Jim Carlson dot Net

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages, Musicians and Social Media Networks and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

In my last post on Musicians and Social Media Networks, I discussed the basics of social media networks that help musicians communicate and promote their music. I have a MySpace band page, and as I discussed in the post mentioned above, managing social media networks can be a challenge, but may be worth the effort.

Needless to say, when Facebook announced Band Pages, I wasn’t the first to jump on bandwagon. However, after reading an article on New Muisc Strategies: What websites should I be on? (part 3), I took another look.

To set up a Facebook Band Page, you must already have (or create) a Facebook account. Once you are in your account, you can create ‘pages’ using the Page Manager application link in the left hand navigation. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Facebook Band Pages, Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages, and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

As a musician who has leveraged social media for several years, I use social media networks and tools every day to communicate with others and promote my music. The majority of these services are free, the only expense is your time.

Social media sites allow you to promote your music, videos, photos and gig schedules with your fans in an environment where they can interact with your music and share it with others in their network.

This article will look at two categories of social media:1) all-in-one social media networks and 2) stand alone networks which include specialty media and communication services.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Facebook Band Pages, Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages and Musicians and Social Media Networks

Kanon Kulpa recently published a post on Branding During a Recession. After discussions with fellow musicians, I’ve been thinking about how musicians are impacted by an economic slowdown.

As prices rise and incomes are stretched, entertainment is one of the early casualties of cutbacks. As Kanon mentioned in his article, people do not necessarily eliminate entertainment, they tend to look for lower cost alternatives. For example, it is a lot less expensive to grab a 12-pack and have a house party than hit the clubs.

For entertainers and venue owners, this can be a problem. As bar revenue decreases, owners and managers are forced to look at their expenditures and ask the question: Does providing music continue to generate revenue, or is it an expense that can be cut?
Read the rest of this entry »

In my post Cell Phone Photo Processing, I demonstrated how I used a micro SD card [with an SD converter] in my Canon SD1000 camera, took high quality images and processed them by placing the same micro SD card [with a mini converter] in my Moto Q. I was able to rotate, color correct and crop the images and e-mail them to any source (friends, blogs, photo processing centers….) from my phone.

Today, Wired online reviewed the Polaroid PoGo Printer, which allows photo printing via Bluetooth or USB connections from camera phones and cameras with Pict-Bridge technology (a great deal of cameras, including my SD1000 have this technology).

Although the printer is far from perfect, this technology is not only fun, but another indicator of the future of mobile photo processing and photo sharing.

[Editors Note: From time to time, JimCarlsonDotNet will link to external sources of information, allowing you, the reader, to learn from some of the best minds on the web.]

So Firefox 3 has a new release candidate making news, suggesting that the browser is nearly done. May I suggest that the browser is nowhere near being done until the Mozilla Foundation drops its favoritism to Google and allow users to pick their own default search engine? And that Microsoft ought to be among those choices?

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