By Luis Anthony G. Oliveros

If there’s one good thing that came out of the Ajax-fueled Web 2.0 standard, it has to be social networking sites and, by extension, social media sites. The recent leg of the annual SXSW Interactive Festival in Texas (hailed as the incubation hub for the next big Web application) yielded a whole slew of beta sites that employ the social networking principle. This reinforces what we already know: that social media sites have become a massive online trend and it’s paving the way for the next wave of Web innovations in the coming years.

Naturally, competition ensued with the explosion of these sites all over the Web, starting a race to find fresh, innovative ways to connect you with your friends and possibly make new ones. And essen-tially since digital music streaming, downloads and purchases pretty much make up a considerably large fraction of our daily Internet activities, it’s only logi-cal to come up with social media sites to support and connect people with this common interest.

With millions of registered users globally, these social music sites have been adopted by musicians as part of their marketing model to spread the word about their music, connect with their existing fan base or with other artists, and gain more exposure than traditional media could possibly offer. Music fans, on the other hand, look to these sites as a way to contact and connect with their music heroes, get updates like gig schedules and album release dates, find likeminded people, join fan groups, and possibly stumble upon a free download or two. On the other end of the spectrum, record com-panies and label managers can discover new talents to sign and offer their managerial services to through these sites, as well as further promoting their current crop of talents and utilizing the site as a platform to strike deals with sponsors and advertisers.

If you’re a musician, record label executive or simply an audiophile, gather round because this month we’ve collected some of today’s notable music networking sites.