Recently on music industry blogging site Musicthinktank.com, Andrew Dubber wrote an article explaining why musicians should quit MySpace if it doesn't improve it is offering for them: http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/happy-quit-myspace-day.html.

Dubber raises interesting questions about what is expected of musicians to maintain their 'social capital'.

As Bordieu defines social capital as the "aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition".

So, that will be 'myspace friends' then?

In theory, as a musician, a 'myspace friend' should be a fan, a contact, a colleague, basically somebody who is interested in the music the musician is creating and who would be able to offer help or support to the musician should they need it. Often you will hear bands or artists boast of how many 'myspace friends' they have and will see this is a quantifiable measure of their success or popularity, and sometimes even quality.

However in most cases, it is complete nonsense. An unsigned band who has 50,000 friends on myspace does not have 50,000 fans. If they had 50,000 fans, they would not be unsigned. Anyone can sit at the computer for 7 days straight adding myspace friends. It is a completely false economy, however the social captial of a musican on myspace is based entirely on this set of numbers.

It is now the case, as Dubber explains, that pretty much every band on the planet is on myspace. So if a band were to not be on myspace, would their social capital be damaged? Perhaps. However, could they not build social capital through other, more traditional, methods such as word of mouth, networking and live performance? I would strongly argue that this sort of networking would bring more real social capital to the artist and ultimately more success.

After all, success in the music industry almost completely relies on social capital. Whether it be the social capital of the artist themselves and their core set of fans that guarantees them sales that enable a living to be made form their music, or the social capital held by a label or manager looking to break the next 5 minute pop sensation into the charts through radio play and media exposure.

Looked at in this context, we can see that any social capital held on myspace is almost worthless unless it is backed up with genuine 'real' social capital from other sources. In fact, it has now become almost laughable to boast about how many "myspace friends" you have, and you may infact lose 'real' social capital by chasing what many now see as false.

So if we all quit myspace, will musicians' social capital now be based on our twitter followers? or our Reverbnation fans? Or will our social capital as musicians be the same as it has always been? In real fans and contacts who are prepared to part with real time and money to invest to ensure real quantifiable success.