The infamous Billboard music chart is keeping up with the times by launching the Social 50 Music Chart. Traditionally, Billboard tracks the music chart by reviews, profits, and articles. The new list will track based on page views, number of fans and followers, online song plays, and streams to external pages. (So if I post the new Cee Lo song to my Facebook page, that now gets measured.)
What’s really cool is Billboard has developed an algorithm to measure what some are calling “engagement.” The people at Billboard are taking the number of unique page views and dividing them by the number of fans.
I don’t know if anyone remembers MTV back in the day, either in the late ’90s or in the early ’00s, but some hacker on the Internet figured out how to fix the show TRL (Total Request Live) and rigged the music countdown. I thought it was funny at the time, but it made Carson Daly pretty uncomfortable.
Could this happen to Social 50?
I constantly get my new music tips from Billboard and the iTunes most downloaded list and might make Social 50 a part of my weekly music research routine. Social 50 gives new artists a chance to create strong enough online campaigns to get their song featured. Is this good or does it defeat the purpose?
BUT after taking a look again today, Social 50’s list looks like a pop radio station’s countdown. I would think with more generations playing into the social networking music world, my generation might get introduced to new types of sounds. (On a side note, I was happy to see the Beatles reach the list due to yesterday’s anniversary of John Lennon’s death.)
Will you use Social 50? What do you think of the concept?