Frankly, I think you’d be hard pressed to disagree with anything that’s been said – unless of course like Atul Rana you believe we shall all burn in hell.. ?!

I think a key point is taking the relationship beyond myspace and ‘owning’ it yourself – but I’m really glad to see someone who can advocate the Friend Adding benefits alongside myself.

Good idea about using the venue myspace – I may have to give that a try myself!

There is no lack of communication, if not even more communication as one doesn’t have to spend their time with the act of friend requesting, but rather, with correspondence. The friend request is planting a seed… If the person enjoys the music and accepts, then that line of communication has been opened (and if they deny it, they wouldn’t have been interested anyway), and its up to the artist to either ignore that line of communication, or to use it to build relationships and friendships.

Let me say this: Friend Adders INCREASE the line of communication with people that I am able to have. I have much more relationships that have been made possible, simply by automating the process of clicking on the add to friends button, rather than toiling through the browser killing profiles with flying glittery unicorns bouncing around the page at 200mph, and half transparent foregrounds over busy eye melting backgrounds. If someone can legitimately convince me that there is something ACTUALLY wrong with that, then I’ll listen… but I doubt that is possible. The real problem is musicians who don’t feel the need to connect with their fans, or potential friends.

My analogies were more/less there to bring up the point that almost all strategies to initially inform others about your band are impersonal… not because we like it that way, but because it would be impossible to reach more than a couple of people that way. There is no moral connotations in placing a magazine ad for IT’S initial impersonal nature, but simply because it’s popular to “blame it all on the auto adders”, anyone who automates a friend request, regardless of how they, themselves, handle it afterward, or how those friend requests are generated, is a complete sham, irritating people much in the way of an internet spammer. The difference is… myspace is set up to expand your circle of friends…if you want to stick to just who you know already, go with facebook, but myspace… the entire point is to meet new people, while an emal client is not set up for the purpose of getting emails from people that you don’t know (in fact that pisses people off, myself included) Let’s just say: I haven’t had a single person who has been in correspondence with me have a problem with hearing from my band. Why? Because I send only to those who seem already interested in the kind of thing we do, and I handle it with care, politeness, and sincerity to build a relationship. Those who aren’t interested have a deny button to click, and they can enjoy whatever other music that they enjoy, while those who are interested in what my band are doing can become part of our ever growing circle of friends (we view them more as friends than fans… but that’s besides the point) How is that wrong? Tell me, and I’ll listen (but not necessarily believe you)

Magazine advertisements, radio ads and posters aren’t supposed to be personal. Creating a friendship is.

( Not that I disagree with all your other comments, I realize “each and every person [you] add is held in the highest regard…” I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, I just think those were bad examples. )

Is radio play personal or human? They didn’t necessarily ASK to hear your band on that station, mere just willed to “listen to the station,” and in most cases have never even talked personally with the person responsible for playing the song, let alone the people listening.

How about postering? How personal is that? How many unsolicited views are perpetrated by putting one single poster on a street corner? The only way to personalize that process would be to rig a wireless walkie-talkie system to every poster, that goes back to your place of residence.

My point is this. Sometimes, you have to get through the initial “this is [band name here] as quickly as poss. so that you CAN afford the time to be personal… unless you have a very large promotions budget/staff… then why would you need to send out friend requests to anyone in the first place?

Leaving pre-designed “ad copy” style comments, even to those who request you is more spam than speeding up the requesting process with the help of software.

Don’t feel violated at all. You wouldn’t have resided on the “to add” list had you not seemed like someone who would enjoy it. At least not with my band (I can’t speak for other people of course). Each and every person we add is held in the highest regard, and we always have every intention in talking and befriending (REAL friend… not myspace) anyone who wants to bite. All a friend adder is, is a way of automating the physical act of sending a friend request. In other words, just because a piece of software has helped to quicken the process a bit, doesn’t mean that you are any less important to the success of whatever band which is sharing their work with you. If they are rotten apples, that’s just what personality they have, but don’t damn the tool, just because some people abuse it. These impersonal people would act the same way to you had you come up to them to chat at a show. Just move on, because if they don’t care about their fans, friends, or other bands, they aren’t worth YOUR time or money, or anyone else’s for that matter. Music is community.

So… here is someone who both uses a myspace adder, AND will become your friend if welcomed. At least I’m not spending all the time I could be writing you (or whoever) manually doing everything.