Audioblogs tap into the human desire to share what’s important to us – or at least to show everyone how cool we are. This growth in “MP3jays” writing audioblogs further demonstrates that there’s a lot of interest out there in what other people are listening to. To join in, Apple have recently included a feature in iTunes 1.5 that allows users to publish up their playlists for all to see (and admire or laugh at) – but outside of iTunes, some blogs are courting controversy by offering unlicensed samples of tracks.
The RIAA could chose to target audiobloggers if they don’t license tracks properly – and since many of the bloggers are individuals, they won’t be able to afford the fees to get legal.
However, the advantages in audioblogs to the industry are immense: people place greater value on individual’s tastes and being able to listen to a piece of music tells you much more about how you feel about it than words ever will. Audioblogs represent high quality, highly-targeted publicity for record companies, and not only is it free, but someone else is paying for the bandwidth.
Try the most successful audioblog out there: Fluxblog from Matthew Perpetua posts music on the site – but all the tracks are used properly and with permission.