MySpace Debate
I have talked to a lot of people in the past month or so about bands web presence and sooner or later during the conversation these few sentences are spoken:
Me: “What do you think of your Myspace page?”
Random Artist (Popular or Not): “Myspace sucks, I hate it.”
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard those words in the past month or two and how many times I have had to hold my tongue from saying, “I freaking told you”. Myspace is on it’s way out, but there are still so many artists using it. Why? Because they have to. They have to until it fades away and becomes another un-updated useless site and then eventually redirects them somewhere else.
Remember a year ago when a common question was “Are you on Myspace?” or “I will just look you up on Myspace” was a phrase coupled with saying goodbye. Now those words are replaced with two simple words. “Myspace Sucks”. Which I guess was sort of three words before something altered the english language.
I understand that there are artists that still need to use it, and it will be around for a long time, but guess what? Facebook will do the same thing in six months. So will Virb, and yes, Carlos, so will Twitter. One thing that isn’t going anywhere is the internet. That (I have a hunch) will be around for a while. Along with all of these social networking things disappearing so will easy to remember domain names, and almost every “.com” that you can think of. There’s really nothing we can do about the “.com” thing for bands, until someone invents a “.band” and that is strictly for musicians. (Don’t steal the idea, I need that to pay for my kids college.)
What I am tying to say is that eventually people will need their “.com” to be a central point for all things social networking. That will become the hub of everything online and it should be. That’s where people will look for you. That’s where Google will look for you. So why not be there? And along with that, why not make that the most reliable place to learn about you on the web? Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Yet hundreds of artists are spending time and energy on a Myspace page, that if you didn’t notice today, will have problems that you can’t fix.
I spend a lot of time checking out the “web presence” of all of the artists that I am working with, which unfortunately means sitting there waiting for their Myspace page to load. Today I was checking one of the artists pages and noticed that the “Shows” part of the page was all out of order and repeated over and over several times making the page unbelievably long. I scrolled and scrolled to get to the bottom and ten minutes later I made it. I shook my head, looked at several other artists with the same problem, and went to some other page. Once again, confusion that can be avoided and issues that can’t be fixed when someone else is in charge of your info.
So what do you think? Myspace still cool or suck? I think I know the answer, but lets talk it out.
“…which I guess was sort of three words before something altered the english language…” Haha…
Yeah, I can’t stand myspace, but my reasoning is that it’s been surpassed by other social networking sites like Facebook. Myspace is just clumsy to use.
It sucks….BUT…for bands it is a lot better than most of their websites. The only thing I want is to listen to their music for free and see their concert schedule. That takes a couple steps on their website, it is all right there on myspace.
Myspace is already on its way out. Too much clutter and crap and too many creepy people that can somehow crawl into your world even if you don’t know them. But for bands I think it serves a purpose.
I use Myspace, but yeah, it does suck. I use it mostly to keep in contact with people who live far away, since I hate talking on the phone. Myspace also gets really complicated and it’s really hard to deal with if you don’t know HTML/CSS coding. Facebook is a lot simpler.
Myspace absolutely and unequivocally sucks. no question. still have it, but only use it to check inbox and reply to people from my own email address. annoying as hell.
Facebook on the other hand. SO much cleaner and easier.
nothing is worse than opening a myspace page that you immediately realize just locked up your browser till it decides it’s done loading.
I agree with everyone else that Facebook is better, but, it’s a “walled garden” – you have to be on the inside to see it. That’s not where I’d want to put my “eggs” in the “web basket.”
I like Brody’s .band idea. dotcom’s are so scarce now, and anything short/memorable is gone . . .
Oh, and to answer your question, Brody, MySpace does suck!
I agree that myspace isn’t the best site out there but it’s more useful than most band websites or sites like purevolume for a couple of reasons.
One is convenience. Millions of people log into myspace everyday to check their own pages. It’s super convenient to be able to search for virtually any band in existence on one single site. Not only that, but once you find them its fairly easy to navigate through since most bands have the same page layout. I can attest to finding some of my favorite bands on myspace, mostly through the top friends list from other bands I enjoy.
From a band’s standpoint, its probably the best online marketing you can have right now. That will most likely change in the future, but it is the here and now. Not to mention its free and pretty easy to build a decent page. You don’t have to worry about learning too much html or hiring someone else to build and maintain a website for you. I know first hand that more people visited my band’s myspace page than our website we had up. Now that could be for multiple reasons (the website page was terrible, and was never updated) but I still think even if it were an awesome web page, people would still be more likely to visit myspace.
Myspace has its problems. It goes down for maintenance frequently, pages get randomly screwed up (like the “shows listing” problem you experienced), it has trashy ads, etc. But I still think bands are better off with it, than without it.
