A lot of people think it’s cool that YouTube offers a new outlet for talented artists like Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black to get discovered. But not everyone thinks it’s fair. Miley Cyrus says, “It should be harder to be an artist.”
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
‘Tis the season for year-end lists, so Experian Hitwise chimed in with some of its own, revealing its 10 most searched terms for 2010, as well as most visited Web sites, and top searches from various categories.
The top 10 most searched terms of 2010:
facebook login
youtube
craigslist
myspace
facebook.com
ebay
yahoo
www.facebook.com
mapquest
The same list for 2009:
myspace
craigslist
youtube
yahoo mail
yahoo
ebay
facebook login
myspace.com
Simon Fuller, the man behind the Idol franchise, is flexing his publicity muscle for his new show “If I can Dream.”
The show, which is a hit on Hulu, is about five aspiring artists selected by Fuller, who strive to make it in Hollywood while the world watches online. Weekly episodes air at ificandream.com and on the show’s Hulu page.
Two of the current contestants, Giglianne Braga, and Ben Elliott and a third who recently left the show, Justin Gaston, posed nude for PETA’s fall ad campaign.
Gaston left the “If I Can Dream” house and is currently the opening act for American Idol winner, Kris Allen.
Walt Disney Music Group’s Damon Whiteside, senior vice president of marketing of Walt Disney Records, has overseen a 60 percent rise in music sales from 2006 to 2007, CNET News reports, all because of the tween and young-teen music craze led by Disney star Miley Cyrus.
This occurred as overall music industry sales were down 17 percent in the same period because of digital downloads and pirated music online, according to the report. “It’s thanks to the tween and younger teens that the music business is staying alive,” Whiteside said at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference about teens and technology.
Disney Online is currently picking up 30 million uniques per month, mostly in the teen and tween sectors. For music, “the virtual side of the business is growing fast,” even if it’s currently just 5% of revenue (with the other 95% being physical albums). “Digital album sales were up 52 percent last year; and digital tracks were up 122 percent,” Whiteside said in the article.
The report also said that mobile sales are also growing fast—”a market that didn’t exist for Disney even a year ago.” Disney estimates “40 percent of tweens own cell phones; and more than half of those kids use the phone to buy music, ring tons, and other content. The company’s ring tone sales were up 722 percent last year, thanks to the tween market,” the report said.
