While I don't personally feel any abiding moral imperative to "get young people into folk", pass on the torch etc etc , I do think it's a shame that so many people are unaware of all those wonderful performers and songs and playing that they could be hearing. I do think that any folk club that doesn't have a website, a myspace page and a facebook group/page is missing out on potential attendees. (Most of them already do, of course.)

One interesting thing about the internet that trad music really benefits from is the wealth of info at your fingertips. If I hear or read about an interesting-sounding song title, I can look up the lyrics and listen to several different performances of that song, within the space of half an hour. That's something that would have struck the song collectors of the 1930s-1960s as something quite incredible.

In a funny kind of way, YouTube could be - indeed arguably already is - one of the best contributors to the promulgation of folk song there's been for decades.

It's great for providing a bite-sized performance of a singer and a song direct to your living room or desk at work. It's a kind of an at-one-remove equivalent of busking. (In fact, I think more youtube musicians should take note of this, stop being so coy, and start video captioning their Paypal URLs in BIG LETTERS across their videos to make the point!)

The only disappointing thing for me has been the lack of actual interesting discussion spawned by youtube, myspace and facebook. When each one first showed up, I thought it would be great: musicians from niche genres would be able to reach out to each other from different corners of the country/continent/globe and make connections, and offer constructive criticism and support to each other. I suppose I was hoping for "social network" to be a bit more "social" than it actually is: some kind of idyllic artist's community that encouraged genuine feedback, debate and scene-building.

That hasn't really happened: myspace has descended into a bit of a jungle of indiscriminate self-promotion, where so-called "friends" only ever "comment" on each other's pages to paste up a flier for their next gig. It's all ME, ME, ME.

But that aside, at least it's THERE, at least it exists - at least you CAN actually follow the links of like minds and discover new, exciting music.