OK, So Who Saw Coldplay & Jay-Z At The Grammys Last Night?

Last night’s 51st Grammy Awards had everything you’d expect–fun performances and not too many surprises when it came to winners. It felt like it had been awhile since I watched the Grammys or at least enjoyed it but last night’s show seemed fresh. What did you think?

It’s not news that the music industry continues to struggle with figuring out digital business models. Despite this, we’re starting to see many in the industry embrace social media to engage their audiences (if you watched last night’s telecast you would have heard numerous mentions of Twitter and Facebook). As part of this foray into social media, the Grammys also launched a KickApps blog and hired two professional bloggers to cover the behind the scenes events at the show.

I’ve recently had numerous discussions with folks from the music industry about adapting their businesses to the digital world. The more progressive artists, labels and marketers are starting to understand what many of their peers in online media and corporate marketing have picked up on in 2008. That is, social media, while novel to many last year, is increasing becoming a core component of how they engage with their customers. It’s not just a ‘bolt on’ to a marketing plan or a website anymore.

Some other examples of deployments of KickApps in the music industry: Bonnaroo, ASCAP’s (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) ASCAP Network and the Stone Temple Pilots.

With that, I’m going to leave you with a clip from last night’s show (just about the only one that hasn’t been removed from YouTube yet!). Oh, and stay tuned, we’ve got some really big news on the music front shortly that will elevate the industry.