OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

I don’t claim to have any of the answers to the many major issues that are currently plaguing the music industry. If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting at this desk. I’d be in world domination mode somewhere up on Broadway where Bad Boy holds court convincing Diddy to let me revolutionize his label.

However, I can tell you that there isn’t a week that goes by when as a music lover and marketer I don’t get extremely frustrated by the current state of affairs. As a marketer, I can understand that there are multiple clients if you are sitting at the top of a music hierarchy – the musicians, the music lovers, and the shareholders, who keep you in your throne. The latter in that list want restrictions – they want content to be controlled by the label – they don’t want fan videos or content sharing – they aren’t convinced in the power of WOM, because as we all know the ROI is not always so black and white. They want every view or play to count for at least one red cent.

As a music lover and a blogger, I just want to be able to share music I love. Whether it is posting an MP3 of my favorite new Buble song or embedding a video from one of my favorite bands to run to - Ok Go. I still believe in my heart that if you love the music, you’ll pay for it, even if you can find it on a million torrent sites for free. Naive? Perhaps.  But I also believe that if someone wants to steal music – they can find it, no matter how many hurdles and hoola-hoops the labels throw their way. And it doesn’t take a PhD in hacking to figure it out.

I find it hard to make an argument that allowing a video to be embeddable really hurts the bottom line. Sure, YouTube (in an attempt to pacify the label gods and stop the endless stream of infringement suits)  pays labels for video views – as long as they are within network – embeds don’t count for obvious, scalable reasons. But, doesn’t the ROI of a new potential consumer discovering the video on their favorite music blog and then buying the song because of that outweigh any penny per view? Or is the ambiguity and hypothetical nature of this ROI deduction make things like embeds the new martyr of the industry?

Perhaps it is a small victory that now, on some label controlled official YouTube channels – the videos can exist. As a fan, I can now at least see the video – most of the time, which is  quite a feat in a world where MTV is filled with Jersey Shore reruns and no real music at all. However, as a marketer who specializes in Social Marketing & WOM – this is infuriating. Cutting out the ability to share via embed is hurtful – to PR, to the artist, to the virality of the content that is created. It’s cutting off the legs of something that could be easily buzzworthy via the social actions of share/rate/review that foster a bevy of C to C interaction.

Quite simply – Socializing content is a proven tactic to generate awareness leading to consumer loyalty and retention. This is a fact.

In a land where many musicians become famous (and get record deals) through social media platforms (Colbie Caillat + MySpace = one example) it truly comes full circle when on their new big prestigious label – they are no longer allowed to share their creations on the platform that the label discovered them through – primarily through content embeds which generate a bulk of the views, which increase awareness / buzz, etc.  It’s almost mind blowing.

One of such examples sprouted up this week with Ok Go, whose member Damian posted on their forum a message about how their label is insisting on prohibiting embedded playback of their new video. [Full disclosure, way back in the day, we created their fan community for the label]:

“Four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared.”

It is hard to ignore the irony that this all seems to bleed. What is OK Go’s solution to this situation? Syndicate the video on sites like Vimeo where labels like EMI can’t stop them from sharing it. The irony layered upon the irony is that if the label had any digital strategy whatsoever – the video syndicate would be part of the launch of any new artist material already.

In thinking about ways in this new year that I could better contribute to Affinitive’s blog, I got inspired by the blog over at everyone’s favorite minimalistic housewares company, SimpleHuman.

Their blog has become a must-read for me, not because they dish out the inside scoop on their latest and greatest, which I enjoy, but because their employees share their favorite finds in projects, web 2.0, other blogs, stories and articles, gadgets, movies, etc.

In reading their blog I feel like I really get a grasp of what an awesome company culture they must have and it definitely increases my affinity for their sleek (and often pricey) trashcans.

Taking a tip from the Simple Human employees, I am hoping to share from time to time some applications, case studies, videos, sites, products, gadgets, articles, and other random finds that I love.

I fully believe that when you are working in a creative environment, inspiration can come from so many varying sources. I do a daily scavenger hunt around the internet and think I am much better at my job for taking those few minutes out of every day to read my favorite blogs, check in on social networks and sites that I love, and new inspirational finds.

Without further ado…

I have been a sporadic Vimeo user for the past year. I don’t shoot much video personally, so I don’t have much to contribute to the artistic and creative Vimeo community but I enjoy watching videos on Vimeo and appreciate the format and what it provides versus the much more popular YouTube.

To explain the difference between the two in very simple, non-technical terms (and from my own personal experience), YouTube is where I would go to watch my favorite music video or try to find an awesome scene from Big Love that I want to watch again. Vimeo is where I go to get inspired by original content, created by aspiring videographers, directors, and Kanye West.

I was happy to discover yesterday that the White House has setup a channel at Vimeo and will be sharing Obama’s weekly video casts via the site.

After watching the tech savviness of both Obama and McCain’s campaigns with their utilization of social media tools, it shouldn’t be surprising that the channel has found it’s home at Vimeo.

But it still feels very refreshing and validating that the very tools that we assist our clients in leveraging as they spread their brand message or empower consumers to share User-Generated Content are platforms that are also being used by our new President.

Our internal company servers nearly flat-lined as we all watched the Inauguration Address online, as did the clients that we spoke to during that monumental time. It is nice to watch it again, on Vimeo, shared to us directly by the most well known white home in America.

No matter what your political affiliations are, the mainstream usage of social media platforms and tools such as Vimeo is inspirational to me as a marketer, and in this case, also as an American.