Bands.com: (Almost) Free Direct-To-Fan Sales & Management Platform
(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)
“Welcome to last site your band will ever need…”
Right. Yet another “service” for amateur musicians. It’s stuff like this that’s hurting a band more then helping.
People need to stop thinking of a “website” as a place to just shove your songs and videos on, slap a Facebook button and call it a day.
It needs to have content, and that content needs to be created on a regular basis, and it needs to be shared and found. And you need to own the damn thing, not publishing it like the days of MySpace. That’s all this is – MySpace with a store element.
Amen.
Evolvor –
Actually, Bands.com has plugins that let you pull in your content from a personal website or blogging platform of your choice. Our site facilitates the sharing of original content through multiple channels at the same time.
I’d be a lot more interested if I could see some actual live examples of Bands.com pages. No screenshots or links on Bands.com’s official website. I applied for a beta test, and the idea seems interesting, but I’m reserving judgement until I actually see some live front-end and back-end.
Hi I just signed up looks good I ,signed up to onesheet but this is much better,
Ive just started check mine out http://www.bands.com/grimekings
I would be more interested in they allowed you the ability to bundle. CD + TSHIRT + POSTER + HAT or something. And and take a very small percentage and charge no monthly fee. Or charge a very small monthly fee but let me keep all my money from bundles. But it doesn’t let you sell bundles for what I can see.
Hi Chris
You can definitely make bundles! Just create an item and call it “CD + Tshirt + Poster + Hat Bundle”. We could charge you, but we prefer to give it all away for free!
I second that…
In case anyone comes back and reads this, I’ve tested it and I think the back-end is really well-put-together, but the front-end sucks balls. Terrible page layout and navigation, that can’t be changed in any meaningful way. Just skinned. Like bandcamp, but not nearly as good of a page design. Not worth my time.