More From the Social Networking Pond

Internet corner music store eMusic is integrating with Facebook, allowing Facebook Connect feature users to share their music recommendations with friends.  To quote Marketwire:

“Back in the day of the corner music store, word-of-mouth was one of the best ways to find out about new music,” said Deirdre Stone, eMusic SVP of Product Development. “Facebook is the modern day equivalent and we want to empower the eMusic community to engage in this way. eMusic has always offered a richer experience than mass market digital music retailers, and integrating Facebook Connect will make it an even better place for fans to share information about their favorite music.”

Similar in theory (though larger in scope) to Audience Works’s ORBIT, a tool that should be embraced by way more arts marketers than are using it now.

Similarly, Virgin is using Facebook Connect for its planes, using an incentive system to get users to upload and interact.  Air travel is a harder sell than music, but if anyone has made flying hip in recent years, it’s been Branson’s team.  Moreover, to report from Cnet, the company will be putting social networking onto the actual planes:

So, in theory, your friends on Facebook could see that you are sitting in seat 5D, watching Diggnation, and drinking a Coke. There are, of course, a lot of interesting possibilities with this. The system could potentially show passengers if any of their friends are also on board so that they could send them a drink or go say hi.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could find out if you had any friends at the opera…I’ve often left the house at 11:00 pm only to find out that my galpal was sitting one level below me the entire time.  Even better, what if you could find a way to meet the guy two rows ahead of you, or the girl in the balcony who looks cute and singe?

SXSW is working on their own social networking site for conference and festival attendees to congregate and connect before they head to Austin.  They’ll be able to compare schedules, “meet” other attendees beforehand, and join groups.  Opera festival companies (Glimmerglass, Salzburg Festival, Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe…) take note.

Similarly, some of the UK’s top museums–including the Tate, the V&A and the British Museum–are creating a collective website for artists, art lovers, and anyone who has visited the museum.  Per the BBC:

“What we want is people to be inspired and talk to each other,” says Carolyn Royston of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“They will be able to create communities of interest around collections.”

There’s already a community of operaphiles, why not create a platform that allows current fans and culturally curious to come together…Perfect opportunity for word-of-mouth marketing with very little interaction from the business itself (which in turn feels a little less Big Brother-ish).

Finally, on a related note to the British Museums, the Prado is now offering virtual tours of its museum through Google Earth.  Including some close-close-close-ups of the art.  It’ll never beat a rainy museum day in Madrid, but it’s still frankly awesome.

I’ll Have My Facebook Portrait Painted by Matt Held

I friended Matt Held earlier this month and am hoping I can be muse enough for him to paint my portrait.  Because that’s really all he’s asking for–unbridled access to my profile and photographs, fuel for his creative fire, and in return–possibly–a JPEG of the portrait he may paint of me.  Not only has Facebook given him a means to get raw material for his art, he’s gotten the word out to over 2,000 people.  He’s gotten recognition in several New York press outlets.

Social networking isn’t just about business, it’s also about feedback.  Some of the best fan pages and profiles are full of fan and friend comments, hopefully comments that are taken into consideration not only by other users but also the page/profile creators.  It’s a pretty cool thing–especially in this economy–to have your portrait painted by a professional artist at no cost to you (though Held is offering first buying options to all of his portrait subjects after he shows the work).  But even cooler is being part of the zeitgeist and seeing your feedback–yourself–reflected in another person’s work.

Tweet-Talk Me

This is really tweeting cool: surgeons have, on two occasions now, used Twitter while in the OR.  With the chief resident on a laptop observing his colleagues extract a cancerous tumor, short and sweet updates were given every few minutes and sent out to followers including fellow doctors, med students and, as CNN put it, the “merely curious.”

It garnered nationwide press coverage and public praise for @hfhor, and the play-by-play has engaged a diverse community on a level they wouldn’t get from a JAMA article or Grey’s Anatomy episode.

Surely other non-profits can find a way to work this to their advantage, offering insider access to an otherwise closed-off process.

