How do we overcome obscurity in this age of abundance?

Continuing from my post on piracy, I wanted to think more about the problem of obscurity. How do creative folks (musicians, artists, photographers, writers etc) overcome it in a way that gives a better return on people's attention? Are the current tools sufficient or are they the next generation equivalent of spammers? How else can a creative do to connect to the right people?

The following is more of my unstructured thoughts. Looking forward for someone to structure it and make them more useful.

Build a more adaptive product
When everything is abundant, the only way to stand out is to be the best in your niche. That doesn't mean having the best product from day one. It implies you need to have a process for constantly adapting to the needs of your niche. That means better feedback system and a more responsive way of production.

Connect to a network of talent
Related to the point of a better product is the issue of renewing talent. As a creative talent, you need to constantly refresh your skills and the best way to do it is to be part of a talent network. A good talent network has good diversity to encourage serendipitous learning that is cross industries.

Better communication tools
Current tools of communications such as Twitter and Facebook are becoming platforms for shouting contests. If some creative folks want to communicate their new works to people, their only hope is essentially to be as loud as they can. This, to me, is a signal that these tools are failing. They don't help to connect the right people together.