"1.Don’t Believe the Hype: Sandi Thom, the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen are not super famous, rich and successful just because of MySpace, and nor because they miraculously drew a crowd of thousands to their homegrown webcast. PR, traditional media, record labels and money were all involved."

Amen to that! This is number 1 of "20 Things You Must Know About Music Online" by Andrew Dubber - an ex-pat Kiwi from radio/media circles who is now officially known as Degree Leader for Music Industries at UCE Birmingham. Andrew has published an "e-book" (or should that be "e-published a book"?) that is rather handily available as a free download from his website. In it Andrew lays out his take on 20 basic principles for navigating the online music industry.

20 Things You Must Know About Music Online is worth a read - not least of all because the only thing it will cost you is your time, but more importantly because his principles are pretty good common sense. Take number 1 above. Although this book reads very much as if it's directed at musicians or labels, I hope some of our music/entertainment journalists feel this particular point hit them right between the eyes. How often recently have I watched tales of 'instant' fame told in 3 minutes of patronising gee whiz segments? Miracles make great stories, always have. Religious ones are a little too old hat for audiences to swallow these days, but there still seems to be plenty of room for them concerning the internet. Call the Vatican! We have another immaculate conception of a mega-selling music artist!

For the remaining 19 points download 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online from Andrew's blog.