That’s just my opinion though!
Yes, MySpace is bad, on so many levels. In all likelihood it will eventually fade away. But for now, a LOT of people still use it. Millions and millions.
Tim is absolutely correct — if you have any marketing sense at all, like it or not, you’d better be prepared to deal with MySpace and learn to make the best of it that you can.
MySpace will increase the number of ears hearing your music, and some people will like what they hear and actually decide to make a purchase, or click through to your band’s main site.
There are plenty of indie artists who have gotten rich and famous almost exclusively due to their MySpace marketing.
But maybe you already have too much money laying around and don’t want more. In that case, yeah, forget about messing with MySpace.
I didn’t even like myspace when I had one! Too much junk and too many creepy people, etc etc.
Facebook is cleaner, more private, and serves really practical purposes, especially here at a college campus–Facebook is the best way to advertise and the best way to invite people to the events your organization is having. Except, they should really cut back on all those stupid applications.
As much as I dislike myspace, it’s often the only place I can hear a band’s music for free. Not even on their own website, but on their myspace, of course! It’s kind of annoying.
Yes, MySpace sucks. And I think its usefulness for musicians is eroding, unless your demographic is 12-16 year olds with emo tendencies.
I will also go out on a limb and say that I think MySpace’s page views are going down, though I don’t have anything to back that up other than the fact that everyone I know either doesn’t use it or doesn’t log on very often anymore.
MySpace sucks. Agreed.
An artist’s web site can do everything technical (and more) that their MySpace page does. Agreed.
People are only looking for the artist in A)the places that are best (however we’re defining it) and B)where the artist wants them to look? Don’t agree.
Not everyone is Googling my name. Not everyone is looking for my home page. They’re looking for a man in Tennessee, or Christian music in general, or that “home song” they heard on the radio or a picture of a man in a cow suit…and they discover me. Which is different from looking for me.
I’m on Virb, Tagworld, Multiply, Facebook, MySpace, Bloglines, Digg, Flickr, Bebo, and soon to be on Squidoo. Why? People who use those sites, who still believe they don’t suck, are discovering me there (And sometimes even looking for me there). I don’t invest much time in those sites – using them, as you said, primarily to point readers to my URL, but that’s no small thing.
It’s all about expectation for me. I expect my MySpace page to be a massive advertisement and a sign-up page for fans who want to get mail from me – and that’s all. I posted a message there telling them that’s all they’ll get so they have no high expectations either. No one gets hurt and I get a dozen or so visitors to my main site from MySpace every day.
They’re advertisements, samples, meant to introduce seekers on these social networking sites to me and what I care about. And they suck. Yes. But they still work…a little bit.
I’m behind you on the need to put most of our eggs in the homepage basket and you’re doing a great job making artist sites something worth visiting every day – but don’t count MySpace out altogether. Doing so will decrease the number of people discovering the great sites you’re building.
Musician-wise, myspace is one of the best ways (if not THE best way) for lesser-known folks to get their music out there. So, I like it for that reason. Fan-wise, myspace makes it super-easy to find and listen to new music. I like for that reason as well.
Keeping-in-touch-with-friends-wise, it’s clunky, clumsy, annoying and seedy. I don’t like it for that reason.
For the purpose of keeping in touch I vastly prefer facebook.
As others have already said.
For me, MySpace definitely was fun last summer. Of course, I’m not in a band. But it helped me reconnect with a bunch of friends from high school and the Army. These days, it’s just become a chore.
Garbage.
Yeah, my general opinion is that is sucks because of the clutter, spam, nasty/annoying ads and creeps. The only reason I’ve kept a myspace page up and running (both personal and for my music) has been to network with other bands (and a few friends) and to stay in touch with a few Facebook-less folks. Plus I’m not exactly savvy when it comes to building a website, so Myspace is an easy out for now. I usually delete artists that over-do it with their comments and bulletins though. They seem to very fond of the caps lock button.
I concur with others that I have found some of my favorite bands via myspace. It also provides the majority of my “working music” during the day…which is vital and less of a hassle than lugging CDs around (I can’t upload music to my work computer).
Maybe we should all just revert to hand written letters.
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i also can’t stand myspace. i can’t stand the profile pages, the admin pages, i DESPISE the ‘blogs’…the whole thing is a train wreck.
also, i’m tired of seeing advertisements of half naked women surrounding Bible verses.
i’m working on finding a code that will just automatically re-direct people from my myspace to my blog…but so far the only way people have figured out is through a flash embed…and i’m too lazy to do that right now.
[...] why not have that point to something that doesn’t suck. Shaun made some great points in the comment section about spreading yourself out there enough that no matter what avenue people are on there is a way [...]