Sites such as MySpace generate more community-related music activity than Yahoo Music, AOL Music or MTV.com, according to a new JupiterResearch report, "Music and Community: Low Cost, Authentic Promotion." Some 48 percent of music discoverers find out about music from friends, 53 percent discover music through videos, and 87 percent through radio.

The new report studies how much activity related to The Black Eyed Peas music group occurred on MySpace, Yahoo Music, AOL Music and MTV.com. MySpace generated hundreds of thousands of "friends" of the band - and profile views and song plays in the millions. In contrast, mainstream music media sites counted artist community members in the hundreds, at best.

"Music marketers should leverage community sites, such as MySpace, to recreate the feel of personal recommendations of friends," said David Card, vice-president and senior analyst at JupiterResearch and author of the report. "Not only are these sites free, but they can be effective music discovery tools."

"Using community sites as a marketing platform is inexpensive, but it requires a do-it-yourself approach," said David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan. "MySpace, for example, does the Flash encoding for music streaming and enables emailing, but not much more. Promoters should market actively on these sites and push new songs, albums, videos, or tours."