Singer turns entrepreneur by the Web

Vincent Golangco, Staff Writer

Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Business & Finance

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Media Credit: Screenshot by Andrew Huse

Kina Grannis, a 22-year-old singer and songwriter, found her claim to fame by writing a song about the Web site www.digg.com, which gained enormous popularity with Digg's subscribers.

The big Super Bowl story has now been replayed over and over and over again. No, I'm not talking about the amazing helmet catch, the thunderous Tom Brady sack, the rise of the second Manning brother, not even the 18-1 Patriots record. I'm talking about the other big story, the story of a girl who found her way.

Kina Grannis, a 22-year-old singer and songwriter, found her claim to fame as she appeared in a 60-second commercial on Super Bowl Sunday. She won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Challenge, which promised Super Bowl commercial time as well as a record deal with Interscope Records.

Now, what's so amazing about this? She did more than write a song that won a contest. Grannis found a way to get more votes online - she found a way to succeed using the Internet.

The singer used some pretty smooth marketing skills to get this win. She captured the hearts and votes of the online community www.digg.com. With the use of some viral marketing and a really catchy song, she persuaded this massive community to devote its loyalty to her.

Digg.com is a community-based news article popularity Web site. Digg users post news stories and these articles get promoted to the headline page through a user-based ranking system. Users "digg" up articles they like.

The Web 2.0 phenomena suggests that users have more control over the Internet than ever before. It's a consumer-based platform. Consumers are able to sell to other consumers (eBay) and define their own worlds (Wikipedia). Viewers can post and pick their own amusement (YouTube), and readers can post and pick their own news (Digg). It's also a community consisting of people sharing the same interests with no barriers of distance or censorship, and this is where there is opportunity.

Kina Grannis made herself a business woman. She's an entrepreneur, whether she knows it or not. She pulled off a Trump-like business tactic and closed the deal. Grannis wrote a song about Digg that was discovered by its enormous community of subscribers. They liked it and they voted for her. Not to mention this video was also found on YouTube and MySpace, which added to her popularity.

Continued...

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