Born In '88

A great artist doesn’t have fans, but brand evangelists. In “Direct Message From @JayElectronica: A Fan Engagement Case Study,” I explored digital brand engagement from the perspective of the fans. The above figure is a social media value chain model as executed by the artist. [Hi-Res]

Research in the economic impact of social media and direct-to-fan marketing is limited but artists like Lupe Fiasco, Nicki Minaj and Jay Electronica prove that strategic implementation of this marketing innovation will yield results. At a time where the record industry is in a severe decline, new and effective strategy is crucial to its turnaround.

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Thanksgiving Day had barely begun when Kevin Hofman’s BlackBerry buzzed. It was one of the technical operators of OnSmash.com, Mr. Hofman’s popular hip-hop blog, telling him that the site had gone mysteriously blank just after midnight.

At first I thought it was hackers,” Mr. Hofman said. But within hours a notice went up on the site saying that its domain name had been seized by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit of the Department of Homeland Security; it was one of dozens of sites shut down, accused of copyright infringement and selling counterfeit goods.

But Mr. Hofman, a brawny Long Islander in his early 30s who formerly worked for a major record label, does not think of himself as a pirate.

Read the rest over at NYT

I’m a NYT fan, even did one of their training programs, but this story is late man. I vividly remember having text, bbm and gchat arguments discussions over what this meant for hip-hop and blogosphere during Thanksgiving weekend. Why so tardy for the party?

An unofficial case study.

Fans, bloggers and journalists alike waited in anticipation of the self-proclaimed, and rightfully so, face of the #DMV to drop his mixtape, More About Nothing at noon Aug. 3. Considering the distribution and sales issues Wale experienced with the release of his album Attention Deficit, as he notes on the mixtape, he had a lot to prove. We shared his video teasers, downloaded his track leaks and used his hashtag profusely but on the day of the release, the tape was met with many delays and a few missed opportunities. Below is my top five:

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