Gotta give credit where credit is due: The organizers of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival hit upon a novel, creative way to announce the 2010 lineup. Aggregate the information on the Bonnaroo MySpace page after all of the artists have announced their participation in the venerable summer music festival. Cute graphics involving what tech blog Mashable describes as “cartoonish cuckoo clock and what appears to be a flying lightbulb” announcing additions to the Bonnaroo lineup every five minutes. Conceptually, it aims to incorporate many different aspects of social networking into one smooth operative arm, ensuring ease of communication between artist, fan and organizer.

But in practice? MySpace announcements reveal artists that were announced a hour prior. Site crashes. The presumption that people have the time and patience to wait for nine hours of gradual lineup revelations. (And, to be fair, it is a pretty remarkable lineup. In addition to the acts already announced, acts such as Regina Spektor, Mayer Hawthorne & the County, The Disco Biscuits, Wale, Local Natives, Japandroids, Norah Jones and Jay-Z have been confirmed by the official Bonnaroo Twitter feed).

Sure, it’s supposed to act as an aggregate, meaning that some of the information on the MySpace page will be a collection of previously revealed information. But, given how quickly the information about the Bonnaroo lineup has leaked, the method seems redundant, not revolutionary. Plus, no one was thrilled about the use of MySpace, a social networking site many regard as outdated and poorly run.

So how did the Twitterati react to Bonnaroo’s gamble? Here’s a sampling of some common Twitter reactions.There may be some editing for clarity and grammar, but otherwise...well, let’s just let the Tweets do the talking:

1. @delineated Okay, Bonnaroo, you’ve kind of shit the bed with this staggered announcement. It’s becoming annoying
2. @musicnewsdaily Early tweet feedback on Bonnaroo lineup announcement method. Annoying, slow, crashes, no one uses myspace anymore
3. @tlrpm: Fuck you AC Entertainment. How much did Rupert [Murdoch, President of News Corps, who owns MySpace] pay you for traffic to his failing site?
4. @JonWHorn Ok @Bonnaroo ... how about announcing some of the lineup that we haven’t known for the past hour already?!
5. @TheRightMinds I’m pumped to see the Bonnaroo lineup, but whats with the myspace timed announcements? are we expected to watch this all day?
6. @lindseydurrell I’m not sure which is more annoying: that @bonnaroo is only announcing an artist every 5 mins. or that they’re being unveiled on MySpace.
7. @brian_shoemaker Bonnaroo is using MySpace to announce its concert lineup. In other news of using outdated tech, I’ll be dubbing a new mix cassette tonight.
8. @RolloGrady: Hey @Bonnaroo it’s been fun playing the guessing game. It would be more fun if you go ahead an announce the entire line-up.
9. @emilyjude #bonnaroo lineup announcement is freaking tedious
10. @RFWriter @bonnaroo at this rate the city of Detroit can be revived before this lineup announcement is completed via @myspace #bonnaroo
11. @dropstones oh man, this myspace thing is such a mess. #bonnaroo - I’ll wait to see the whole list somewhere else...I have stuff to do.

To be fair, there were some praises mixed in with the criticism:

1. @grimygoods The @Bonnaroo band announcements are way too cute! Love the lil clock and music!
2. @thewavelife @Bonnaroo haters… check back @ 9pm. They’ll post the full lineup then. Otherwise, buzz off.
3. @JashMaldner Even though I would never go to Bonnaroo I am enjoying their announcement techniques right now on myspace
4. @Arnian Bonnaroo lineup. They’re doing this thing where every five minutes a new band is announced. It annoyed me at first now I’m stoked.
5. @JashMaldner Even though I would never go to Bonnaroo I am enjoying their announcement techniques right now on myspace

For the most part, though, it seemed as if Tweeters were more enthused about the lineup than anything else...even if they had to wait patiently in order to get it. As Mashable put it, “While this idea is certainly creative, it is rather messy in essence...Bonnaroo provides no links to individual artist announcements so if you’re not, say, Rolling Stone… you’re stuck staring at a rather irritating flying light bulb for six minutes until the page refreshes with a new announcement. I know cubicle culture breeds downtime, but I doubt anyone has the hours — or patience — for that.”

Our Take

While there are plenty of amazing surprises that will ensure the presence of at least one member of the College News team is present at Bonnaroo, this announcement rollout is the definition of tedium. Good thing for Twitter and artist accounts, though.