I agree with jazzmammal and also must point out that success in today's media no longer means having to have a bonafide commercial 'hit'.

Does everyone know what a Pareto chart is? If not, reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_chart

In today's music sales, the right end of the pareto chart goes out almost to infinity. In the past, there were limited sales outlets, limited play outlets (radio with payola), but that has completely changed in the last 10 years. All of us reading this forum can put our music up for sale at iTunes.

There's a book on this phenomenon called 'The Long Tail'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail

Right now, there's a fairly young local guy (early 20's) named Tyler Ward who has worked his way from the far right end of the tail to showing up in the Billboard charts; not through a record company; not through payola, but through hard work, talent, some good looks and good fortune, skills at audio and video production, and an innate knowledge of how to use social media. I know this Tyler personally and have watched this happen over the past 12 months; going from just a few in Colorado knowing who he is, to a guy with over 500,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. Needless to say, the record companies are now courting him. He and his band go on a European tour soon - immensely popular there without ever having visited nor had his songs played on Radio 1 or any of the other national broadcast stations over in Europe.

Niches are the way to notoriety - not to the masses in the print and pressed world, but to the smaller sized worlds opening up due to the flattening of the world with the ubiquity of the Internet.

This bringing up of talent from the far right fringe to the left side masses is not only happening online, it's happening with shows like American Idol, X Factor, the Voice, America/Britain's Got Talent, etc.

Right now, someone is poo-pooing this latest comment because they think that it's the image that sells on those shows. I've watched every season of American Idol, and perhaps the only person that could be put on would be Carrie Underwood. Every other season, there were more attractive male/females on the show that were voted aside while the last 3 or 4 standing may not have had the best looks, but they were the most talented. Not all of them have been commercial successes however, mainly because they were niche player/singers (Think Taylor Hicks - just wasn't going to happen mainstream).

There's a belief out there right now that in order to have 'success' in media, one only needs to have '1000 True Fans'. There's a reasonable economic model behind it. See here: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

In that article, it talks about the Long Tail as well as new funding mechanisms to get one's art in front of more people. It specifically references www.fundable.com but there are other similar sites now: www.indiegogo.com www.kickstarter.com which each have a slightly different take on how to take in pledges to get a project started.

Anyway, in summary, becoming a 'success' today depends much more on YOU than the MAN.

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