We were always looking for a way to combine 8hands with our love of music. We believe that music exploring is a huge part of social networking – for some of us, It's the only reason to type the MySpace address into the browser (but let's be honest, most of us are geekier than that).

So it took us a while, but we are throwing the 8hands' octopus right into the music pool! We are starting a new music blog to tell you all about the great artists that we've found around the social networks sphere (mostly in MySpace, Last.fm, imeem & Bebo) and we'll use 8hands to spread the word & share favorite music videos with all of the 8hands users.

We, the 8hands mega-team, will post semi-daily recommendations about a not-too-big artist or band that is either unsigned or signed to a small indie label. We'll write about music creators that we believe use social networks as a huge promotion tool, and we will use 8hands promotion values to help our favorite artists of the bunch. Every week or so we will choose our favorite artist of the moment and upload a music video by him to our YouTube profile.

As you probably know, the 8hands YouTube videos come built-in into 8hands, so, unless you've deleted that location, you'll get every recommended video right into your 8hands!

That's great for the artists, because their videos will be exposed to many people, and it's amazing to the 8hands users, because, if they appreciate our taste in music (which we believe is superb) they will be able to discover new artists & share them with their friends by a simple drag & drop.

So… visit the 8hands music blog, add it's rss feed to your 8hands, and if there are any artists that fit the description above and you would like us to recommend about them, we would love it if you'll comment or write us to info (at) 8hands (dot) com.

Oh, and if you want an instant music recommandation, without any real words around them, you can always check out our last.fm profile to see what we are listening to in the office.

While MySpace are trying to set new tools for musicians to earn some bucks out of their music, the guys over at Last.fm launched a new FREE download chart, that shows the most popular free downloads on Last.fm each week, and basically offers a new way for artists to promote themselves.

The new feature has managed to prove its impact quite fast, as the top artist on the list right now are is an unknown UK band called: "Gay Against You", and by hitting the chart they're causing a bit of a fuss over there.

The ability of 2 guys playing an atari-noisy-pop kind of thing to hit the charts is amazing and although the guys have a lot against MySpace, it seems like they aren't afraid to use Last.fm's tools to help them promote their needs.

The free download chart can become a new method for Indie musicians to get their 15 minutes of fame. If anyone out there still has doubts about the benefits of free music downloads, this move has proven that, at least for Indie bands, it can only do good. Last.fm are not trying to dictate whether people should give away their music for free or not, they're just offering a new tool for those who simply want to spread their music around in order to promote themselves, and don't mind giving their music for free.

The Last.fm download chart is a great tool for new artists and another step for Last.fm in their differentiation from MySpace, as well as presenting its users with fresh content on a regular basis. Not only is the download chart trendy - as MP3s are still pretty much the hottest buns on the Net - but it can also develop unique community trends of its own, with no sales, purchases or money involved in the mix.

gay against you - ice scooter

Remember the days when bands had to gain the music journalists' attention for some publicity? So 2005! With so many music blogs out there it is much easier for us, the readers, to find our trusted and beloved journalist (i.e. – a blogger) who holds the same taste and style as us. Plus, it's much more effective for bands to send a copy of their new album to influencing bloggers, because that's where and when the real buzz begins.

If you feel confused and lost in all those music blogs around, or want to find new places to get your music updates from, the Hype Machine is a good place to start. Along with elbo.ws, The Hype machine is one of the best audio blog aggregators. The machine batches thousands of music blogs from all over the world and keeps track of all the newly mp3's, songs and music discussion posted on the best blogs about music. Everything is reflected on their homepage, that looks like an active board with all the info being floating around the blogosphere. It holds links to the posts, offers a several ways to buy the album and there's even a special player where you can listen to the mp3's posted around (if you don't feel like reading the whole post).

You can also search for a specific song by using the search engine or by browsing through their charts. If the post also features a video, you'll get a YouTube glance with all the videos related to the song/artist.

Hours of pleasures for all the new music hunters out there.