This is a conversation I have had with a number of my friends. It frustrates me to no end. But, I have just recently come around and seen the other side of the argument. I would really like to see why some bands/ artists prefer to only have a MySpace page and not their own website.
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As someone with a band that just has a Myspace page, as well as a music writer who's probably been to every band web site and myspace page that a Portland band has created, this isn't a hard one for me:
Myspace is convenient. Personal band web sites are not.
I can't tell you how many bands have web sites that are way, way out of date, but have Myspace pages with relevant information. No matter how easy html, etc., might seem to someone comfortable with the web, there's just no denying that Myspace's ease of information input (and more important, automatic elimination of shows that have passed) and editing is far easier. And the music player on Myspace is easy to use, and even has the online store functionality (whether anyone gets paid or not, who knows).
Plus, Myspace is free.
Sure, bands doing regional tours and the like should probably have a dedicated web site, but if you want compete with what the general consumer expects, you've got to hire a designer, or have a really dedicated fan/friend, and once you run out of money/friends, you've got yourself a dated web site that you're not capable of updating very easily.
And this may be yet another idea for a thread, but does anybody actually go to dedicated band web sites? I never do unless I'm doing research.
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MySpace is web training wheels. You can get a bunch of info up quickly and go. Eventually, you need to go to a real website so that you can do more.
But I do agree with Sam - the big problem with having your own website is upkeep. If you're going one, you need to make sure it's regularly updated.
As we've discussed before, there are a lot of things that would be nice to have online - press kits, tech sheets, etc.
Even with all that said, many major musicians have only one-page websites or no website at all.
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myspace is the new standard for making a band go public. however some people take a different route, like forever the sickest kids for instance paid for a purevolume promo spot put up a couple demos and got signed not too long after and im possitive that all they had at the time was the purevolume page and a myspace page.
myspace is also alot easier to communicate with your fan base and build a fan base.
plus online store right on your page? its got everything your website probably will never have.
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This is a great point about the promo possibilities. Sure, you can pay for search engine optimization, but who just goes to Google/Yahoo and types in "emo band" or something? No one. But they definitely search Myspace, etc., by genre and/or location, and you can optimize yourself in those results, which is a great way to get yourself seen. That just doesn't exist with the normal web site.
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the points that you guys have made here are all the things that it took me a long time to accept. I think, deep down, I was hoping that there would be this big "F the man" movement and all the bands would move to a platform that was more in line with artistic principles. I was a bit younger then, I suppose. What it comes right down to is the MySpace serves a great function for a band. It makes a lot things that were difficult for a band to do online before, a lot easier and with the introduction of MySpace Music many of my current gripes may go away.
But, how does a band reach someone, who is Internet friendly and doesn't use MySpace? If that band only exists within MySpace, then they do force a potential fan to join. And if that potential fan doesn't join MySpace, then have they lost that person? How else do they connect with that person? Believe it or not, there a lot of these people out there.
My only other concern with only existing within MySpace is that it seems to homogenize the artists appearances. And I don't really know where to go with this one. I mean, if a band doesn't have the manpower to create a website, then do they have the manpower to customize their MySpace page?
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my 2 cents as a music publicist and dj - When researching a band, I really like and most often utilize the shorthand offered by myspace. Instant tracks by the artist - handpicked by them or their management to represent them, usually very up-to-date tour schedule - band members listed, their choices for influences, quick and short bio - sometimes just their standard bio - sometimes a little looser and more entertaining. All this on one page.
I find band web site music players to be widely diverse and unreliable. Sometimes they don't even have one - sometimes my Mac won't play it and sometimes it plays annoying brief clips over and over. MySpace music player rocks (except for the past week when it's been skipping...)
However, I feel the band web-site is needed too. When I'm researching a band I 1) Google band name and click on band website link that comes up. 2) go immediately to links/contact page and click on their myspace page. 3) listen to tracks and check out all the above on Myspace page. Only then do I go back to the web site to check into "news" section and get into the archive of articles, press clips, longer bios, CD listings and to download photos, etc.
(If you're still with me, I'm going to keep going....) I also like the fact that a lot of small indie bands from around the country have found me and contacted me thru my Myspace page. And, when I find a band i like, I spend some time poaching their friends list. Learn a lot about small pockets of activity around the country.
Summary: Both are necessary. I think services like Myspace allow band web sited to become more static - simple news updates on the home page can give regular visitors something to look at - and a blog linked of all web presences can give people their fix of gossip, etc. One central thing to update.
