DISQUS

Really enjoyed this, thankyou. Forgot how badly I was in love with Aleks Krotoski in the 90s.

Thank-you but nah... my Twittering is useless as music promotion, I always forget to tweet the important things. And I can't even use Twitter properly - today I realised I've been replying to people using wrong names and nobody's seen their replies!

You coming to the Manchester FT+T-T gig btw? Should I try to guestlist you?

x

A slight side issue to your (terrific) key points - but it's worth mentioning that Myspace is still taken very seriously in the USA by labels, gig promoters etc. I did the same as you Martin, when Facebook exploded here, let my Myspace slip. Then I got to the USA and realised serious people were assessing and judging me according to the page - not so much hits or songplays (though that's relevent too) but the activity - how much updating and customising has gone on. Many smaller gigs are exclusively (and successfully) promoted on it as well.

By the way, I think the time when acts were 'discovered' through a specific social network has gone as fast as it arrived, simply because now the entire market is spread across the networks and any half serious act will use every network they can realistically administrate.

I dunno, isn't Twitter right on the cusp now? Certainly seems to be picking up steam amongst non-geeks...

Oddly, I'd never imagined you'd have any particular desire, as an early adopter, for the systems you use to actually go mainstream - I just assumed you liked using them. Also, isn't that the whole point of early adopters, that you guys stick it out with all these different systems, while the mainstream moves far far slower? If everybody caught on instantly, you'd be out of a 'job'.

The other thing is, be patient. Facebook's UK dominance is only a year old, after all. I'd've thought, by the time the next thing 'goes overground', you'll be long gone, using something totally unimaginable along with your 8 techie mates, waiting for the rest of us to catch up again.

I think the solution could be the opposite: to unban any combo of character name and/or image, so that we no longer fetishised names/images people found disturbing. If there were 5 Hitlers and 12 Stalins, 220 W Bushes, a Mugabi and a Pol Pot riding around, the single Hitler wouldn't be so noticeable. Anyone offended could just play offline.

excuse spelling im drunk.

You're dead right about the fetishisation of intellectual copywrite.

It's worrying me how often you're dead right.

Dead on Martin - we've missed the boat in protecting ourselves, just as media businesses have missed the boat in protecting their copyright. We'll all have to learn a new way.

Another front in this battle is the business establishment's attacks on the cash economy (being essentially anonymous). From the increased prevalence of card-only systems, right down to Maestro's advertising campaign that denigrates cash as a payment medium, the movement is away from an anonymous uncontrolled exchange of value, and towards a controlled (or at least tracked) exchange of invisible wealth, held by an enormous corporation. And as such, it's terrifying.

One side outcome will probably be a vast increase in the numbers of people who, alienated entirely by the oppressive situation in a few years, will opt out and choose to live off grid. At the moment, it's a rare few who do this. But with black economies on the rise, and with personal technology developing just as fast to misdirect the mainstream 'eyes', it's going to become far more common to meet people who are off grid - and quite tempting to join them.