Anna vs. Angela

Netrebko

As Interchanging Idioms reported last week, Gramophone’s March 2009 issue will feature Anna Netrebko and Angela Gheorghiu, arguably opera’s two hottest arias at the moment, and ask which of the two is today’s true prima donna.  (Why they can’t say both are ruling the streets is beyond me, but as editor James Inverne explains, it’s a throwback to the mid-20th Century era of dueling divas).  New recordings by both Angie and Netrebs will be reviewed, and critic gurus will take turns defending both sopranos in a verbal celebrity deathmatch kind of way.

It touches on a point that Hollywood caught wise to decades ago: star power sells.

It’s not that every boutique opera company needs to sign on a diva

Gheorghiu

(or divo) for next season, but opera in general benefits with a few key ambassadors.  And it helps if those ambassadors have fantastic gams, a shayna punim, or abs you can grate cheese on.  The fat lady stereotype still exists in millions of minds (especially minds in the gen-x and gen-y set), and will be the first image called up when the word “opera” is heard.  But give the people something that is visually stimulating to compliment the aural stimulation, and that stereotype will melt away faster than Deborah Voigt’s extra pounds.

Peter Gelb came under some scrutiny last year when he began putting a focus on singers who were compelling actors and who visually “made sense” in their respective roles (no more 250-lb starving bohemians).  However, as the US’s–if not the world’s–most-recognized opera company, the oness is on them to put their best face forward (as it were).  The Met probably has more patrons and donors than any other opera company in America.  It’s following is there.  For now.   Now it’s simply leading the way for new audiences and using methods that speak to those demographics.

(And anywhere Roberto Alagna goes, I’m going.)

A Bailout For the Arts?

DJ Funkhouser (and I’ve always wanted to use that name) wrote an article for the Indiana Daily Student yesterday, questioning the necessity of a Secretary of Culture under Obama.  Quoting Quincy Jones, Funkhouser states:

“Art carries such a large spiritual benefit that ‘spirituality is just as important as military defense,’ Jones said.

With all due respect to the man who produced ‘Thriller,’ that is ridiculous – art is not an essential need. And right now the government’s purse isn’t big enough to cover the true essential needs of its citizens.”

That it didn’t create more of a comment-frenzy (at this time there was only one, albeit one very vocally opposed to the editorial) comes as a surprise, since Indiana has a really outstanding vocal program in the US.  The Hoosier state has produced the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Ayun Halliday (and is also the state I’ll remember fondly for giving me a “Warning” for driving too slow on I-80).

Sure, the arts aren’t on the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but if you’re talking needs beyond food, water, shelter, and protection…then absolutely you need music, theatre, dance, visuals.  They’re a source of self-esteem, a way for people to band as a community.  The ancient Greeks had them, for f–k’s sake.  And Obama’s interest in the arts–from Yo Yo Ma and co. performing at the inauguration to Michelle serving on the board of the Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago to the couple’s first date at the Art Institute of Chicago to the first family’s appearance at the Kennedy Center earlier this year (to say nothing of Rahm Emanuel’s initial dreams of becoming a ballerino)–suggests that we may have a more culturally-conscious Commander in Chief.

The Obamas at the Kennedy Center, Photo Courtesy of Politicaljunkie-Marie.blogspot.com

The LA Times Blog also mentioned that the Washington Opera (under the artistic directorship of Placido Domingo…whatever that means since Domingo is everywhere at once these days) is already courting Obama.  WNO executive director Mark Weinstein points out that a presidential appearance at the opera would show that the art form is “for everybody, and not an elitist form.”  Amen to that.

As companies go under and individuals lose their livelihoods, they’re still looking for that mind-nourishment they get from a Baryshnikov, a Boticelli, or a Borodin.  Can they continue to finance them?  No, and that’s where a Secretary of Culture would come in.  Europe, despite being in dire straits like the rest of us, continues to be a hotbed of culture thanks to government funding.  And I’d rather fund an opera company in Anchorage than a mom with octuplets whose doctor who was a little lax on his hippocratic oath.