Mavin Digital Mashup

After much buzz and anticipation, industrial band Nine Inch Nails (NIN/Trent Reznor), last week, released a new and innovative app for the iPhone/iTouch called “Nine Inch Nails: Access.”  The application serves as a defacto mobile portal that allows fans to log on anywhere/anytime to the nin.com network.  Fans can now access news, Blogs, photo and video galleries, NIN music, fan-produced remixes, peer profiles, private messages and tweets, forums, and much, much more, all from their mobile device.  And it’s all formatted for easy viewing and updated real time from NIN’s fan-supported database.

The application also includes an impressive feature called Nearby™, which enables fans to watch and exchange messages, photos and video with other NIN fans real-time from all over the world, powered by Google Earth.  By zooming in to a concert location, you can follow the localized discussion during the show while viewing pictures posted live from the venue.  Consider it a one-stop shop for community and content powered by the fans themselves and to extend the concert experience beyond the people actually attending the show.

So why should you care?  Well, for starters, NIN Access looks like everything that Web 2.0 promised to be for musicians, fans and frankly, anyone who embraces progressive technology — all wrapped up in an incredibly slick package.  It is, in a sense, the “ultimate resource” for the NIN community online: one that integrates seamlessly with services and technologies their fans are already using — Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, RSS, bittorrent, and dynamic playlists, with the next release of the app promising to incorporate Vimeo, Photobucket, MediaWiki, openID and Facebook Connect.  By doing this, Reznor has effectively brought together community and content, powered by fans themselves, while extending the concert experience beyond those actually attending the show.  Further, he’s deepened the interaction between artist and fan, and between the fans themselves.  And this, if done correctly, could prove to be a mighty powerful thing for musicians and marketers alike.

Eric Pilkington, Guest Blogger

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Tags: Brand 2.0, Community, Crowd Sourcing, Google Earth, GPS, iPhone, Mobile, Music, NIN, Social Media, Trent Reznor, Web 2.0

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Brand, Community, Microblogging, Mobile, Promotion, Social Media, Technology, iPhone Apps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.