Steve Lawson, a musician, replies to those in the "music industry" who say people like him are suffering. He's not suffering.

So I was naively excited when I opened the envelope. And my answer was right there on the first page. In five years, our three albums earned us a grand total of… $62.47 What the fuck?

Self-promotion may appear revolting, but it’s the only promotion that’s guaranteed in this business. Do it right, and only haters will hate you for it. To get, you must give.

Jon Bounds addresses the issue of people setting up Twitter accounts for their businesses and use them as individuals. He roughly divides it into two problems: <i>1) People that know you will get fed up of constant business tweets (if they aren’t heavy users or fans of your service). 2) People that care about your business are put off by the personal stuff.</i> I'd agree with most of what he's saying but would add this isn't such a problem when the person is the brand, as happens with many small arts companies and organisations. But on the whole some good advice. (Jon's been ill this week so this was written by Grumpy Jon. I like Grumpy Jon.)

Bit of a no-brainer but a useful response to the attitude that EVERYONE has to be online socially. Some people simply shouldn't blog or Twitter or whathaveyou. That's not an excuse for those who should but are just scared but it should be taken into account.

This guide is aimed at software developers, obviously, and outlines the steps used in launches for Gmail and other services where they started small with limited invites, learned from that manageable pool of users and gradually let in more and more, building a great product and a trusted marketing campaign at the same time. What interests me is how this could be applied to non-software launches, especially those that look to engage people on a community basis. Could the invite / testing paradigm be applied to, say, an arts festival? I'm not sure but I'd love to see it tried.

Chris Brogan runs through the obvious and not-so-obvious in this very useful list.

He talks about how to introduce social media into a (larger) business.. and recommends going along to a social media club :)

Specifically, for me , the Feasibility grant.

A business directory site with user reviews that's just expanded outside of London. I've been having a play and quite like what I see.