Audition Marketing for Music

Hearing a buzz around an artist and searching for MP3s on P2P services, having a band ask to be your friend on MySpace, and now a new service called Podbop that aggregates MP3s of bands playing in your area soon, and includes them as a podcast feed all have something in common. They are new ways to discover music that are drastically different than the mainstream model. I would like to call this Audition Marketing of Music. Auditioning, just like in the old music business model when a band auditioned for a label to be signed to or for a venue in which to play. This time, it is directly to a prospective fan.