“The internet is completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.” He went on to say: “The internet’s (sic) like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Prince also criticized the advent of gadgets and computers: “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. “They just fill your head with numbers and that cant be good for you.” Prince has taken his war against the internet one step further by shutting down his official website. His battle began in 2007 when he famously announced his intention to file lawsuits against eBay, YouTube and the Pirate Bay for the misuse of his music. Ever since he has banned such sites from using his music in any fashion and refused to work with legal paid-for options like iTunes, 7Digital or eMusic.
Prince is not replacing his aging fan base. We’re it. And, in my mid-40s, I was at the younger end of the age-spectrum. So what does any of this have to do with lawyers and legal marketing?? Many lawyers and law firms continue to resist social media, including blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, etc. I have a legal marketing colleague whose firm BLOCKS Facebook at work. Yikes. Facebook is where I get a lot of my news feeds. Twitter and my RSS reader fill in the gaps as well. Listen up, people. Social media is not a fad. The actual tools and platforms will come and go, they will evolve, they will change. Will Facebook be here in five years?? If it remains relevant, yes. If not, it will go the way of MySpace. But it won’t disappear until there is something better to replace it, and I haven’t seen that yet. The next generation of decision makers are fully entrenched in social media. They have grown up with cellphones and texting is a language to them. They don’t wear watches because their phones are synced with the correct time. To them, this is the way things are done. For us, we must adapt. As for Prince … he still puts on an incredible show and performance. But by overly controlling his social footprint, he is preventing his music from reaching a new, and more powerful, generation. His name might be Prince, but he will never be the king.