tibii

Fuzz is definitely in need of more listeners.........it is a shame if you take a look at the plays on artists pages. I haven't seen any artist yet that reached 10000 plays......most artist have under 100 plays.Now I am gonna repeat myself: The playlist feature needs to be improved. Take a look on the recent discussion:

[url=http://www.fuzz.com/fan/Clif/playlists/Some-Things-You-Should-Know#comments ]Some-Things-You-Should-Know[/url] . The favorite playlists should be shown on the fan's frontpage.

In real life I don't like thieves but I am kind of proud that my new fuzz friend jennthequeen stole some artists from my playlists and added them to their fav. and playlist :-) - THATS WHY PLAYLISTS ARE IMPORTANT

And artists should encourage their fans to join Fuzz and support them there. To be successful you need a fan base here on fuzz.

Next point: Widgets!!! - I do love widgets (although I am not a teenagers, not even a twen) yes - there is already the mixtape, unfortunately my small laptop and it's lack of RAM does have problems with it. (hope this makes sense for you - I now my English sucks).

One of the advantages of Last.Fm ( and there are many disadvantages) is: It's open source software and lot's of computer nerds are developing widgets all the time - like the album collage I am using on my frontpage. It is a great way to show what kind of music I like (and to get recommendations based on the music I like)

Personal Fuzz Charts would be good to. Cause they do remind everyone why we (the fans) are here: To listen to music.

tibii [clif, differentstars, other participants/readers of this blog],

As active participants who have been experimenting in depth on this site, you have many value-added perspectives. You all raise useful data points for fuzz insiders, as well as for other "do-it-yourselfers" taking their own initiative to make things happen on this site. As in everything else in life, "if you do nothing, nothing happens" [or better stated, good things happen to good people who seize the day].

Being close to fuzz management but not actually a part of it, in the broadest of terms, I think some of their thinking is as follows [I dunno for sure and if I'm wrong maybe someone at fuzz will correct me]:

1. In dealing with the "chicken or egg", which comes first, issue, using as a bed-rock for decision-making the fuzz manifesto, I think fuzz opted to focus on the artists, thereby making the site "artist-centric" rather than "fan-centric" - at least in the first generation of site development.

2. The basic premise for site development is that, beyond those who by nature are "early adopters", there should a "critical mass" of artists to generate community and thereafter the artist community and fuzz would focus on ways to bring more fans/listeners to the site depending upon circumstance, inclination, and ability unique to individual artists.

3. You are beginning to see some tailored marketing initiatives taking place here that help specific artists develop greater community within their own circle of fans and indirectly to provide artist/fan and fan/artist interactivity in wider and wider circles.

4. The platform roll-out plan is to have a flexible but balanced approach to site evolution that permits artists to develop their own marketing initiatives without the chaos of a completely open and unrestricted ["anything goes"] environment.

5. Through commentary [such as this one and many other discussions taking place all over the site and privately - e.g., controlling spam as users mulitiply] obtain important feedback on how to prioritize things on the "to do" list [I understand that the fuzz folks doing the actually coding have literally hundreds of items to work on to make the site a better, cooler place to be].

6. Within the foregoing context, the fuzz game plan is, again - broadly speaking, based on the technological inevitability that there will be a seamless integration of all social communitities and the development of "networks within networks" according to a proprietary hierarchy [they won't tell us everything]; thus, the decision-tree for artists will not be "either/or" but participation in multiple sites for specific reasons and objectives.

7. Beyond the foregoing, what is actually implemented may have to be left to offline discussions between artists/early-adopters and fuzz management.

As for me and my approach as to what I get out of this site and how I contribute to it [as and when I can], I think of the site as an integral part of a "personal digital" network [clearly a network within many networks] and each connection is a "communication link". This would be consistent with the broad premises of fuzz site development that I have summarized above by guess and by golly [and logical assumption].

Over time, some of my links will/have become "supernodes" and others stay as more passive but benign channels of connectivity [and one never knows when an unused channel suddenly becomes a necessary link in a vital digital highway]. Nodal interactivity sparks and evanesces.

The linkages in networks become increasingly energized and "cascade" as one's own linkages grow and develop further linkages, particularly by and among "supernodes" [think of a multi-dimensional GO game where all your pieces start to coalesce.] It is delimiting to say that one part of a communications network is not useful because in the game of LIFE, a single node [read: friend] may make all the difference. Cheers [I have nodes and networks on my mind today].

