Recipe to Become a You Tube Star?

Want to be a You Tube star?

As I was telling my students this week, all it really seems to take are the following elements:

1. A few songs
2. An instrument of some kind that you can play reasonably well.
3. An inexpensive digital recorder.
4. An internet connecttion
5. Time - to record, edit (optional), upload, and promote your "work".
6. Looks/personal appeal.

Talent, of course, is optional. But then that's nothing new. ;)

Here's an example, found at random by You Tube and placed on the "recently featured" listing via Yahoo.

Students and others will please notice that this young lady shows as having over 15 thousand hits just on this one video (she has several). Please also note the fair amount of comments left by others (287 about this video, as of the date and time of this post), and the fact that she offers CDs for sale (no hard numbers available). She also has a myspace and personal domain site (http://www.julianunes.com/).

Those interested may want to compare this listing to the previous post on Andy Mckee. Following the backlinks from that post to his profile and his record company will show an excellent example of a more formalized, and business-like, approach.

So, is this the future of the music industry? Is the grass roots/viral marketing and indi/artist-owned label/publishing house the wave of the future? Will we see more and more people who stay "small time" yet make a living with their music, rather than the select set of mega-million dollar stars we have seen in the past? Or will equilibrium be reached by blending the two approaches, so that both have their own, very specific, place in the new order?

We shall have to wait, and see.

In the meantime, at least we'll have plenty to watch.

Happy, and safe, viewing.

JG