Lawrence Lessig wrote an interesting article in Wired about the band Wilco. For those not familiar with Wilco, the indie band experienced great success with its album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” by using a variety of online communication strategies to build tight bonds with fans:
Wilco’s Net-based experiments continue: the first live MPEG-4 webcast; a documentary about the band in part screened and funded via the Net; bonus songs and live recordings tied to CDs. Its latest album, A Ghost Is Born, was streamed in full across the Net three months before its commercial release.Some of these strategies are successful only if a fan base already exists. Can a band starting from scratch succeed with an online-only grass roots campaign? It’s not impossible, but it wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps the best way to start is to being writing and recording, and including fans in the creative process, as Maria Schneider did through the ArtistShare program. Give fans a chance to contribute to the final product in the form of feedback, and your story becomes a lot more interesting to a lot more people. (Article pointed out by Modern Musician) ]]>
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