Earlier this week, I blogged about how one musical star of the analog age, Mariah Carey, embraced digital by releasing a new song on Facebook November 11. The song, “The Art of Letting Go,” was shared with Carey’s 14 million Facebook fans, and Carey hosted a listening party in which she responded to fans’ questions online. Within one hour, the party generated more than Facebook 23,000 likes, 8,600 shares, and 13,000 comments. Just one problem: Carey released the wrong version of “The Art of Letting Go” on Facebook. But her response to the screw-up shows that she understands the value of transparency in the digital era.

As Carey explained on her Facebook wall November 14, initially she did not realize a sound engineer on her team had uploaded an un-mastered, unfinished version of “The Art of Letting Go” because she was so focused on answering fans’ questions during the listening party. Learning about the mistake devastated her. As she wrote, “It is 3:30am (11.14), and I’m sitting on my bathroom floor, very Continue reading →