This week the Interwebs are abuzz with Weird Al Yankovic, whoreleased eight new parody music videos in eight days to promote hisnew album, "Mandatory Fun."

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years,Weird Al is famous for his spot-on parodies of famous pop songs.(My own personal favorite from the current batch is “Word Crimes,” a parody of lastyear’s big hit, “Blurred Lines.” Check out the video and you’ll seewhy it’s dear to my heart.)

If you think it’s tough making a living in the insuranceindustry, what with competition from direct writers and onlinesales, consider Weird Al. When he was coming up in the early 1980s,the traditional record (yes, records) industry was coming underfire from the emergence of MTV and the new CD technology. (Funnyhow things come around: most indy bands are releasing vinyl oftheir music, along with CDs and downloads.)

Weird Al came along at just the right time to take advantage ofall those tech shifts. He got famous with MTV videos like “Eat It” and since then has mademoney from records, movies, touring and merch. Back in the day, hehad the song parody field locked.

But times have changed. While it’s always been tough to make aliving in pop music, but you can make the case that today it’svirtually impossible, with the prevalence of free online musicsharing and the pennies-on-the-dollar royalties artists get whentheir music is actually purchased.

Like just about every other business, the music recordingindustry has been revolutionized by online sharing and changingconsumer demand. Attempts to crack down on free online sharingresulted in the Napstercase—seven years of litigation between the recording industryand an Internet startup involving copyright violations,

The irony is that since then, free online music sharing hasbecome ubiquitous – as simple as cutting and pasting from YouTubeand transferring that audio file to your MP3.

So how does Weird Al make a living? His Internet strategy is topartner with popular web content sites like Funny or Die, College Humor, Yahoo andNerdist, which pay to producehis videos: "They're all looking for content and I'm looking for avideo so we partner and it's a win-win situation."

In turn, Weird Al reaps the benefits by using those videos,which have cost him nothing, as “commercials for the album,” whichhe hopes sells big.

Weird Al is facing the end of an era. He has been locked into analbum deal since 1982, and his current release marks the end ofthat contract. But instead of hanging up his accordion, he'slearning to adapt to the new reality of Internet marketing andsales.

Going forward, his business model will focus on releasingsingles to keep his material fresh and topical, and continuing topartner with online content sites to sell his work.

Song parodies aren’t insurance, but insurance people can learn alot from Weird Al. In a recent NPR interview, he muses on the fact that song parodiesby amateurs are a dime a dozen on YouTube today, and now that he nolonger has a record contract, he has to compete with all ofthem.

He recognizes that the beauty and the curse of the Internet isthat content goes viral and is forgotten in the blink of an eye.The advertisers who keep the web content sites afloat are focusedon page views and other metrics, and stale material doesn’t gethits. By ditching albums for singles, Weird Al can stay on top ofthe rapidly shifting terrain of pop music—generating content thatgets views, keeps websites and their advertisers happy, and spursdownload sales of his own music.

He also knows that promoting his material can’t stop with theInternet. Building from the loyal fan base he’s developed over theyears, he tours regularly, giving face time to hisconstituents.

And although he knows there’s plenty of cheap competition outthere looking to steal his thunder, Weird Al abides.

From the NPR interview:

If you had asked me 30 years ago if I'd still be doing it today,I'd say that's pretty unlikely. But I love doing this. I can'timagine a job I'd rather have. I love comedy, I love music. I'msure people will let me know when it's time to hang up theaccordion and call it quits, but it's a lot of fun for me still,and as long as people don't mind, I'll keep doing it.