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
Labels: cleaning-up-myspace, Facebook, MySpace, social-content
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2007
MySpace Redesign
The advent of social networking sites has meant that businesses now have a whole new way to get in touch with potential clients. In the past, to develop an online 'community' or interest group, the best way to spark discussion was to run a forum, or look for feedback through traditional methods like online forms and emails. These all fell prey to the problems of moderation, checking of comments and constant monitoring. Facebook, MySpace, Digg and the like all bring with them new ways for communities, groups and businesses to encourage participation and share their messages online.
It's been great helping out Tim and the guys at Cliffhanger Climbing Gym first with a new online store and now with a redesign of Cliffhanger's MySpace page. We're looking forward to getting to work on the new site soon, watch this space...
Labels: MySpace, pimp, redesign, web-design, Web-Design-Melbourne
Posted on Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Down and Dirty on MySpace
We've written in the past about our thoughts on MySpace. No matter what you reckon about the most visited site on the planet, you cannot deny the benefit it has to people in the music industry. Be they band or individual artist, a profile can be set, tunes can be posted and if done right, a good image can be portrayed.
Winterun are a band that have spent the last five years in Melbourne building a strong cult following. Heavy rocking blues or tunes that are like "logs let loose down the mountainside", these guys are good. A huge live following and their passion for what they do has brought the boys from Melbourne to the release of a new single Stompa from their forthcoming album : Into The Underground.
Efront had the pleasure of working with Winterun on their new MySpace page recently and we're chuffed with the results. Check it out, listen to the new track Stompa but most importantly when you get a chance, check out these fellas live 'cos if you like your rock... you're gonna get into Winterun.
Labels: design, MySpace, pimp, web-design, Web-Design-Melbourne, Winterun
Posted on Sunday, August 05, 2007
MySpace Statistics and Design
We had a great response to the recent post on the MySpace redesign we did for Fiona Burnett - www.myspace.com/fionaburnett - and to be honest I was a little shocked at the traffic we got.
We all know it's popular, but I thought I'd look into the stats behind MySpace. Steve Reubel at Micro Persuasion has listed some info on (what I think) is one of the ugliest and hardest to use sites out there.
- It is the largest online social networking portal on the web
- It has 61 + million registered users with 21+ million unique visitors
**note : Media kit from MySpace now says 64 million** - It's the second largest destination on the web, by page views
**note : now relegated to number 6 behind Yahoo, MSN, Google, YouTube, Windows Live - alexa.com** - It splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female
- They reach more men online than ESPN.com. They reach more females online than iVillage.
- The primary age demo is 16-34
- They have 1.4 million registered bands, 350,000 band blogs
- The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily
**note - what the??** - There are 50,000 groups including fashion, health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc.
- And last but not least it costs $35,000 to launch a profile for marketing purposes.
Wow. Again, no matter how much any of us can disapprove of the way MySpace looks and works, you cannot argue with those numbers.
All we can do is continue in our quest to clean MySpace up. If you've got a profile you'd like cleaned up (re-skinned/designed/pimped etc) feel free to get in touch to learn more.
All the best,
Mark
Labels: design, My Space, MySpace, pimp, redesign, reskin, statistics
Posted on Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Cleaning up My Space
Unfortunately things don't have to be well designed to be popular. Never has this been more the case (on the web) than with the social networking juggernaut that is MySpace. The most highly visited site on the web, 50 million and counting, commands respect purely through its' staggering number of unique visitors.
Being mostly Generation X staffers at Efront, we've tried to stay away from MySpace for some time now mostly because it makes us feel old....but really for two main reasons :
- It's ugly - "u-g-l-y you aint got no alibi you ugly" ugly
- It's ridiculously poor to use
Admittedly, our sensibilities to usability on the web are a little higher than the average joe's but come on, there are some shockers there...
...I mean who has the login button on the left hand side?? By default you hit the sign up when trying to log in!
All this aside though, MySpace has a place in the world. Where there's people, there's money. People go there to socialise and to make 'friends'. For artists, MySpace represents a unique opportunity to present your music and video for free to a whole bunch of people. Hence how we arrived at having to face our first re-skin of a MySpace site.
Fiona Burnett is an accomplished saxophonist who is currently getting her site rebuilt by Efront. Along with the new site, a MySpace page needed to be created to complement her online presence.
After some Googling, a lot of head scratching and much tweaking, I'm really happy with what we've been able to do with Fiona's MySpace. We created a clean, neat, profile for Fiona that allows her to be a part of the MySpace community on her terms. When her site launches there'll be nice consistencies between the two and visitors won't feel like they've jumped into a completely new thing.
www.myspace.com/fionaburnett
So....now on to Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, LastFm....
Mark
Labels: cleaning-up-myspace, MySpace, templates, Web-Design-Melbourne
Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007