As album sales are down 50% since 2000, radio is breaking less new music than ever in history. Record companies are signing fewer and fewer new artists and artist development budgets continue to shrink, artists and labels need to all find a new way to get music out there. 

The 2009 New Music Seminar NYC is an action packed day of power players in the “new” music industry presenting ideas on how to keep up with the latest technologies, network with others to build your own music business foundation at “The Schmoozatorium”  and most importantly, how to monetize your relationship with your fans in the digital age.

The seminar will kick off with President of Myspace Music, Courtney Holt as the keynote speaker, as well as industry individuals such as:

• Mathieu Drouin, Equator Music
• Mark Ghuneim, Wiredset
• Bruce Houghton, Skyline Music/Hypebot
• Peter Wells, Tunecore
• Steve Greenberg, S-Curve Records
• Terry McBride, Nettwerk
• Tim Westgren, Pandora
• Emily White, Whitesmith Entertainment
• Nick Catchdubs, Fools’ Gold
• Sam Hollander, Fresh Kills Music
• Mickey Factz, MC
• Saint Louis, GFC New York Brand Strategic Management
• Martin Atkins, Tour: Smart/Invisible Records
• David Cooper, Foxman/Direct to Fan
• Marty Diamond, Paradigm Agency
• Lisa White, 9:30 Club, Washington DCWashington DC)

Tickets are available on the day for $150

http://newmusicseminar.biz

Earlier this week, Blip.fm (a.k.a.“Twitter for music”) launched a YouTube integration feature that allows users to have the option of posting music videos directly onto their Blips.

The Twitter social media paradigm was used as the inspiration for Blip.fm, a platform that’s specifically designed to share rich content media, giving users the ability to make music recommendations (in 150 characters or less), to their network in an easy format, without the use of TinyURLs. With the new YouTube integration, Blip.fm users can now do more than just recommend their favorite songs, but also favorite music videos as well.

“The decision to introduce music videos to Blip.fm is part of our broader strategy to expand our content sources and to introduce all media types to our platform” says Blip.fm Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Jeff Yasuda  “We’re happy with the integration and the feedback from our users has been really positive.”

Artists and labels can take full advantage of Blip.fm’s YouTube integration as part of their grassroots marketing strategy to promote new releases, live performances, or even to become a thought-leader for music recommendations to fans.

“We believe that music discovery is an inherently social process.  In fact, the most compelling recommendations don’t come from an algorithm or a computer… they come from your friends and trusted sources” says Yasuda.

What are your music recommendations? Tell us on http://blip.fm/rockisreligion

It’s confirmed. Former Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Owen Van Natta is now the newly named CEO of Myspace (who replaced MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe last week). 

Adding to the “new changing of the guard”, The Wall Street Journal confirmed yesterday, Myspace officially announced two new appointments, former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO, and Jason Hirschhorn (former Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks) as Chief Product Officer.

“I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the company’s founders and am eager to work with Owen and Jon and the rest of the incredible management team at MySpace as we enter this exciting new phase in the company’s already revered history,” said Mike Jones in Myspace’s official press release. Jason Hirschhorn continued, “MySpace is one of the most alluring innovations of our time and I am honored to collaborate with Tom Anderson and the rest of the MySpace team to take what is already a stellar product into its next evolution.”

The changes in Myspace likely indicates the desire to be more technically savvy, like its competitor Facebook, which means Myspace won’t be counted out in the social media space just yet. 

The Wall Street Journal confirmed this afternoon that Myspace CEO Chris DeWolfe will officially step down from his post at the company in the near future.

According to the company memo, News Corporation’s Chief Digital Officer, Jonathan Miller announced that, by mutual agreement, Chris DeWolfe will not be renewing his contract and will be stepping down his position as Myspace CEO. DeWolfe will however, remain a member of the board of Myspace China and will be a strategic advisor to the Company.

“In a little under six years we’ve grown MySpace from a small operation with seven people to a very profitable business with over 1,600 employees,” said Myspace CEO, Chris DeWolfe in a memo.  “It’s been one of the best experiences of my life and we’re proud of, and grateful to, the team of talented people who helped us along the way.  We thank them, as well as the MySpace community for making our vision a reality.”

Myspace Co-Founder and President, Tom Anderson will also be stepping aside by “assuming a new role in the company”.

The Wall Street Journal suspects Myspace’s parent company, News Corporation are clearing the path for former COO at Facebook and current CEO of Project Playlist, Owen Van Natta to take over DeWolfe’s CEO position.

“From the very beginning, our driving passion has been simple - to create and foster a platform where people across the globe can not only meet and interact, but share music, videos, thoughts and ideas,” said Myspace President, Tom Anderson.  I look forward to working with Jon.  I love this business, and look forward to its next chapter.”

Something tells us this is either the end of an era for Myspace, or just the start of something good.

LivingSocial is now officially the top application on Facebook with 20,009,207 monthly active users.

You may be familiar with seeing it on your newsfeed. It’s the one where you get to share your “Top 5” favorite things with your friends e.g. Albums, Books, Movies, Beer, TV Shows etc.

Most recently, LivingSocial created “Picktacular”, a new social gaming app where you get to pick your friends’ Top 5 Favorite things.

A popular “Top 5 Albums” application on Facebook also means for artists getting the word out about their new release, could now be as easy as getting friends to list the album as just a few of their favorite things.

This morning The New York Times ran a story about Pizza Hut’s job posting for their “Summer Twintern”.

Not surprising that Pizza Hut are stepping up thier game in the social media space, after last week’s Domino’s YouTube viral video PR disaster.

What we can learn from this is the power of social media, and as much as some people are yet to come on board the Twitter train, it has proven to be quite a useful  communications tool when you want to get your message out to the public, fast.

And if you’re still not convinced? There’s still plenty of time to post a job ad for a “Summer Twintern” to do all your Twittering on your behalf.

Facebook has now hit its 200 million members mark… to put that into perspective, that’s like, the population of Japan.

In less than eight months, the social networking site doubled its membership numbers, surpassing its competitor Myspace. Over 50% of its users log on to Facebook at least twice a day, with the fastest growing demographic being 35.

To celebrate its 200 million milestone, Facebook have created Facebook For Good, a page devoted to user-generated stories about how Facebook has helped people give back to their communities.