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Watered Down

© David Reid

Recently it came to my attention that many of the Internet's biggest music sites -- SonicNet, Addicted to Noise, Alternative Buyers Guide -- are all owned by the same company. Yes, many of the major music sites on the WWW are under one flag.

The effect this has on the content of these sites is clear -- the content will all be shared. The same artist and/or label will be covered by all of them at the same time. The effect this has is a decreasing visibility of acts the group isn't covering. Before the merge, one might cover a band independently of the others but now it appears that these sites all act as one. It has hurt the depth and reach that they cover.

Many of us have experienced the hugely sucessful and extremely lacking-of-content MTV and now we all can experience the same with Addicted to Noise and SonicNet. Unfortunately we're already seeing the decrease in depth of content on these sites as they share much of the content. Further this merger hurts smaller sites with less visibilty by trying to monopolize the market.

My suggestion is to find other sites covering your brand of music. There are numerous magazines out there. Many of them are run simply by music fans not looking to make a quick buck. Luckily there will always be fans with a passion to cover the new music industry whether somebody picks up the tab or not. So do a little searching and you will find some wonderful sites out there that put just as much time and effort into their product as the major sites but don't get the recognition they deserve.

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