i'm going to have to respectfully disagree. i think you're blowing this a bit out of proportion. TIS still appears on the first page of search results, above amazon. the first result is obviously the best match based on the domain name - gracepotter.com - as it should be.  then we have myspace and wikipedia, obviously because of their weight based on overall site traffic, links to, etc. - whatever google is tossing into their algorithm. then image search results - ok plug for google but i guess in their experience users would like to see image results in web results? then youtube - ok owned by google, but still one of the most trafficked sites on the web. then TIS - you are in good company. then amazon, brooklynvegan, and earvolution. your closest competitors based on size and audience are brooklynvegan and earvolution, and you win on relevance of content. the search results make sense to me, and aren't radically different from before. most of these sites have been on the first page of search results for a long time, in mostly that order.

as for the new music feature, it's a little box at the top that links to music sites. no i don't believe there is any added benefit to the artist here. the benefactors are google, and the sites they are linking to. does ilike, pandora, imeem, etc. have an advantage in getting traffic over TIS because they are listed in this box and TIS is not? yes i believe they do. but then again, TIS is not a music destination site. it's a fan blog. an incredibly well run fan blog, but still a fan blog dedicated to a single artist, with an audience that's limited to other fans of this one particular band. these other sites are established music destinations, so i'm not surprised google would give them priority.

the argument i would make, is that it marginalizes OTHER music destination sites. where's aimee street? emusic? when i search for other artists around gpn's level, it's always the same few sites that show up. if you search a local band, they don't get anything at all, just the regular web results. obviously google is acting as gate keeper, giving priority to some sites in a given category (music destination) while ignoring others, that either it doesn't view as valuable or sites that have refused to do a deal. for this i am suspicious of google's motives, as they claim to "do no evil" and this flies in the face of net neutrality. they aren't an ISP, but they are another level of gatekeeper in this case.