Building a real fans via the net or another example astroturfing? You be the judge.
Reuters is running a very complimentary piece on singer/songwriter Jamie Kristine Seerman (aka jaymay) who the wire service says is gathering a significant fan base via the net and resisting apparent efforts by both major and indie labels to sign her – except of course for some British labels who just happen to be approaching via a major UK music attorney who also reps Paul McCartney.
The writer’s proof of her organic growth? 75,00 MySpace friends (although MySpace today listed only 32,588 profile views), 1300 EP’s and 2500 songs sold via iTunes and 500 CD’s sold at gigs.
CORRECTION:The Reuters article actually used 75,000 MySpace song plays (which she has) as the measure; not 75,000 profile views as we stated. We apologize for the error, but we’ll stand by our premise that an artist with these numbers (including only 3747 people that have committed to become her friend) hardly qualifies as someone who appears to have "Word Of Mouth On Steroids" as the Reuters sub-headline implies.
And stating that you are determined to stay indie yet having Paul McCartney’s attorney rep you to labels in Europe seems quite a contradiction. We like what we hear of Jaymay, but that does that forgive the mis-use of hype? Thanks to our alert readers including Shiddiq, Jerimi, and Alan for bring this error to our attention.
