April 20, 2006

Last.fm and the Future of Dance Videos

I think that dancers and dance companies are missing out on such a wonderful opportunity to use the Internet to reach larger audiences, build excitement for upcoming performances and generate revenue from online sales. I've said this before, but what made me think more about this missed opportunity is the Last.fm website.

Last.fm is a social networking site for music fans. Users can tag and categorize songs, create customized radio stations, write their own journals and join communities with those who share similar musical tastes. You can also have your playlists automatically displayed on your Last.fm profile page for others to view, listen to the radio stations of your friends and see which songs and musical groups are the most popular.

Last.fm, like MySpace, is simply a great way for musicians to build audiences for their music within the context of community-focused websites -- the fastest growing sector of the web.

There's nothing comparable in the dance world. Dancers and dance companies don't post their videos to the web so there can be no community-driven marketplace where dance fans can watch dance clips, tag videos and form communities with others.

But imagine if there were thousands of dance videos online. Dance enthusiasts could create customized TV channels with their favorite videos, share their channels with friends, and meet others with similar tastes. Such a service would enable dancers and dance companies to build larger audiences and at the same time create an online marketplace for selling dance videos.

One thing in particular that I don't understand is that there are many dance on camera film festivals around the world. This obviously means that thousands of dancers already have their works in digital format. So what is stopping them from uploading their videos to the Internet? Why are they not using these videos for promotional purposes? Why are they not trying to sell them online through Google Video and other services?

And in the bigger picture, the online universe is simply so incredibly large that it just doesn't make any sense to ignore it any longer.

I used to watch the TV game show "Let's Make a Deal" when I was younger. Contestants had to choose one of three doors. If they picked the right one, they won some wonderful prizes. If they picked the wrong door, they would end-up with some meaningless gift.

But imagine that before choosing a door, host Monty Hall said, "Now, we want you to choose one of these three doors. Before you choose a door, I want you to know that there is one million dollars behind door number two. OK, go ahead and choose a door."

What does the contestant do? He says, "I choose door number one."

I'm not saying that dancers are going to make a fortune anytime soon. But I am saying that there is a disconnect of massive proportions that does not make any sense. If there are millions of Internet users behind door number two. It is not logical to pick door number one.

Technorati Tags: dance, last.fm, myspace, web2.0

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