Twitter has become a popular social networking tool among artists and celebrities. The more twitter followers you have apparently increases your worth especially among advertisers looking to push a product.  Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber each have close 30 million twitter followers, but how many of them are real?

Almost 70% of Lady Gaga’s twitter followers are fake according to Status People who devised a software tool that divides followers into three categories – the fake, the inactive and the good.

“Katy Perry, Rihanna and Britney Spears each have follower counts in the region of 20million. But Status People’s software suggest that a large proportion of those followers may be imaginary tweeters. Company executive Rob Waller told the Observer: ‘A fake account is set up to follow people or send out spam. They normally have no followers, but follow large numbers of people. ‘An inactive account is one in which there has been no activity for a while. They could be real people, but we would describe them as consumers of information rather than sharers of information.” (Mail Online)

“The tool is intended to expose the true scale of the problem, and it matters because the number of followers a person has can be translated into financial worth by advertisers and marketing companies.”

Both Green Day and No Doubt will release their anticipated albums and are expected to sell 125-150k in the first week. Each band has sold millions of records through out their career, but they are facing new challenges with an aging fan base, music piracy, and of course changing trends. Although, Green Day and No Doubt  updated their sound, still the first singles are sluggish sales wise receiving mixed results from long time fans.  It wouldn’t surprise me if each band struggles to sell 500,000 units. One Direction is the only artist this year to surpass one million in sales.

Buzz Track: Better Off Without You

Bess, a 19 year-old singer songwriter’, self released a new single “Better Off Without You” which debuted on iHeart Radio on the Top 20 chart. She won the Songwriter Universe Best Song Contest and is currently finishing up an EP which was produced by Andrew Williams (Five for Fighting). For fans of Florence + The Machine, Fiona Apple, and Adele.

Contact: karbeck@gmail.com

Buzz Track: The Blue Between Us

Check out the track The Blue Between Us by The Novel Ideas. They are a folk rock outfit of friends from Massachusetts. They spent the past year recording their third album, “Home” in a barn in Jaffrey, NH. For fans of OAR and Matt Kearny.

Contact: thenovelideas@gmail.com

The 2012 new music festival will include a set from indie veterans the Walkmen, along with performances from the Presents, the Mountain Goats, Kimbra, GZA and many more.

The annual festival announced “highlights” from its the first round of acts on Tuesday, with more to come. Other notable acts from the initial announcement include Australian group the Jezabels, fresh off their performance at Billboard’s Post Party in August, in addition to Brooklyn newcomers DIIV and the Danger Mouse-produced duo Electric Guest. (Billboard)