How the Internet Can Change Industries and Lives
We have all heard about how the internet is changing the way we do things. Well here is a true story of how a musician used the internet to her advantage and change her life by thinking differently and embracing the internet.
It was during the cold, short days at the start of 2006 that Sandi Thom had her Eureka! moment. Instead of driving to gigs up and down the country with her band in her clapped-out car, as she had done for years, the singer from Scotland resolved to try a different approach. She bought a webcam, and announced a run of 21 shows to be performed on consecutive nights during February and March in the basement of her flat in Tooting, South London. The audience capacity in the flat itself was limited to just six people. But the half-hour shows were to be broadcast, free of charge, via her website at www.sandithom.com. The first night, 70 people tuned in to watch, the next night it went up to 670. And by the middle of the second week she was performing to a peak audience of 162,000. By then, the suits from every major record label had visited the flat to see the show for themselves. What they heard was a singer with a sensational voice - strong and expressive enough to fill the largest theatres, but also warm and soulful enough to win over hearts and minds in the most intimate of settings. All the record companies put in offers, and a fortnight after finishing her virtual tour Thom signed a recording contract with RCA executive Craig Logan, live in front of her webcam audience.
Even before her debut album, *Smile... It Confuses People* is released on June 5, preceded by a single, *I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker* on May 22, Sandi Thom is a phenomenon. The company is calling it "the first webcast signing in major record label history" and she has become the overnight internet star who won a global audience and a megabucks handshake thanks to her investment in a £60 webcam. Needless to say, the story goes a little deeper than that.
If only i had thought of that first ... and could actually play!