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I was actually kinda happy to see this up here because we JUST had a discussion in our band about building an actual web page just so it would appear more "professional". Seems like myspace is just so full of crud and spam that people don't take it as seriously as they did a few years ago, maybe becuase the amount of music pages on myspace grows exponentially since anyone with a computer and a will to make noise can make a band page. And there is nothing wrong with that, all of us want our music to be heard. But I have to agree being in a band that currently doesn't have a web page, a myspace account has been great to get the word out on net, and it is easy to update, another place that seems to be a myspace but really just for bands is reverbnation.com it's pretty cool, anyone that hasn't been there should check it out. I have a feeling though we are going to bite the bullet and get an actual web page, but for now its just MYSPACE...lol
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I know the last post on this topic was back in '08, but I figure what the heck might as well post something.
I really look at official band websites, myspace, facebook, reverbnation, betarecords, altsounds, sonicbids, lastfm, iLike, Purevolume, etc like I look at press. They ALL have to be up to date and organized in a way that makes it easy for anybody, whether they have a myspace page or not to find your music online and get an accurate portrayal of the band. It's like when you try and get your album reviewed and one of your biggest goals is to coordinate it with the CD release party. It's great to get a review, but if it's 2.5 months after the cd release what good will that do for your buzz? I think the same principles can be applied to the web.
As much as I hate, and I mean HATE having to upload pictures and updated bio's and songs to multiple websites (so time consuming), I really think it just has to be done. It's all about connecting with your fans on a higher level than just the music, and all the social networking sites have opportunities to let bands do that.
In my band we've split up all the social networking sites between each of the 5 band members. That way it's not the responsibility of any one person to handle the multiple sites we're on. We use Google Documents to keep files up to date, and at anytime we can go grab the bio, the logo, etc and pull it to one of our social networking sites. We've been doing this for about 3 months now and it's really helped out a lot. Our activity on our different pages has sky-rocketed as well just from engaging fans on a more regular basis. Nothing is worse than when you fall off the face of the earth for a month or two, then come back full swing, then fall off and repeat. Until now that's something we did on a regular basis.
We also use social networking sites to draw traffic to our official site which is hosted by Bandzoogle. On our official site we can make money through advertising and set prices for our music. We can set it as "pay what you want", free, $5.00, or whatever we want. We try and treat our website as a place for fans to come and get more. A community if you will. We want them to feel the MOST connected to the band at our website.
Another great tool that I found out about just a few days ago is a website called ArtistData (http://www.artistdata.com). It lets you pull together many of your social networking sites and lets you upload to all of them without having to log into each of them manually. I uploaded a show to artistdata the other day, and the site automatically updated our myspace, facebook, twitter, and purevolume pages for me. It then sent out alerts to Mainetoday.com, The Portland Phoenix, The Maine Switch, and a handful of concert listings sites like Eventful so the show would be properly listed. The best part about it is it's FREE.
Pat May once said to me, "You've got to get someone that understands net marketing". Everyday I find out how true that statement is.
I'm really just trying to figure out a way to do it all without losing all my hair before I'm 25. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to spend all night online when I could be out and about meeting REAL people. If anyone has any advice or pointers I would love to hear them!
I'm just waiting to hear about the next site I have to sign up for. YourSpace?
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You raise a lot of interesting points here. Its a little disappointing that this thread has dormant since 08. Especially, since this is an area where the most people know the smallest amounts.
So, one of the ways that I look at this band vs internet thing is just simply meeting your fans/ audience where they prefer to hang out. This could be Geno's, The River, Javanet, myspace, facebook... What I mean is, maybe you don't have to focus on MySpace and Facebook. But, this is a matter a preference and I would not outright suggest to someone to ignore their myspace page they have one.
The website that you've mentioned which allows you to update all of that information across platforms, is probably the best solution. I predict that we see an explosion of these tools this year. Anothe really useful tool is Ping.Fm. That allows a person to update information across platforms as well. Though, it does not seem to be as robust as artistdata. I'm going to check it out. Probably, should have checked it out before I replied.
There is a real challenge here and it is growing everyday.
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I agree. I think that a ton of sites will start popping up helping musicians enter something once and have it update all their sites. Artistdata is still in the beta stages so I hope it gets vamped up and even more useful. I'm going to check out Ping.Fm right now, so shame on me as well for not checking it out first, haha.
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