for sending one update to all my social networks from one place. For those that are getting confused, http://friendfeed.com/markcarras & Google Buzz is for catching all your updates in one place where as Ping is for sending all your updates from one place. I like it because I can do it from my phone as an SMS (text message) or through their website. I have heard that people use Friend Feed and are now using Google Buzz for the same thing, but I would find that annoying myself.

Now the biggest thing that will kill Google Reader though is that I couldn’t find a way to send my profile url out to people. With Friend Feed is painfully simple. http://friendfeed.com/markcarras is about as simple as it gets. Facebook is the same way. http://www.facebook.com/markcarras is pretty easy to send out to friends. What is the url to my Googel Buzz? Is it buzz.google.com/MarkCarras? I seriously doubt it. Is it Googlebuzz.com/MarkCarras? I don’t think so, but it should be. Did they even think to reserve that url? I don’t care because it is not the one they are using and I was not able to grab my “vanity url” for it. If I could I might care.

Now I love the Google Reader and I would rather have people connect with me through that. I would post a link, but I have no clue what that is either. Whatever it is, I am pretty sure it is one long annoying url. Either that or I have to expose my email address. Which of course with Gmail is not a security problem for me, but would be for most people. However, it is a problem for me. If I expose my Gmail address people will think that is my contact info. They try over and over again to contact me there. I don’t ever see it, so I don’t reply, so they think I am a jerk because I “ignored” them.

Google might be one of the most successful online companies around, but they have had more failures than successes. I predict that Google Buzz will be another one unless they make some major changes quick. And it better be more than just weak ass placating.

FriendFeed is a service that let’s you combine all your social network profiles into one place and discuss them with people. It’s all about networking and Friend Feed is like networking on a big bag of crack. So if you are on Twitter & Plurk, why be on Friend Feed as well? Well FriendFeed has a ton of automation to it. You can be active on FriendFeed without even going to the site!

Now of course you have to go through the annoying process of setting everything up, but once you do you can be done with it. Yes it is a “Set it and forget it” situation if you want. You can have it post the RSS feeds from your band’s news site, your Twitter messages, and tons more. It puts all of them in one place, then streams it in a live real time feed, then let’s people comment on the link. So it’s like Plurk, but the threads are started by the stuff you do elsewhere on other websites.

So although you can just let it do it’s automated thing, you will get more out of it if you are active.  You can follow those who offer content you care about, comment on things that interest you, press the “like” link if you want to share others links into your feed, and basically network with others with interests in the type of music your band provides.

There are also “rooms” you can join to help find people that might be interested in your band. Music isn’t currently a major subject on Friend Feed, but it is growing fast. So don’t dismiss a room just because it only has one or two members. You may start the ball rolling for the room and will have established yourself when it does take off. Plus it doesn’t take any of your time if the room goes dead. Rooms only take up your time if they are active.

So Friend Feed is a way to just funnel all your social media activity in one place, but could also be another place to find and interact with potential fans. It is real easy to dismiss FriendFeed at first. In fact I wasn’t active at all for the first several months after signing up. I set everything and never really looked back. I’m not sure what happened, but I think one of my tech friends Robert Scoble is to blame. He talks to everyone and anyone who isn’t a retard. Because he has an insane amount of followers I ended up with tons of new connections just from following him on the site. Now Scoble is not a music industry person. He is a tech industry person, so he may not help bands or music industry types directly. He is just my example of how your account can suddenly take off and take you by surprise if you put a little time into it.

Now FriendFeed has become my favorite new social website lately. With it being so live, it can almost become like a chat room. I can ignore 75% of the stuff that flows by because I either have nothing to say or just don’t care. You don’t have to reply to everything. Be your own filter. Only pay attention to the things you think will help your band. So set it up to be just an automated archive or dive in with both feet and go nuts. But by all means follow me so I can help you through it all.

Follow me on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/markcarras

What the hell is RSS? It is a way for you to get your band news out to more people. It will make your band’s website ten times more powerful. Trust me on this. There are some major label bands that have RSS feeds but are making some horrid mistakes.

Many people are starting to use RSS readers to put all of their online content on one page they can check in the morning. No one has time to check a few hundred websites before they go to that job they hate so much. RSS readers solve that problem by routing all the content into one place. Do you really care if they visit your site? Or is it more important that you get the information out? Make sure to use an RSS feed so people can get information about your band with as little hassle as possible. Now RSS is something that most bands do not understand at all. They always make one of three mistakes.

The first mistake is not giving up all the content in the RSS feed. Remember that it is more important for a band to get out the info than it is to get a website visit. Whatever software you use to run your site should have a section in the admin panel for RSS that will ask you if you want to give the RSS feed the entire article or just a sample. Give the entire article if you are a band that wants to get their information out to as many as possible.

The second mistake is not giving each article it’s own unique website address in the RSS feed. When going down the RSS feed, people will open up a tab of the articles they want to read later. If it just opens up to the main “News” section then people will not be able to find the information they want and will get frustrated. What if someone wants to email the article to a friend? Link to it on another website? Does your RSS feed give them a direct website address to the specific article? It really needs to!

