| Pete Wentz and Ning headline session |
 How has social media changed the relationship between bands and their fans? Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz (centre) appeared in the final session of day one of MidemNet, sharing the stage with Ning CEO Gina Bianchini (left) to talk about the issues around it. Billboard’s Mark Sutherland (right) moderated. Ning has created more than two million social networks for artists, but also for charities, activists and other organisations – it’s a DIY social network platform. Music has been hugely important for it, she said, with more than 40 million registered users (i.e. people using those two million Ning networks). Wentz is one of those Ning networks. How has it changed his interaction with fans? “When you’re first starting out as a band, we would use any avenue to reach people that we could,” he said. “We were using blogs from the beginning, but as more technologies came out and we had more fans, we wanted to find a way to have a more intimate relationship with them. But it’s hard to do.” How does he decide which platforms to use, and which he doesn’t – and does he ever wish he was back in the 70s, when bands only had to focus on making records and taking drugs (interviewer Mark Sutherland’s words, not mine, I should stress…) “The truth is, in our age as globalised as we are, you do need to interact with your fans. They expect that of you.” However, Wentz also described social media as “a closet door” that artists can choose how wide to open – they don’t have to share their entire lives if they don’t want to. (Read More here!) Watch the Video Here! (Courtesy of Midem.com |
