How to get to number 1 without a record deal
The power of online communities, part one
What's the connection between a Will Smith film, a 90 year old Hungarian short story, and an internet phenomenon?
It's the theory that anybody on earth can be connected to anybody else through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than 5 intermediaries, according to Wikipedia.
This inspired the website sixdegrees.com way back in 1996. The way it works is that you link to your friends, and in turn you are linked to friends of friends and so on creating a network of people which you can send messages to.
A story that illustrates the power of this networking phenomenon is the rise to fame of the UK, band, the Arctic Monkeys. They built their following using the site Myspace. In a relatively short space of time they had a fanbase of thousands who had downloaded their songs from the site. Then, when their first single was released earlier in the Autumn, they became the first band to get to number 1 in the charts without a record deal.
It's not only fame-hungry rock stars who can use this kind of promotion. It's a great way to link up with people who will be interested in what you do. There are now a whole lot of different specialist sites of this kind, such as ones for business (Linked In), for music lovers (Myspace) or for social networking (Friendster, Facebook and Bebo).
Aren't you curious to find out who you might be linked to?
Six Degrees of Separation
Myspace
Linked In
Friendster
Facebook
Bebo
What's the connection between a Will Smith film, a 90 year old Hungarian short story, and an internet phenomenon?
It's the theory that anybody on earth can be connected to anybody else through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than 5 intermediaries, according to Wikipedia.
This inspired the website sixdegrees.com way back in 1996. The way it works is that you link to your friends, and in turn you are linked to friends of friends and so on creating a network of people which you can send messages to.
A story that illustrates the power of this networking phenomenon is the rise to fame of the UK, band, the Arctic Monkeys. They built their following using the site Myspace. In a relatively short space of time they had a fanbase of thousands who had downloaded their songs from the site. Then, when their first single was released earlier in the Autumn, they became the first band to get to number 1 in the charts without a record deal.
It's not only fame-hungry rock stars who can use this kind of promotion. It's a great way to link up with people who will be interested in what you do. There are now a whole lot of different specialist sites of this kind, such as ones for business (Linked In), for music lovers (Myspace) or for social networking (Friendster, Facebook and Bebo).
Aren't you curious to find out who you might be linked to?
Six Degrees of Separation
Myspace
Linked In
Friendster
Bebo
posted by rechord at
1:15 pm
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