The general indie artist population is not pleased.
Towards the end of last year (December 2nd), there was a quiet announcement from FaceBook about changes to EdgeRank (the algorithm that determines what is shown in Facebook users' NewsFeeds). Several sites republished the info immediately partially to spread the word, partially to spread their opinions, because, really, for businesses large and small, Facebook is HUGE.
For smaller music groups, though, the ramifications of those changes are just now being recognized.
The main fire-starter has been the new option to pay to boost a post in your fans' newsfeeds.
The EdgeRank algorithms decide if your post should be seen or not based on how 'interesting' the posts' content will be to your fans. This is determined by how many fans have clicked on past posts from your band that contained similar content.
As you can imagine, several artists are quite unhappy. It's been brought up that with the amount of time an energy a band has to spend just to garner those FaceBook fans, attempting to capitalize on their need for fan-reach is unfair.
A few artists have started explaining their reasons for switching back to band-name websites and old-skool email lists.
And, of course, there will always be a few souls who just want to help as best they can.
What do you think? Facebook has to filter the NewsFeeds for each user somehow, but does charging a fee to get posts to all fans take things just a little too far?
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