The third mistake is that the RSS is not formated the same as the actual article. This will take a good content management system. The easiest one to work with is Word Press. It is the most common and so you will be able to get help with it pretty easy.

Now of course the most common mistake is to not have any RSS feed at all, but I won’t count that because any band smart enough to be reading this article  would not be making that mistake.  Of course if all you have is a MySpace page none of my articles will help you. So I’ll assume you didn’t make that mistake either. Some signed bands are even making that mistake. So very sad. Get a real site and get a good RSS feed.

So I was trying to think about what I should blog about today and it dawned on me that I’m trying to be know and the Rock N’ Roll Tech Consultant. So why the hell am I not blogging about things that would help bands? Time for a face palm and a Homer style “DOH!” So today I will give the top ten tools bands should be using, but are not. Then I will follow it up with a two week series on how bands could get the most out of these ten great social networks. Now here is the trick, how do we get bands to use this info? Please do what you can do get your favorite unsigned, underground, or just unknown band to pay attention to this info.

1. Twitter
Now I do see a few bands that sign up, but then never do anything with the account. Then because nothing happens they give up. SO very sad. I will go more into that in my follow up on Monday Jan 19th. Until then stick this in your Marshall Amp! Imagine being able to text back and forth with your fans while sitting on the tour bus. Imagine you are just a local unsigned band. If all your fans and friends are fully hooked up to your Twitter account you can send reminders out a few hours before a show. This can help your draw. Got a new shirt out, why wait for them to go to your site? Send them a Twitter message. If they have it fully hooked up it can send the message to them on their cell phones, instant messenger, and Twitter profile. So it’s like your website following them around everywhere they go. More detail Monday.

2. Plurk
Now Twitter is great for getting a message out, but what about if you want to talk with your fans? What if you want to get some feedback on a new song, shirt, or show announcement? Plurk is made for conversation. Just like with Twitter, you may end up with new fans just from being part of this very social network. More detail on Tuesday Jan 20th.

3. RSS
What the hell is RSS? Well, I will go into massive detail about what RSS is and how to get the most out of it on Wednesday Jan 21st, but until then here is a brief overview. It is a way for you to get your band news out to more people. It will make your band’s website ten times more powerful. Trust me on this. There are some major label bands that have RSS feeds but are making some horrid mistakes. More info Wednesday on that.

4. FriendFeed
FriendFeed is a service that let’s you combine all your social network profiles into one place and discuss them with people. It’s all about networking and Friend Feed is like networking on a big bag of crack. More info on this one Thursday January 22nd.

5. The Pirate Bay
Now most of my music industry contacts will hate me for even mentioning this site, but screw them and their dying industry I say! Seriously, I think those labels could get some major traction out of TPB if they played it smart. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has a profile page on the site for a reason. Imagine if some unknown band out of nowhere put up their great new cd on TPB. Then promoted the hell out of the free download with a $2,000 ad campaign from Fixion Media. Sure you wouldn’t make any money from the cd directly, but imagine how many new fans you would gain? Then you would have a draw in cities you have never been to before. More info on this Jan 23rd.

6. Skype
I interview bands from all over the world all the time. I have interviewed bands from my own hometown and had horrid connections. Then I interviewed a band called Lions Share from Stockholm Sweden and had a crystal clear connection. It sounded like he was in the same room! It is also a shockingly cheap way to call around the world for things like booking tours or just making contacts with people that can help you get your music out there. More info on this Jan 26th.

7. You Tube
Now I am starting to see more bands use this, but I think bands should use it more. Imagine releasing a new video a week. it could be just the band talking to the fans directly, inside band practice, some live footage, or whatever else. In my follow up I will talk about how to get the best quality video, how to edit it dirt cheap, and how to get the most out of it all. More info on this Jan 27th.

8. CD Baby
This is a great service for getting your stuff on iTunes, Amazon, and several other places all at once. Trying to do everything that CD Baby will do for you is just plain retarded. Let them do all the annoying crap. It’s their job. More on this More info on this Jan 28th.

9. Ping.fm
Ping is pretty much the opposite of Friend Feed. Where as Friend Feed is a great place to receive all your social network activity, Ping is a place you can make one post to tons of different sites all at once. For example I use it when I am about to go live with an interview of a band. Gets the message out to thousands all at once instantly! More info on this Jan 29th

10. HeavyAsHell.com
Ok, did you think I was going to let this post go without getting in a plug? Yes, HAH is a site I started awhile ago. Ever since Keith from Darkernemesis.com nuked all my hard work and replaced it with his own CMS things have been growing nicely. We are about to announce our newest contest, so traffic is about to explode there. So promote your band and win something coll at the same time! This is like Digg.com, Mixx.com, Reddit, Propeler, or a few others except we are only for heavy music. More info on this 30th! Hmmm? Could I be picking that date for a reason? Maybe.

Ok, so this has been more about mapping out what I am going to blog about for the rest of this month. My hope is that this is just a good way to kick things off in a direction that might help me become known as the premier Rock N’ Roll tech consultant. Keep your horns facing palm forward or you are a poser. Next two weeks are going to ROCK!