Tour diaries: They are the satisfying sustenance required by every hardcore music fan to feed a band addiction. A glimpse into the backstage, on-tour-bus life of one’s favorite band. Now, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, it’s easier than ever to create a highly visual tour diary to sate the appetite of your friends and followers. One word, my musically inclined friends: Instagram.

Instagram, that increasingly popular photo app that launched near the end of 2010, has become the darling of many a news outlet and brand, but has yet to really catch on among the musician set.

Still, according to Josh Riedel, head of business development at Instagram, more and more bands are getting hip to the site. The most popular is undoubtedly The National (@ntnl). Riedel, for one, hopes to see more bands joining the platform.

“We see bands on stage, but most people don’t get to go backstage,” he says. “Through photos, you can let fans in on what happens when you’re not performing, which I think helps fans develop more of a personal connection with the band.”

Go get the top 10 @ Mashable

Turns out the whole site makeover and logo change couldn’t keep the MySpace ship from sinking. The once-powerful social network used to be the place for artists to showcase their music, interact with their audience, and ultimately build a fan base. That’s no longer the case, so where to now?

Hypebot discusses possible options in an excerpt from an article below. Facebook is clearly the front-runner for reaching a huge audience, and YouTube is the leader in music consumption, but I want to hear from actual musicians. What sites do you use to reach your audience and/or market yourself?

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The obvious answer is Facebook, but despite some popular apps like RootMusic, it has not caught on with musicians in quite the way that the early MySpace did.  And, again despite some interesting apps, new music discovery is not easy on Facebook.

paidContent points to an eclectic group of alternatives including The Sixty One, Sellaband, Bandcamp, Pledge Music, Tunecore and last.fm. But that list is populated primarily with sites created to serve a specific function like fan funding, direct to fan sales or distribution; and none offer the mix of both popular and niche music that MySpace did (does?).

A new Nielson study shows that YouTube leads the current crop of sites for music consumption. But again, YouTube was created for another purpose – to air videos – and not music discovery.

via hypebot

Thanks to all the people who’ve backed our project so far! Word spreads and it is good.

So many links in the post. Jeez.

Before we do, we have to raise a little cash to hire the programmer and designer to make our dreams reality. Thus we have started the BTTV Pledge Drive!

If you do pledge, you’ll receive a BTTV tshirt and/or a limited edition poster. Check em’ out below.

It’s a good read on trying to predict where social networks are going. Read on (BTTV is mentioned under item #1).

It’s hot in Austin. That ain’t no lie.