Facebook for Bands and Artists

We've done work for quite a few musicians over the last few years and it's been interesting to see the change in their approach to the web over that time.

MySpace has given artists an avenue to show off their wares for little or no cost. Facebook is rumoured to be coming to the music space with an offering for bands and artists. They are designing the platform to allow bands and labels to create artists pages, and allow various widgets to be embedded for music promotion, organizing events, and more. The trouble with MySpace is that as far as usability goes - it doesn't get much worse (don't even start me on design).

According to the report by PaidContent, "Among those widgets would be iLike, the most popular app inside Facebook, but will also include iTunes widgets for sampling (to begin with), and eventually buying music through Apple," the report states. "The service will still have the utilitarian sensibilities of the Facebook platform, the sources stress, rather than the more chaotic and flashy platform that MySpace has."

We here have a lot of respect for Facebook at the moment. It has the right mix of functionality, and thought behind it's workflow. The design, although plain, is organised and can't really be ruined by anyone.

The main reason we think Facebook will be a big thing for musicians and artists is the demographic of users. Kids use MySpace (and don't pay for music) and everyone else uses Facebook.

Let's see how it plays out. In the meantime, anyone for a game of Scrabulous?

David