Online musician/fans Community

This blog focuses on the famous indie/rock band Radiohead and their fans, and how they both utilise the Web to create a community mesh.

Several dedicated fan sites have emerged; the award winning www.ateaseweb.com being one of the most popular (I’m a long term member). As well as providing much information on the band and its history, the site has message boards allowing its global community to discuss all aspects of the band and more. The site provides latest news on the band daily, to which a lot of content comes from its members (including myself on occasion) who report to the host news stories via email.   

www.youtube.com has been utilised by members posting music videos original or created by the members, self-covers of songs, and live clips.     

Radiohead have embraced the web with their website www.radiohead.com. The site has evolved into a blog where the band posts random general messages and pictures; nothing unusual here. Recently though the band split with their record company and decided to release their latest material initially via download directly online from themselves. Also the band’s new US record label has recently started a Radiohead Youtube channel, and put the band a profile on Facebook where they post videos, news and have over a million fans.  

Before the albums release the band posted cryptic messages on their blog, which whipped the message boards into frenzy. From these messages it was worked out that they were about the new album which had yet no release date.  

The band uses their site www.radiohead.tv on occasion to web-cast performances and other art. Most recently at 12am New Year’s Day they web-cast a performance of their latest album, amongst other things   

Comparing the two approaches it appears to me that the direct accessibility that the band gives its fans via its blog and web-casts, as well as the direct purchasing of music fuels the fans online activity. The cryptic messages were an example of the band making announcements to their fans directly, and not straight to the media.