Importance of Streaming Clay's New Music In Coming Weeks

We are bringing this message to you from Kellykellyk at CV via Caperkeeper at Aiken Breakin' Broad. It tells the EXTREME IMPORTANCE of streaming Clay's music. Please read below and let's keep reminding each other to do this. We want to do everything we can to promote Clay in the coming weeks, and this is an easy and yet vital way to do that. Read on:

Hi everyone. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be bugging you with a friendly reminder to Please Stream Clay's New Music.

I know a lot of people are concerned about Clay's promotion, so an easy way for everyone to help build buzz for Clay is to stream his new single online, and if a video is made available we should stream that as well.

Online streams of songs and videos are gaining importance as a way for radio and retailers to determine which songs and artists are popular. Did you know that Billboard keeps track of the number of online streams for songs and videos? The number of streams an artist or song gets on services like AOL and Yahoo Music is used by some radio stations to see how popular an artist or song is and whether it should be added to their playlist. The number of online streams is also one of the factors used by stores to determine how "hot" an artist is when they are deciding how many copies of a new CD to order for their stores. There has even been talk that Billboard may add number of streams to calculate Hot 100 positions.

From another board:

QUOTE
According to Geoff Mayfield, senior chart manager, in the latest issue of Billboard: "Streaming data from music sites is available on Nielsen BDS' Encore system and will soon become an ingredient on the Billboard Hot 100."

Now, Billboard's definition of "soon" seems to be the same as Clay's
definition, so I don't expect to see streaming data count for the Hot 100 for quite a while. However, it is something that is kept measured and used as a measure of popularity. You can stream videos and songs for free on multiple sites, so streaming can be an easy and fun way for fans to support Clay. While you're chatting away on the boards just have a window in the back streaming Clay's new song or video.

For now we can listen to "Without You" on Clay's MySpace, Fanscape, and ArtistDirect.com.

The most important places to be on the lookout for and that we should hit as soon as they start streaming the new single and/or video are Yahoo Music, AOL Music, and MSN. If you belong to Rhapsody, you can also listen to him there. While we wait for the sites to have "Without You" available, it wouldn't hurt to stream some of the OAM songs/videos.

If you have a Blog or a MySpace page, you can include a link to the Yahoo, MSN or AOL pages that stream Clay music. It's an easy way (and free) way of helping Clay's buzz.

ETA: Please feel free to take this post to any other boards you belong to. It's important to spread the word that we should stream Clay's songs online, even if we already have copies of them in our computer.

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