There was a time in my life, believe it or not that I thought that the internet was bad for music and bad for hip-hop.  I resisted it mightily.  I've found it to be ironic that a lot of people, including myself reject technology when they are younger.  In my early 20's a clinged to vinyl like a crutch, now I laugh openly at people that still buy CDs.  As I've grown older the more and more accepting I've become of technology and the internet.

Personally, when it comes to the internet I think it's changed a lot more then I have.  In the early days, hip hop on the internet boiled down to a few things like chat rooms, message boards and ugly websites.  I didn't have much use for any of them.  Most of what the Net seemed to be about then was cats hating on releases and rappers.  Everyone instantly became a critic and the stuff that you would say to you and your boys sitting around watching Video Music Box or Rap City was now being seen by thousands or readers.  Bickering usually ensued and the Net was an angry place.

Nothing advanced and "tools" to actually aid musicians really hadn't come along yet.  For years we were told what the Internet was going to be.  "You'll never need to leave your house for music ever again" they said, "You'll just print the cover art out" they said, "You'll have access to purchase any CD you'd ever want online" they said.  By about 2000 it all was starting to look like promises from the 70's and 80's of Jet Packs and Flying Cars.

Something changed along the way and almost instantly the internet became a viable place, that had as much positivity that you could pump into it abound.  It seemed like this happened overnight, but it took many years.

Those dark ages are far behind us and here we are today. 

The reason I'm reflecting on this is because over the last few months I've put the finishing touches on a lot of items of Internet Promotion here at Uncommon Records, the least of which is the web site you are currently looking at (props to Eleven on that as well of course!).  I've actually done so much that I've started to get the rep as being an "Internet Guru" (not the money making kind though).  This kind of entertains me for a couple of reasons, one- considering my stubborn hard headed history as a young hip-hopper it's a pretty amazing 360 and two- it makes me happy that on some level my hard work is being recognized.

Let's break down what I've been up to and in turn, what you should be doing if you are building up an internet presence (forgive the pun).  This isn't to say that everyone has to do it this way, but it's the way we're doing it here at Uncommon.

Website- It still all has to come back to your Website.  Myself and Eleven built this website using Squarespace, it's kind of like Wordpress on Crack.  The limits to the design on here are very minute.  In fact, in Squarespace's demo they take a sample website and rebuild it using Squarespace exactly even though the original site was a standard web design.  Your website should be "Home Base", where people can make purchases (or find out where to make purchases) and find out detailed information that can't be expressed on a Social Network of any kind.  It should also be a "Traffic Cop" or "Gate Keeper" to all the other places on the Net that you are.

Youtube- Youtube is huge.  There are actually people that surf Youtube all day long, I don't understand those people personally, but if they find out about us there more power to them.  You Tube is great because you don't have to put super high quality videos there.  Just grab a Flip Mino or even a Cell Phone Camera and you have material there for people to find and for you to embed.  Every time we throw a show or even people that are down with us throw one, I have the camera rolling.  Flooding the market is an understatement on Youtube.

Twitter- Twitter is easy because all you have to do is talk.  Just type what's on your mind and promote your shit.  Real simple.  Only Follow people you give a rat's ass about or else you'll never get anything out of it and block all the Spammers on there.  They just lead to more Spammers finding you and then you'll never get a sense of how many real people are potentially reading your words.

Ning- I just found this recently.  This website let's you create your own social network from the ground up.  People can share beats with you and tracks.  Add pics, video, etc.  It's ill.  And it's all within your own gated network community.  So anybody that joins Uncommon's is there for the right reason, there's no point in a Spammer joining something like this.  Next level social networking and this will be the one that kills Myspace, mark my words.

Live Stream- This used to be called Mogulus.  I liked their old name way better, but I guess they needed to appeal to the masses more since they have a lot of competitors.  It's an entire Broadcast Studio online.  I created "Uncommon TV" from all the videos we have on Youtube with it.  There are literally hours of entertainment playing on Uncommon TV.  You'll likely not see the same thing twice.  You can also broadcast LIVE with a webcam, that's more the point of it actually.  Hopefully I'll get to that point soon.

