chats | Solveig Whittle

StageIt 101: Creating An Intimate Experience

October 25, 2012 10 Comments

It’s hard to tour – expensive, time consuming, and pretty much out of the question if you have kids or a full time job outside the music industry. But what’s an indie musician to do – you have to get out and promote your music, right?

I liken it to live internet porn for musicians, albeit generally G-rated and a much better value for the audience. Streaming your live music shows over the internet is one of the hottest ways musicians can boost their visibility, grow their fan base, and make a few dollars in the process, all from the relative comfort of their own living rooms. And neither they nor their fans have to pay a babysitter either. I’ve met quite a few musicians now who are putting on regular live performances via a streaming music service. There are several different platforms out there including StageIt, Ustream, LiveStream, Google+ Hangouts On Air, Skype, YouNow, Broadcast for Friends for Facebook, and Second Life Music. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of each? I couldn’t find any articles that compared all the services, so I decided to try researching them myself and sharing what I’ve learned. In this article I’m going to cover the basics of StageIt.

My partner and I experimented last spring a bit with StageIt. We streamed two of our house concerts using it, and I found it quite fun. You start out by joining as a StageIt audience member, which is free. You can join by using your Facebook page, or by entering a StageIt name, email address and password. One advantage of StageIt is it’s dead simple to join. Once you are signed up as a member, you can sign up as a performer, which is a one-click action. To view a show, you purchase “notes,” a StageIt currency that translates 10 Notes = $1 US. To view a show, you purchase Notes in a minimum of 50 increments ($5 US). Notes are used to pay for tickets and to tip performers during the show (more on that later).

4 Factors That Encourage Hashtag Spamming of Twitter Chats

I was physically present (IRL, In Real Life) recently at an event where the Twitter hashtag stream was completely co-opted by twitter spambots. I’ve live-tweeted from a half-dozen tech and cultural events since the beginning of this year, when I first immersed myself in Twitter. I’m very curious about how social media interactions work – and when and why they can go very off-track. When I live-tweet, I try to observe the hashtag stream in real time, usually using Tweetchat.com or setting up a Hootsuite stream. I’ve followed a handful of events remotely via the Twitter hashtag as well, including a recent conference in Boston called Rethink Music (#rethinkmusic). In addition, I participate regularly in a weekly Twitter chat called #ggchat, one of thousands happening all the time in the Twittersphere. Following Twitter hashtag streams has become an integral part of my participation, and that of many others, in this virtual global sociological communications experiment called Twitter.

Maybe because I’m relatively new to Twitter, I’ve never seen a Twitter stream completely taken over by spambots. I found it fascinating and dismaying at the same time. This article in The Atlantic Wire by Rebecca Greenfield gives a good overview of some of the different ways in which Twitter hashtag streams can get co-opted or become annoying. The stream I was on recently was taken over by the Types 1 and 2 spammers which Rebecca mentions: Porn Bots and Jokesters. I didn’t click on any of the links; I could tell the Porn Bots by their Twitter avatars of scantily clad women and the fact they had few tweets, no followers and were following no one. The other category of spammers I saw which Rebecca doesn’t mention I’ll call Job Bots – these are the same as Porn Bots, except the links they promote are to scammy Craig’s List ads, you know: “Easy job! Earn $500 a week using your computer…”