Music fans pick Wikipedia over MySpace for artist information

It’s no secret that social networking site MySpace has become a virtual haven for um, virtual unknowns to become, well, well-known. And at this day and age of overly great amounts of information and really fast Internet connections, it’s not impossible for one thing, let’s say for example a great performing artist, to gain worldwide popularity even with just a single song.

But after you hear the song, given that you’re converted and could whisper to yourself when no one’s looking, that you’re already a fan, the next logical move you’ll probably want to make is to check for official artist information so you can learn more about your new idol. So you go to Google (or OK, Yahoo and MSN, if you’re that type of person) to do a quick search. Chances are, the artist’s MySpace page and Wikipedia entry (assuming they even have one) would be neck and neck in the results. And if they don’t already have a Wikipedia entry to their name, like yours truly, then that would be an awful shame. For you see, according to data forked over by Yahoo to Billboard, music fans who do information searches usually decide on reading the artist’s Wikipedia entry rather than their MySpace pages. And I’m not surprised. As a fan of a few certain artists myself, I really would prefer to see more relevant and unbiased information rather than a bunch of over-exposed photos and unsolicited comments made by the other fans. And the moral of the story is, if you’re planning on becoming a well-known artist, first you have to learn a little bit of SEO… I just knew that the Web is the future!

Read [Reuters]