Myspace- Blah.  Myspace is the 2009 version of a demo tape.  You can quickly play people your joints without freaking them out about viruses from files you send them.  The place is so infected with people pushing you "Industry Beats" whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, that it's impossible to take it seriously anymore.  People honestly don't keep up with updates and blogs there the way they used to.  I still maintain it, but if they shut down tomorrow, it would be fine by me.

Podcast- I use LibSyn to get Offical Uncommon Podcast, Uncommon Radio out to the masses.  They hook you up with RSS and Pinging that gets you on Itunes and other Podcast Directories.  If you start a Podcast the best thing to do is Google Podcast Directories, you'll likely get a Top 100 list or something like that.  I spent a night going through the Top 100 and hooking up a link to each that would accept it for free and without asking for too much personal info.  Me and Cirrus do the podcast for the simple love of the music and to play shit we like and talk about music.  That all feeds back into the music we make and support on Uncommon though.  More about this later.

I feel like I'm forgetting something, there are some minor ones.  I started a Vimeo page, but didn't add much since we don't have Hi-Res shot video and that's really what that site is for.  There's an Imeem page but it's mainly fed from the promotional arm of our digital distributor.  I half assed some profiles on Reverb Nation, but honestly, I'm not crazy about the lay out of that site or the usefullness of it.  Then there's places like Last.FM.  I love that site personally and it's an easy place to add your music to, build profiles on and start groups of people that are into your music.  Pandora is another site that we have music submitted to, but it works a lot differently then Last.FM.  Almost forgot- This BLOG!  "The Prog Blog" is another output intended to bring people in to learn more about the label and participate (artist and reader).  The stubborn kid in me refuses to join Facebook.  Probably a mistake, but it shows deep down I'm still that dude and I like that.

Some people have asked me- "How do you do all this stuff? or "Where do find the time for all that?".  A couple of things. 

If you do anything often, you will get better at it.  It took me forever to build the old website on another platform before we recently upgraded.  I remember building up the Myspace page over a few nights.  Then something just clicks and you do all this faster.  When I find out about a new site, I can now quickly investigate it, sniff out if it's worth my time and get to work.  That makes it easier.

Part of me feels like I have to do this all.  This, to me, is part of running a label in 2009, like it or not.  My goal is to at some point expand this company to where we have some interns that can handle this side of the business, and eventually grow those people into employees and get this thing really popping.  Right now, it's me against the world and if I don't do it, no one else will.

It's logical to me that if all sales of music will be taking place exclusively on the internet shortly (and they will be) then as a record label you should have strong bases of power to promote your music all over the net.

I love music and I love Uncommon's music and I have a will power that I really, not for nothing, feel can't be equalled.  That makes this easier and at times even fun.

One drawback of all of this is that it does take time, and I work full time on top of it all.  Sometimes I feel like it slows down my actual "Musical" output.  That's not always true, but I feel it most of the time.  Either way, I think I usually find the right balance.

I feel now with the site launched, Uncommon TV rolling, the Ning Network set up and the Podcast getting pumped out (along with everything else we have been doing that I mentioned) that at this point I've gotten to the top of the mountain (or at least a plateau).  Now it's time to start the other part of my job, promoter/PR guy.  What I tell people a lot is that when a big part of what a label is is a one man machine, things will naturally fall by the way side.  You have to put something on the back burner to do something else.  So now that a lot of this "infrustructure" is built online another hat will go on and I'll be back to seeking out and contacting bloggers, companies, print mags and radio shows to bring into what I've just laid out.  It's a cycle that keeps moving.  Help a brother out and tap some of these people on the shoulder for us and send them the link to a label they can't ignore anymore!  Uncommon!

"We will find a way, or we will make one!"  - now you see what that means.