TCC got some good points. I agree.
Cliff, what do you have planned...eh?

Hmmm, I think the image of an artist community is outdated. Maybe it applied about two years ago when (I guess) the idea came up, but basically it is a lot of people saying to each other "Listen to my song, in exchange I will listen to your song".

As far as the critical mass of artists is concerned, that can only be correct from a purely economical point of view. It cannot be a criterion regarding musician-listener relationship. I know that I'm a very active listener/user as much as time allows (or even doesn't allow), and still I can only hear a very small share of the artists. From a listener's / consumer's point of view this is paradise. Never before in my life had I found out about so much good music. I discovered some of my all time favorite musicians on fuzz, e.g. Persistence of Memory, Grapes of Bilky, B-Rockk, Shanna Waters, JHITm. You never heard of them? Right, but they have become an important part of my life, and it seems I'm nearly the only one who ever listened to them or gave them comments here.

My conclusion from these experiences is that the critical masses must be balanced. Like you won't say "Let's set up an online community for people who intend to marry or get engaged. Now let's first concentrate on reaching a critical mass of male persons (potential husbands) by programming stuff regarding car races, rock bands, soccer teams etc. When that critical mass of male potential husbands is achieved let's concentrate on female potential wives by programming stuff regarding flowers, baby care, women in management career tips etc." Please forgive me being somewhat clichéd in my example, but I wanted to make the point clear. The effect of such a strategy, if it really IS the strategy, is frustration among the first target group which of course is missing its counterpart.

I see that programming must be done by programmers who only can work that much. So maybe DifferentStars' proposal of enabling external programmers to create additional widgets would be a solution.

tibii, you recognized immediately that the notion of "critical mass" is - (i) already a conclusory description of a desired result and not necessary a meaningful guideline for all the necessary steps to take to get to that end-game [that's why I introduced the notion of "multidemsional GO" in my response to emphasize that the end-game depends on the opening steps as well as the middle-game] and (ii) importantly, that critical mass for artists as an aggregate group [and I think fuzz is approaching this point in terms of quality music - as you point out] and critical mass in terms of specific musician-listener relationships are two entirely different matters and the main point of your blog was to address how "we" [the fuzz community] can increase the share/activity of listeners/fans at fuzz to enhance the specific one-on-one relationships.

In my comments I was trying to parse out what I think was/is fuzz' roll-out strategy of "artists-first" in the aggregate [as a collective group with "critical mass" - a milestone fuzz is IMHO nearing] and "fans/listeners-next". Having so described the business roll-out process as a "strategy", I believe fuzz has always recognized that the close relationship between artist and fan was/is the primary objective. In this connection, it might be instructive to refer back to one of my earlier blogs about How Do Artists and Fuzz Interact?, so followers of this recent discussion do not overlook the over-arching importance of the step-by-step building blocks necessary to forge strong musician-listener relationships.

In trying to reconcile our comments here, I also take on board the important point you make that if an artist does not soon join up with his/her counterpart [the passionate listener/fan], one can become discouraged. We should, of course, do our urmost to see how we can find the best ways to support the conjoining of artists and fans no matter what stage the fuzz business roll-out plan happens to be in [in this regard, independent DIY action will be key - [perhaps like the Facebook approach to allow for more incoming widget applications as well as outgoing initiatives] and some of the initiatives being undertaken by groups like dredg [with their "cookieclock" raffle], EchoRoot/Clif, 3rdStreetButcher, Adamz/B-rad, and others.

Oh I see how it is! Fine...hide your world domination from us! See if we care!
ok kidding, but that sounds good. Nothin' like reppin the Fuzzy!

So now I have been poked again :-) Your blog project sound great Clif ! One of the reasons why I wrote my Playlists-you-should-know blog today is: Most Web 2.0 users are too busy or too lazy to be active. I just read a study that less than 10% of all social community users contribute anything. Most of them do just consume. At the same time interesting blogs/playlist (like yours Clif) drown in spam ( and "fun" blogs of teenagers that wanna be stars). I already got feedback from listeners of my playlists and that they discovered artists there they do like. It is a bit like: We cook for them, they just have to eat themselves :-)

The whole Fuzz concept seems a bit too adult and too intellectual to me. It is possible to find great music here - but it is hard work. Lot's of users are too lazy/busy to spend much time to find good music.

