Ryan Leslie is a producer, singer, rapper, and multi-instrumentalist who graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and Government at 19 years of age.  Impressive to say the least!  Here is a short video introduction should you not be familiar with his work:

After signing a recording contract with Universal Recordings and never receiving proper marketing support for his music, Leslie decided that he was no longer going to rely on a major label.  In 2005 he launched Ryan Leslie TV, a Youtube channel where he began posting his music videos, behind the scenes footage in the recording studio, and an inside look into his day-to-day adventures as a young record producer.  This was an unprecidented approach to promotion in the music industry at the time.  The Youtube channel in coordination with his Myspace page provided increased exposure for his music and enabled him to cultivate a loyal fan-base.  In 2006, Leslie was accused of artificially inflating his Youtube channel ranking by creating fake accounts.  This lead to a temporary removal of  his channel from the “Most Subscribed” list.  After writing an official statement to the Youtube community channels denying the claim and an official investigation that resulted in no proof of wrongdoing, Leslie’s channel was reinstated.

Ryan Leslie continues to build his brand through social media tools.  His personal website RyanLeslie.com is a fully integrated “content hub.”  There he posts all of his personal thoughts, videos and ways to connect with him directly.  The level of transparency even goes as far as sharing his personal cell phone number and email address.  By opting in to receive communications from Leslie via his virtual Blackberry phone, you can get exclusive invites to shows, hear new music he is working on, and even a personal call from the man himself.  Sound too good to be true?  Check out this experiment he conducted while on a radio promo tour in San Francisco:

His personal Twitter account updates as well as Facebook Connect are integrated into the site so that users don’t have to create an additional user name and password to log on.  This also allows Leslie to attach a real person to comments and reactions.  Each of his posts can generate 150+ comments which goes to show the high level of engagement.

On February 10th Ryan Leslie’s self titled debut album was officially released.  Exactly 7 minutes after making an appearance at the Times Square Virgin Megastore (R.I.P.), the store was sold out of Ryan Leslie albums.  By sticking to a revolutionary idea and the use of  social media tools, Ryan Leslie is “helping to reshape the business paradiam for a dying industry.”  This video speaks for itself:

Until a few weeks ago I had a blog on one of my personal sites. The latest post was over a year old. I just didn’t get around to it, and it was too much of a chore. But recently I discovered a fun alternative: Tumblr.

It’s a very simple, easy-to-use, fun (and free!) blog-scrapbook-sharing kind of thing. You can post text, photos/videos (from your phone, even), audio, Web links, quotes, and chat sessions. More stream-of-consciousness than a classic blog, and less ephemeral than Twitter. In fact, Twitter.com uses it for their own Twitter Status page!

It took me less than a minute to sign up and get started. This is the kind of user experience people mean when they talk about not just usability, but delight. Glee, even.

I’ll probably put my new Tumblelog on my own site, just to play with it. Get your own, then post the link in the comments here. And sorry to ruin your weekend… You were probably planning to go outdoors or something.