I recently had a conversation with a label executive about databases. One database had more than 10,000 concert venues while another had almost 15,000. Which one was better? Some of his label colleagues wanted even more. "We want to know about every place that any punk band ever played an all ages show," they argued.
In this age of massive databases and search engines it is possible, almost easy, to create lists of information on any subject. But does more data mean better data?
Which is more useful - every venue or every active venue? Which fan inf do you want to capture - the one who stumbled on your web site once or those that listened to three songs all the way through?
It is tempting to say that we want to know about every venue and convert every potential fan. But the reality is that we each only have so much time to do anything of value with the data we're capturing. We are stretched too thin; pinging from project to project. More than ever, quality is more important than quantity.
