Olly olly oxen free!

If artists wish to think out of the box, move away from the mainstream and break away from the networks, studios and record labels -- if artists really want to become indie-DIY and create content for the Internet and earn a sustainable livelihood -- they're going to have to understand an aspect of new media called "social media". It's your bloggers, your MyFacers, your UGC. It's everyday peeps. It's me and it's you. In a word it is your freakin' audience.

So everybody in the entertainment industry had better get hip to this new game called New Media. It's a brave new world this Internet is and Ringolevio it ain't. Everybody's gonna have to learn to get along.

Word to the moguls: the time has come to say fair's fair. To pay the rent. To pay our share.

And word to the unions: It's really very simple: Union is union. We are all in this together.

Now. Everybody go out on the Internet and play nicely.

(Just sayin'.)

I found this great blog post by Collin Douma and below is a snippet:

Is this really about picking sides?

How will you ever fill the needs of your consumers if all you do is tell them what they want by saying what you want to hear.

The consumer has a medium now. They don’t call themselves “consumers”, and they don’t label their medium “commercial”. They are “contributors”, and they call it - Social Media.

If you want to play in their space, you better be ready to listen.

The more I deep-dive in social media, the more I realize that it isn’t about replacing traditional media, nor is it an accompanying strategy to a traditional campaign. In fact, it’s about meshing social media concepts into the fiber of what you are already doing.

It may not be a slick, but it can be. It may not be what you are accustomed to, but it will be. It may not sustain the big agencies of Madison Ave, but at least it’s sustainable.

The fight is over, but you can still decide if you win or lose.

Game ovah!