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?

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.

Recent government action in the United States has dramatically increased the fees internet radio companies must pay to play music - both commerical and independent.

While this may sound like a good thing for independent musicians, I believe it threatens the future of internet radio.

Read more »

TimesOnline recently reported on the reinvention of SonyBMG, and it’s an interesting development in the online music arena.

After what feels like forever (and I suppose it is by online music standards), the 2nd biggest record company has finally ditched it’s requirement for bands and artists to send in demo CDs. Instead, they now want demo tracks uploading on specially created websites.

They’ve gone further… they also want to the let the general public (ie. your potential purchasers) vote for the bands they think should be signed. It’s an interesting idea, and it’ll be worth watching to see what happens.

Of course, major labels being major labels - it’s not all happy news. According to Ged Doherty, Chief Executive of SonyBMG Europe, “By 2010 income from CDs will be down 50 per cent. The old world is gone for ever.”

“We need to enter into a new relationship with our artists, where they see us as partners rather than the enemy”. 

Loosely translated: they want more of an artists non-recorded music revenue (e.g. ticket sales, merchandise, etc), and they’ll give you a better percentage on your recorded music sales. Here’s Ged again.. “I’m willing to give up more of my revenue if artists are willing to give up theirs”.

Hold on, didn’t you just say recorded music revenues would be down by 50% !?

You can read the complete article here, and if you’d like to submit your demo online, you should visit either www.columbiademos.co.uk or www.rcademos.co.uk.

PRS Guitars has recently launched a competition in association with MySpace.

Called “OurSpace, YourSpace, MySpace”, the competition gives bands/musicians who play PRS guitars and have a MySpace profile the chance to be featured in a PRS ad-campaign.

All you have to do is leave a message with a picture of yourself on stage playing your lovely PRS on the competition MySpace profile. Each month, a selection of winners will be chosen to appear in a PRS print advertisement.

Apart from the great publicity this would give you, there’s also £2000 guitar up for grabs for the best picture submitted overall, plus strings and other promo items.

The comp runs till the end of 2007. For more details, visit www.myspace.com/prsguitarists - good luck!