Running on Wired's news site is a great article detailing how one of the internet's newest technologies is being used to promote new music.
For the South By South West (SXSE) music conference in Austin, Texas, organisers have managed to secure free tracks from around 750 bands to offer to the public. These tracks, in mp3 format, have been zipped up into one big 2.6GB BitTorrent file to be shared on P2P networks.
This allows massive downloads without the organisers having to run up massive bandwidth charges. Excellent.
The event also has several key applications that allow attendees to navigate the conference via their iPod.
Now before a showcase gig, you can see where the show will be as well as listen to a sample of the band to see if it's worth bothering in the first place.
It'll be interesting to see what the organisers for June's NXNE in Toronto have up their sleeves.
Comment: You have to had it to conferences like this and the indie labels who seem to be embracing new technologies and ideas, instead of trying to sue them out existence.
The promotion these bands will get is invaluable, but if the RIAA had their way, BitTorrent, MP3 and P2P in general would be as dead as Johnny Carson. Forward thinking? Not really.
Link: SXSE
Link: Wired news story
