The Powergeek 25 — the Most Influential People in Online Music

25. Pete Wentz
( net-obsessed rock star )
BIG IDEAS START SMALL
Seeing unauthorized photos of his penis online must’ve deeply influenced the Fall Out Boy bassist. Through his LiveJournal page, the Fall Out Boy site and the social-networking service Friends or Enemies, he brings fans into every aspect of his life, turning his personality into a platform for marketing everything from the bands on his label, Decaydance, to the Honda Civic, which is sponsoring FOB’s current tour. “They were the first band to embrace video diaries and MySpace,” says an editor at the Web site Absolutepunk. “They’ve taken having a dialogue with their fans to a whole new level.”
A NICE LITTLE SIDE GIG
Buzznet, which hosts Friends or Enemies, just received a $6 million round of financing from Redpoint Ventures, a firm that initially backed MySpace.


24. Bob Lefsetz
The Lefsetz Letter ( music-business blog )
MAD AS HELL
“The music industry is based on greed, and nobody is tech savvy enough to understand where it’s going,” says the 54-year-old pundit, who is to record-biz bigwigs what Keith Olbermann is to the Bush administration. His feverishly updated e-mail missives blast everyone from XM Radio (“business pricks in it for the money”) to MTV (“means nothing”). What he does like: “getting more music to more people.”
THANK YOU, SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?
Everyone from David Geffen to David Gilmour reads Lefsetz, a nonpracticing entertainment lawyer. Steve Jobs once arranged for Lefsetz to receive a free laptop after he complained to Jobs’s friend, Eagles manager Irving Azoff, about flaws in one he’d purchased. “Everyone loves Lefsetz. Even the people who hate him,” says Rhapsody’s Tim Quirk.


23. Eric Garland
BigChampagne ( research firm )
THEIR DAYS ARE NUMBERED
In 2000, as the music business reeled from rampant file-sharing, Garland, a music-obsessed management consultant, teamed with a friend to create a kind of Nielsen ratings for the practice of peer-to-peer trading. BigChampagne tracks Internet traffic to determine the popularity of songs overall and in particular markets, and sells that research to interested parties.CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA
The major labels use Garland’s service, so if a song is being heavily traded in, say, Dubuque, they can push local radio stations to play it. Radio conglomerates use the service, too. “They need to be adjusting the music they play based on what the audience wants,” Garland says.POURING IT ON
BigChampagne also incorporates data from other online sites, such as AOL Music and Yahoo!. It will soon release SmallChampagne, a less expensive product, for the indie world.


22. Brett Woitunski
Purevolume ( Indie-punk community site )
A BETTER MOUSETRAP
With a sleek design, a smoothly functioning audio player and no room for spam, Purevolume is a connoisseur’s alternative to MySpace. Its 425,000 bands attract the Bamboozle crowd.
PIZZA BOY MAKES GOOD
Woitunski, 26, labored on Purevolume for six months after graduating from UMass Amherst, delivering pizzas to keep the lights on. Launched in December 2003, the site has 1 million users whose average age is 20 — fish in a barrel for punk labels like Tooth & Nail, whose Underoath scored 80,000 downloads in one day last year for a new song.
CHALLENGING TOM
As strictly a band-promotion site, Purevolume has avoided direct competition with MySpace. But with a new site, Virb.com, Woitunski aims to do social networking the same way he did Purevolume: by making it “simple and usable.”


21. Matthew Perpetua
Fluxblog ( MP3 Blog )
BEDROOM HITSEEKER
The Queens-based writer is widely regarded as the first and greatest MP3 blogger, establishing his home for “alternative universe pop hits” in 2002. Today, he gets 200,000 unique views a month, exposing obscure Euro-pop and indie-rock acts to an impossibly large audience. “He’s the best writer with the best taste,” says Scott “Stereogum” Lapatine.
MOM, WHERE’S MY M.I.A. CD?!
Perpetua started blogging when he moved home after graduating from Parsons, a Manhattan art school. He was soon offered an A&R gig with a British label (he turned it down), instead deciding to spin his impeccable rep into a career reviewing music and films. “I’d like to try writing comics,” he says.
OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE MUCH?
He has another blog where he reviews every R.E.M. song, inspiring Björk–, Talking Heads– and Pearl Jam–themed copycats.