At this point, social media is an empire under no threat of crumbling. But it could use some glue for the cracks.
At SXSW, social media played a larger than usual role in my daily life. I used trending features on location-sharing applications like Foursquare and Gowalla to pick shows when my paper schedule failed me.
The results were varied, to say the least.
Sometimes, Gowalla in particular would lead me to the latest, hypest blog bands, like when I stumbled upon Uffie’s afternoon show at music aggregator HypeMachine’s showcase. But most of the time, the trending shows tended to be sensitive indie stuff, like when I ended up watching the UK band Frightened Rabbit.
So, in some cases social media steered me the right direction, but more so the wrong.
Pretty much like this list, a compilation of bands that were the most popular on social media during SXSW. Take a look at the top 10.
- Never Shout Never
- The xx
- Wale
- Broken Bells
- Sum 41
- Blair
- The Temper Trap
- Miike Snow
- Local Natives
- We Are Scientists
So, granted, some were worth looking at, like Miike Snow. Others remain head scratchers. For instance, I had no idea Sum 41 were in Austin, and am sort of glad about that.
In my opinion, this SXSW trend report reveals some cracks in the social media coverage. It’s not, as it portrays itself, the voice of the masses, but a small percentage of noisey and often annoying people.
We’re past the point where social media trends, including plays on MySpace plays, YouTube watches, Facebook fan groups, should be treated with skepticism. By the end of the festival, I barely trusted any social media. It’s interesting to consider how much of a fanbase some of these bands would get before the advent of social media. Like, for instance, would Broken Social Scene be as big as they are now had they come up in the Twitter age?
Progress would be social media coming full circle, to the point where a Tweet or Like is actually a vote of confidence that is a fair representation of what people like, and not just the over-exuberance of a smallish indie rock clique.[rssbreak]
