Posted by Christopher Stevenson
No Depression, an influential music magazine, will discontinue its print edition this summer. No Depression plans to build its online presence and shift paper and ink to digital. That should come as no surprise. Many music magazines are feeling the squeeze as record labels with declining CD sales tighten their belts; the only way to survive is to push the magazine on line. What did surprise me is the concern of Kyla Fairchild, co-publisher of the magazine, about including elements of social media on the site. Here's what she said on NPR's Morning Edition:
"As I sort of envision the Web site, it would have a radio component, a record store retail component, it would have user driven chat rooms. When you open things up to the public, you can't really complain when some horrible band puts something up. So there were concerns that it sort of diluted the value and what the brand stood for."
No Depression has a vision of what their Web site could be, but they're afraid of what it will become.
I have buddies who are true music geeks: insulated recording studios in basements, obscure musical references, intimate knowledge of the discographies of every musician that ever played in Wilco, the whole bit. The thing is, my friends love nothing more than to gab for hours with other musicians about their passion. I'd have thought No Depression would have leveraged that passion with online communities years ago. Instead of avoiding interaction among users out of fear of what could happen, they could have been building the go-to place for music lovers to geek out.
As for the concern about horrible bands putting stuff up, social media sites are self-regulating. The folks I know who would use a No Depression site wouldn't tolerate garbage; they'd digitally shout down the culprits. That's the beauty of social media; more often than not, the users themselves keep the site on the straight and narrow.
I'm looking forward to seeing the evolution of No Depression, but I wonder if they've delayed too long. I'll be interested to see what happens.
