Myspace was the first social networking website that had special music features for musicians to showcase their music online to really break though. The website even allows unsigned artist to sell their music via SNOCAP. In 2005 Myspace even launched its own record label 'Myspace Records' to help discover artists though Myspace. Artist such as Lilly Allen and Sean Kingston became famous though the website. Although in 2008 the website was designed so that you could only listen to 30 second clips of songs by artist who were selling their music on the website.
Facebook allows its users to create a fan page for its uses to 'like' and this will feed them information about the artist so they know what this artist is doing. The fan page will have a page which gives a Biography of the artist, and also the page will have a special music player tab which allows you to listen to tracks that the artist has uploaded to the website. Some record companies have fan pages which will include a drop box link which allows artist to send tracks to the record companies and give the a small chance of being signed. A lot of websites in partnership with Facebook like Soundcloud for instance, they will have a Facebook share button underneath or next to the track which will allow someone to link to the song via a post on Facebook.
Twiitter allows its users to post 140 characters they call this a tweet. When an artist tweets it allows who ever is following them to see that tweet. An Artist can talk about anything they want to to their fans, like about upcoming shows, new tracks they are making and they can also share tracks with them via applications like Twiturm which embeds the track into the page and lets fans listen to the tracks.
Blogger can be used to share music but, not as easily as on, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. As people follow your blog they will receive an email saying you have posted something new on your blog and they will be given a link to the blog page so they can check you new material or hear what you have doing. For example you can embed a track from Soundcloud into you blog.
SoundCloud is a website which allows its users to upload their tracks to their own personal area which can be followed by other users of the site. A key feature of Soundcloud is that it allows you to share to Twitter and Facebook which post variation of the classic Soundcloud waveform of the song on the website, but it also allows you to copy the embed html and put it on other websites like Blogger, like I have done above.
Youtube is a video sharing website which allows you to search and watch any video which has been uploaded. If you have a googlemail account you are able to make a Youtube account, when you have an account you are able to upload videos with ease to the website. Nearly all major music artist will have a Youtube account and will be uploading the tracks and music videos. But on Youtube you have to be famous to get a huge amount of views on your music, there are special channels which will upload unsigned artist material to their websites, many of these are for Dubstep artists. If your track is also on iTunes you can put a link to the track in the video description for people to follows so they can buy the track.
Vimeo is another video sharing website where users can upload there videos. Just like Youtube artist upload their tracks and music videos to Vimeo, but unlike Youtube you can choose different categories of music to get search results that are right for you musical tastes. You can become parts of Groups like Music Channels. Vimeo also contains a Music Store feature which allows users to sell their music for give away for free.
Vimeo is another video sharing website where users can upload there videos. Just like Youtube artist upload their tracks and music videos to Vimeo, but unlike Youtube you can choose different categories of music to get search results that are right for you musical tastes. You can become parts of Groups like Music Channels. Vimeo also contains a Music Store feature which allows users to sell their music for give away for free.
