Does the bold title caught your attraction? in fact i’m just trying to tell you the truth: yes, in the flat world you can be the next Linkin Park and have your music listened worldwide, for real.

Ever heard of ‘Couple‘? Couple was once just a small backyard garage band. the special thing about Couple is that they make good Indie Pop/Rock music and they know how to ride with the Internet in the flat world. Although started small, Couple’s achivement on the International stage is huge. they are had picked up numerous awards (including selected as the Top 25 MySpace band by Rolling Stone, U.S.) worldwide before they even release their album.

Their success relys heavily on MySpace, YouTube, and the huge population of Internet surfers - which are all not available in 20 years ago….and damn it, one of their popular MTV ‘Say Hi’ is just a video shot with a Nokia N93 mobile phone!

20 years ago, what is the possibility your garage band get the chances to perform your music to the audiences from all over the world, like Couple? The answer is nearly zero. signing up with an Internation music company probably is the only way to go for. your band got to be really good in music and must be lucky enough to get noticed by industry head hunters. even if you made that, there are still tons of resistance ahead and i bet 90% of those who reached that level would just backed off without success, no matter how talented is your band or how good is your music.

How about the situation nowadays?

Well, you still need a lot of hardwork to make success at current days. but the road to success can be shorter and easier. you avoid begging the music company manager to listen to your demo tapes, you can avoid taking part in every local music competition to get noticed, you don’t need to kiss everyone’s ass just to get a chance to perform in front of the music producer. instead, you can focus more on your music, performance style, and push your music to the crowd with blogs, MySpace, YouTube, MetaCafe on your own.

So can you be the next Linkin Park? why not. the question is how well you can make use with the new media online and how far you are willing to push yourself to compete with the world.

When i first started in online biz, the best way to promote your website for free is via search engines organic listing. all you need to do is do proper keyword research, build a website with SEO in mind, run as much SEO campaign as you can until you rank high on Google Yahoo! and MSN.

I thought this golden rules will not change, but i was damn wrong. the theory couldn’t even last for 5 years… with all the new trends and hypes online, you can have millions ways to promote your website for free (or with little amount of money). the best of all, these methods can give you the equivalent return with good search engine rankings.

Moving my ass to adapt to the new world, these are some free promotion methods i am looking into… some of them ain’t new, but its taking greater impact nowadays.

• Advertising on ezines popular ezines related to your web content.
• Tag yourself at Technorati.
• Make interesting video and host it on YouTube.
• Use My Space to stay interactive with your visitors.
• Ping your blog!
• Write something interesting and digg it!
• Get people to Reddit about your website.
• You can’t spell it, but you must know this: Del.icio.us.
• or Stumble on it!
• Run an active blog to make your website stay fresh. blogger, anyone?
• Make use of RSS feeds.
• Submit articles to hot article portal and wait for scrappers to scrap it.
• Make use of open source forums package and make your site sticky.
• Constantly make meaningful comment on other’s blog with your nick hyperlinked.
• Ask your friend for word of mouth promotions.
• Sponsor other’s blog by doing paid per post, start by sponsoring me. =)
• Sponsor other’s blog event. For instant, you can sponsor Darren’s project here.
• Package yourself like a *hot* celebrity like xiaxue.
• Be creative and make a huge buzz. remember Million Dollar Homepage?
• Forum signatures (the same with commenting on other’s blog).
• Get use of Blog Carnival.
• …and of course, try Craig List.
• Forgot about the screwed up dmoz, except you’re feeling lucky…
• Make your site a toolbar like Google.
• Give out freebies, you can do it at: The Free Site.

The list should be good enough to keep you busy… do you have any to add up on it?

I guess the world couldn’t get any flatter than this…