(UPDATED) Taking aim at the likes of BandCamp, OneSheet, BandPage and VibeDeck, Chicago-based Internet media company Emerge Media has released Bands.com – a new platform for artists to aggregate and manage all the digital spaces they currently participate in, and provides a platform on which to sell music and merchandise direct-to-fan.
The Bands.com profile page, marketed as a potential substitute for a complete artist website, is created in mobile-optimized HTML5 and can be set up to automatically pull in everything from Facebook updates to YouTube videos, Tweets, and more. If an artist already has an existing website, they’re given the option to pull in as much or as little of their site as they’d like. Bands.com also automatically pulls in concert dates and event photos using integrations with Flickr, Facebook, Eventful, and YouTube.
“Building a website is expensive, and maintaining dozens of social profiles is time consuming,” said Anthos Chrysanthou, CEO of Emerge Media. “We wanted to give bands a viable alternative that allows them to spend less time and resources managing their online presence.”Bands.com is offering to give bands 100% free means of selling music downloads and merchandise. While the site itself is entirely free to use, there are nominal charges for email and SMS blasts.
While it’s tough to say if Bands.com is really a complete alternative to a proper artist website, what it does provide is a cheaper alternative in setting up the necessary channels needed to sell and market to fans directly, while maintaining a singularly-branded presence on the web complete with a custom URL.
The site is currently in invitation-only beta, and can be accessed here.
This post is by regular Hypebot contributor, musician, and music business professional Hisham Dahud (@HishamDahud)
