Twitter- Pretty basic website. You have 140 characters to state whats on your mind. Seems simple and also can be effective. Say you’re a band, you can put random little updates so that your fans feel like they know you on a more personal level. These posts could be anything from “Hey guys just finished up tracking guitars for our new album!” and not only can you do that but you can attach a picture so they can feel right there with you, or you can even put something so simple as ” Man I love eatting at 5 guys burger joint!” just so they feel closer to you then some distant no body. The biggest con of this site is you only have 140 characters to do so, which in some cases isnt a huge deal. I’d rather read a short and to the point update then a page long thing full of filler bull.
YouTube- This websites pretty straight forward also, its you’re way of putting videos up about yourself! As a band you can put up the best quality videos of your shows and even do video blogging about whats going on with your band. Like I said with twitter, its all about bringing the fan in, keeping their interest, and making them feel as though they are a part of it. The cool thing about youtube.com is that you can host a video on the website but it gives you different ways to link it to other pages wether that be just a link or actually embedding the video into your site. I think this is very helpful because fans want to see the artist and be a part of what they love, YOUR music. As far as I can tell the only con with you tube is their content protections and speed, so keep it PG-13 and you should be fine haha. Also the time limits for uploads kind of sucks.
Flickr- This website is for uploading pictures. I like the fact this website lets you upload high quality pictures. This might be nice to host your pictures from because I know when you post nice looking pictures in facebook or myspace the quality drops drastically. Its also nice because other people can also look at your pictures and comment them. I think this site is pretty one dimensional but if you are a photographer or designer this website is KEY for you to have.
Vimeo- This site is like the glorified youtube. You can put HD videos up with no time limit I mean for a band thats a big deal. You can put up a video of your WHOLE set in high quality, that would make it more enjoyable for your fans to watch! The biggest con I see is that if you take the free route you have limits on how much you can upload per week, and how many channels and albums you can have. But if you pay $59.95 you get a year of unlimited anything so the question to yourself is, is it really worth it? you tell me. Everyone will have a different opinion on that.
These websites all seem to be very good for what they are. Some of these websites are more directed at certain people then others but I think a musician could find a use for each of them.
Ever heard of Ebay? maybe even Amazon or Paypal? These are some of the bigger, and lasting, sites that came from a time known as the “DotCom Boom”. In the late 1990′s and early 2000′s people were realizing the drastic pull towards everything being bought and sold via the internet so everyone tried to monopolize on those facts. Companies started popping up everywhere giving business plans using just the internet. These companies stocks sky rocketed because everyone could see that the market was quickly drifting to the internet and it had promise of making you rich over night. But, only one company could capitalize in their field which led to the failure of hundreds of companies but at that time it was all a race to the top.
The dotcom boom or “bubble” burst on March 10th, 2000 when the technology heavy NASDAQ stock market peaked at over double its value the prior year. By 2001 the majority of these dotcom companies ceased to exist having burnt through their venture capital without even really gaining a gross profit. A good amount of these companies were even sued for fraud giving these companies the corky nick-names of dot-con and dot-bombs. The burst also had to do with the 6 interest rates made by the federal reserve till 2000 to catch up with the economy. Also y2k came into play when companies spent so much money preparing for the incedent with nothing to come of it they were left with drained pockets. Another thing that led to these companies failing was that they were under the impression that internet traffic would continue to spike upwards so they spent so much money to make it so their sites and servers could handle all the traffic when, in reality, it didn’t spike as much as they had thought.
The companies that became well established and made it through were companies such as Ebay, Amazon, and PayPal which seem to have the workings to stay strong and be long-lasting companies that we use on a daily basis.