The Fuzz online store is a huge opportunity for unsigned artists to sell their music. With the growing number of listeners the number of paid downloads will grow. I am sure I will buy the Mackintosh Braun CD (well at Cd Baby because I am old fashioned and take CDs over mp3s) And I did discover them here on Fuzz.

Some interesting discussion to be sure, which as Clif mentioned, is something we didn't get much of on the alternate site. The only reason I happened upon this link, was because I was dropping a line to DifferentStars about Lula's Perfect Day. Which I never would have went out of my way to find on the alternate site. This is why I remain here, within the last two months I recieved 1000+ profile views and 350+ listens..IN 2 MONTHS! On AP.. I doubt I've even seen 1000 Page views since I signed up a couple years ago. So something is working here, that other sites do not have.

I agree fully that I am a fan as well as an artist, and I would like to see some integration between the fan/artist page. (Another reason why I'm glad I killed Depression, so I can use the name as my Fan profile) I just do it the old fashioned way, and it seems to work.. make a blog daily or every 2 days, and everyone who shows up on my recent listeners area, I do a follow-up with them. Since most either don't want to comment, or are too lazy to comment.. I force their hand. To me it's worth it, whether they comment after the prodding, because it just might make them return to see what they might have skipped over the first time. Also, this allows them to see that I really do want their input, as opposed to just kissin' ass. So far I have had 100+ views on WebOfDistress and 60+ plays.. now that tells me two things. The blogs are paying off, and people are curious as to what I'm about. Another strategy I employ is I'll follow fans from other peoples pages, and basically strike up a cold conversation, commenting on something in their Bio, or their blogs or even their avatar.

Now right now this is all good, because I don't have a huge fan base, but what happens when I do become too large to follow up with everyone who pops in to have a looksee/listen? Can Fuzz accomodate me down the road, or will I have to incorporate another strategy, such as turning some of the workload over to a fan group? It would also be nice to know the amount of Fans here as well as the number of Artists/Bands. So we can see what ratio needs addressing, more potential fans or more artists to occupy the fans. I would think 5 fans per artist would be a less than adequate ratio, considering the amount of variable styles and genres here. Maybe I'm a bit off-topic here, but aside from joining every MySpace YourSpace ThisPlace ThatPlace web site out there, all we really can do is spread the word through the channels available.

Then again, my personal touch philosphy is something most fans aren't familair with. For example, I saw Abby Travis here and made the connection she was in one of my favorite bands. I posted a message after listening to her solo stuff. I haven't heard anything back. Realizing that she's probably busy, and not in here everyday, coz she's already "famous" my feelings weren't hurt. Same with some of the other more notable bands who's music I used to buy, I speak to them here as an equal. Fans on the other hand probably haven't had an experience where they actually spoke to their favorite artist, much less had them ask them what they think! Probably the main reason I say I'm not a Pro or Real Musician in my Bio, because I don't want to lose that connection with the people who may or may not buy anything from me. Being an arrogant asshole won't get them to buy anything, so why not, just be human, and maintain a human connection via an impersonal entity? Ok now I'm getting way off topic, but these are just some thoughts that came to mind while reading the above posts.

@Clif: RE: Eat themselves? :)
Oh dear - know what you poked me at 2am (for you it was afternoon) in the morning and then I tried to translate a German expression. Turns out a bad idea ;-) And I know we have two well known cannibals in Germany.....but cannibalism is not en vogue here.

@WebOfDistress: Re: ...I do a follow-up with them....
It is great how you do it. Because you do it in a very personal way. I don't like artists that don't bother to take 2 min. to read my profile page but send my a "consider me" note after I listened to their music. This lead to a situation where I told a singer that I do believe her music is lousy. (and it was lousy and badly produced) Well she didn't like my answer - but you have to be careful, I had the feeling she/her bad music is haunting me....
If you do the follow up the right way - it is work.

I am not sure if it was a good idea to name the non-musician accounts "fans". I would prefer musiclover or listener.
Lots of musicians are very demanding, kind of: You are fans - You have to be my fans. The conversation should be on a par with the fans.

But I do understand that lots of artists have no time for interaction with their fans Madonna is here,too ;-) - she is definitely the only one who would be allowed to treat me like a fan!