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Title:

From Attention Whore to Social Media Genius

Your vote:
Yes No
Organizer:
Rachel Haywire, machineKUNT Records
Description:
The evolution of social networking sites has become a major factor in the way we operate our every day lives. During the days of LiveJournal the people with the most followers were considered "attention whores" and viewed with mockery and derision. Now the people with the most followers on Twitter are viewed as social media guru's. How and why has this change taken place? What can we expect for the future?
Questions
Answered:
  1. What were the first social networking sites?
  2. How did we get from BBS message boards to social networking sites?
  3. Does anybody remember when blogs were called Everything/Nothing sites and we coded them ourselves?
  4. Why was it once damaging to ones reputation to be popular on sites like LiveJournal?
  5. Where did the term "attention whore" originate from and can we reclaim it to mean something positive?
  6. Why did famous Twitter users get a better online reputation than famous LiveJournal users?
  7. What has the evolution of social media taught us about the behavior of our society?
  8. How can we become effective in marketing ourselves to a larger online audience?
  9. Why did sites like Friendster have a relatively short life span as opposed to Myspace?
  10. Where are social networking sites headed in the future and have we already become the media?
Level:
Intermediate
Category:
Content, New Technology / Next Generation, Social Networking, User Generated Content
Type:
Panel
Event:
Interactive 2010
on 27/8/09
Hi, id really be excited to see this happen. Useful for artists wanting to get out there more.
Kazper Spookz
on 27/8/09
wow.
I think if we put half the energy we have in becoming more "popular" as to always fighting who is better then who, We could all benefit from a better tomorrow.
on 27/8/09
Rachel Haywire works way out on the edge of music and media. This is going to be way freakier than it sounds.
on 27/8/09
I would venture to say that Twitter because it involves more technology and is limited to smaller rants and involves being socially active as opposed to sitting and spell checking and re-writing many times it's become more respectable than livejournal, and friendster and many others fail because they are not properly syndicated and supported by entertainment personalities, I'd say making sure interactivity is productive and constantly evolving to keep users interested in a site, like myspace started with only one song allowed and expanded to 10, and so on and so forth, so I conclude this much, blogs become interfaced with syndicated places out of convenience, twitter because it makes people come together and use technology on the phone and is perfect for celebrities on the go, so it encourages social productivity while stimulating the urge to record a night's adventure, while it's still happening, I'd say this is definitely a stimulating idea to discuss with many to get their perspectives on.
midian koscho
on 27/8/09
that would be wild i would totaly go to see it if rachel haywire was there!!!
shi daniels
on 27/8/09
interesting perspective. possibly one i've not seen discussed on the internets. i will say this about the one thing that social media has taught us about the behaviour of our society : we like spam. retweeting invokes the human behaviour of replicating, albeit the quality of that retweet. facebook app link spams is the only way to get your friends to interact with your actions. spam? yes, ma'am.
Michelangelo Saucedo
on 27/8/09
Hi Rachel!

It was easy to register and glad to cast my vote for your panel!

Michelangelo ;^)

p.s. It was great to see you at RE-BAR and THE COMET when we both were in Seattle recently! You ROCK, sweetie!
on 27/8/09
^_^ Voted miss.
R D
on 27/8/09
I think a panel that discussed the transition from popularity in the early blogger world to popularity in the current twitter world would be interesting and informative.
on 27/8/09
You definitely have to wonder how such transitions are made, this sounds like it will be very analytic and informative, would be something I'd be interested for sure!
Mark Pippins
on 27/8/09
With regard to music, this is a fascinating idea for a panel, because it represents the search for new categories of "tail". We're all familiar with the traditional sales curve of popular records, mostly as a side effect of becoming familiar with the concept (if not the actual phenomenon) of the "Long Tail" and it's attendant idea that in an era where little of the media that is consumed get paid for in cash, the "currency" becomes attention. This same concept drives the pay-rates of ads on various websites, and websites on various services - higher revenue is generated by either a higher "hit count" or as a function of time spent at any given page. While this makes perfect sense for ads in a vertical column alongside whatever free content has been made available to be consumed, be it text, music or video, there doesn't seem to quite the same effect in terms of people who are listening to a "pirated" mp3 file being somehow motivated to visit the band's site, which might generate some fractional revenue. Not to say that this doesn't ever happen, but it's not a function of every media player to open a band's web page while their song is playing, nor is every media file encoded with the requisite URL information even in the case that the player does have that ability.

So what we have on one side, the traditional side, is the idea that albums are either hits or flops, and that they sell on a curve that is somewhat analogous to a landing airplane - start at whatever height (release day, in the case of popular albums, the height of the sales cycle) and then descend on an incline until a low altitude is reached, followed by a near-parallel run with the ground until the point of touchdown. A hit album will have a less steep descent, and remain parallel to the ground for longer, a flop may never pull out of it's dive.

The Long Tail introduces a third curve, one based on the availability of the media in question at no cost - the descent is much, much steeper, but the promise implicit in the concept is that the parallel phase lasts for much longer than would have been likely in the "pre-free" era, discounting the usefulness of specialty stores and the existence of cult phenomena.

Going back to the idea of "attention as currency", this panel seems a way of identifying other "tails", specifically, the possibility of descend-ascend-descend-ascend tail, as a result of the artist interacting in some way with the audience - whether it be Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace or otherwise. Where a pirated mp3 file might not motivate a music fan to visit a band site, an interesting Tweet or FaceBook update will.

I'm expecting this panel to explore these kinds of ideas, and hopefully generate or identify workable strategies for raising a band's "currency" by figuring out ways to motivate fans and potential fans to pay attention.
Mario Rodriguez
on 27/8/09
Rachel this is mad decent.
on 27/8/09
Rachel is supper qualified for this! she knows all!
on 27/8/09
This would spark all kinds of great discussion, and I think even after the panel was officially over, people would still want to talk about it.

Attention whoring as a positive thing isn't a new concept, and the internet has just turned it into a new category. Promoting your music through being an attention whore on sites like Myspace and Buzznet are a great topic, as then one could argue about quantity over quality of bands. I think a lot of the recent Warped Tour lineup has certainly proved that issue.

These questions already get the mind buzzing about debate, so just think how fired up everyone would be at the actual panel.
on 27/8/09
This is definitely an interesting topic and will make for some good discussions I'm sure.
on 27/8/09
One of the most intriguing panel proposals up at SXSWi. And there's no better person to bring it to life than Rachel Haywire
on 27/8/09
This panel sounds absolutely amazing. My vote is cast.
on 27/8/09
Thumbs up for the LiveJournal reference :)
on 27/8/09
I think it has been interesting to see the shift from AOL to Hi5 to Friendster to LiveJournal to MySpace to FaceBook to Twitter. I think you can see the end of a social networking application coming when the media stops referencing it and it becomes taken over by bots, advertising and foreigners.
on 30/8/09
I know Rachel Haywire will be perfect for this. She has been at the forefront of this new musical/artistic revolution where the artist is directly communicating with the audience, eliminating the need for middlemen, with the world wide web/social networking sites providing a very viable platform for both parties.
on 1/9/09
Reality is that RH is a creative genuis and is awsome for said position~she takes her brain to a level most people cant`mucho gusto~awsome Rachel ~~!!hi5 always~
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