Bands Turn To Web Videos To Promote Themselves

[DudeAsInCool]

New rock stars use Web videos to win fans

Chicago alternative rock band OK Go has become more popular on the video-sharing Web site YouTube than it ever was on MTV. The band's treadmill video has been viewed millions of times on the Internet and featured on news programs around the world.

Music industry watchers can learn from OK Go's experience, which shows that Web users can catapult a band to fame, challenging the popular assumption that videos need to cost thousands of dollars or be directed by Hollywood filmmakers.

The industry is undergoing a slow, at times painful change from the old way of marketing CDs and TV music videos to going digital with music distribution and online videos, which fans view on the Internet or via media players like Apple Computer's popular iPod.

Read more at CNet

[DudeAsInCool]

How to be a Net video hit

So you want to be a video star?

Brooke "Brookers" Brodack did it when her quirky clips on the online video site YouTube -- from lip synching to dancing around her house -- caught the eye of former MTV personality Carson Daly, who signed her to a deal.

On Revver, another popular video site, two young pranksters dropped Mentos in Diet Coke. The clip of the explosive result, with musical accompaniment, was hugely popular and brought the two creators $30,000 in shared advertising revenue, plus a large supply of Mentos.

Many more people have posted homemade clips on any number of sites, from a 79-year-old man who recounts his life in front of a Webcam (and has 25,000 YouTube subscribers) to Harry Potter fans setting their favorite movie clips to music.

So can you.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle