Hi everyone,

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts recently. It’s been a busy time here at Musoswire HQ, and there’s much to report.

• The new Musoswire website is coming along nicely. We hoped to have it launched by now, but it’s not quite ready. We’ll keep you posted.
• We have a new Press Room. If you’re a member of the Press and need logos, screengrabs, etc - or you simply want to read our Press Releases, head over to www.musoswire.com/press - it’s all there!
• We’ve also launched Jive.to! - a short URL service for bands and musicians. More about this in our next post.

So as you can see we haven’t been sitting on our laurels! Look out for more great content and new site launches soon!

Are you a singer/songwriter or a member of a band?

Have you made a CD of original tunes?!

If the answer to both of the above questions is “Yes!” then you’ll be delighted to hear about our fantastic offer to bring in the New Year.

Throughout January, any artist or band can signup to sell their CD with us COMPLETELY FREE. We’ve waived the normal stocking fee of £15.

You might be wondering “why?” - well, we’ve got a fantastic new website in the works with a completely overhauled design, new features, more promotion opportunities, an improved Artist Administration system, and much more! We’ll also be launching an Affiliate programme for artists, so you can make money by spreading the Musoswire word!

We want to launch the new website with even more fantastic releases from independent artists like YOU, so why not take advantage of this offer and start selling your CD with Musoswire today?!

Find out more and signup for FREE at Musoswire.com.

Yep, it’s that time of year again. Musoswire would like to wish all our bands/artists, clients and partners a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

We have many new features and services and lots of site improvements planned for 2008, so be sure to Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email to be kept up-to-date automatically.

I’m an avid fan of RSS feeds - they just make it so easy to keep up-to-date with what’s going on with our bands and the music industry in general. If you’re blog doesn’t have an RSS feed - you’re missing out on a convenient way to keep your fans informed.

As I read so many feeds, I frequently come across great posts I’d like to share. That’s always been a case of posting a blog about a post, or emailing specific people who I think might be interested.

Well, not anymore. I’ve just discovered the link blog feature of Google Reader’s Shared Items (thanks to Robert Scoble).

From now on, anything I think is relevant and/or intersting to independent music will be posted to the Musoswire Link Blog via Google Reader. I’ve also created an RSS feed, so you can subscribe and receive all the posts to the link blog automatically.

Bruce Warila over at Unsprung Artists has just posted a great article introducing the benefits of RSS specifically for musicians and bands.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a simple way for websites to “push” information to readers. Rather than hoping or expecting fans to visit your website, you can instantly deliver information to all your subscribers in a non-intrusive manner.

Click here to read ‘RSS - a Great Tool For Artists’

You can also Subscribe to the Musoswire Blog!

Just a quick note to let everyone know how the Postal Strike will affect Musoswire orders.

For those of you who are unaware, there are two 48-hour postal strikes being carried out in quick succession. The first will be 4th/5th October, with a second following on the 8th/9th October.

We are planning to continue fulfilling orders during both strikes, but please be aware that all postal deliveries (including Worldwide orders) will be subject to delays beyond our control.

For more details, please see RoyalMail.com.

Thanks go to Julie Ellison for alerting us to the existence of yet another social networking site for musicians.

AcousticLife is a new web-based community from Acoustic Magazine - aimed at acoustically minded singer/songwriters, guitarists, etc. It looks interesting, although it is early days - only 139 members at the time of writing!

Why not visit Musoswire’s AcousticLife profile?

The Red Star Rebels are playing an Exclusive gig at Hard Rock Cafe in London. Here are the details…

13th Sept, 7.00pm
Hard Rock Cafe (Hyde Park Corner, London)
Tickets £5

The show is being broadcast live to other Hard Rock Cafe venues across the world, including New York, Hollywood, Mexico, Australia and many more! If you’d like to be there, tickets can be purchased from TicketWeb, but as you can imagine they are selling rather quickly.

Book Now, find out more about Red Star Rebels, or buy their EP.

If you’re a solo artist, or in charge of press/promotional activities for your band, it’s always useful to know who’s talking about you (and what they’re saying!).

In the old days, that meant either relying on someone telling you about a peice they’d read, or picking up copies of the local press, music magazines, etc and reading them from cover to cover yourself.

There was no easy way out - unless you could afford to pay someone to do it for you!

All that changed with the rise of the internet however. Now you can Google your band name, track your website hits and your referrals (where your website visitors came from), read your reviews on Musoswire or Amazon, and much more.

But what about the gazillions of bloggers out there, regularly posting new content to their own websites? You may not even know they exist, but they could be writing about you.

Introducing Google BlogSearch

Google BlogSearch is a new tool (it’s still in beta) which allows you to instantly search the millions of blogs for any keywords you wish. Ideal for checking out what bloggers are saying about your band. What’s more, you can even “subscribe” to the results, so BlogSearch can inform you when something new is written relating to the keywords you chose.

It’s a fantastically useful tool and I’d definitely recommend doing a search for your artist or band name at least once a week.

Visit Google BlogSearch

I recently found out about a new social network over at Ning.com, setup by funpig records in Canada.

The World Independent Record Label Association (WIRLA) is a social network / showcase for independent labels and their owners.

It’s free to Join (you need a Ning account, which is also free), and you get your own profile page complete with music player thingybob and blog. There are various “themes” you can apply to your page, but it’s not as customisable as many other social networks.

As per any social network worthy of the name, there is a forum, a friends system, and much more.

It’s brand new, but if you’re an independent label, it might be worth setting up a profile - networking, on- or off-line, always leads to something!

Find out more at http://indylabels.ning.com, or visit the Musoswire profile at http://indylabels.ning.com/profile/musoswire.