Many music websites suck...

[keith]

OK - a peeve - a lot of sites suck!

I've added a half dozen bands to the showcase section in the last couple of days. Had to skip a half dozen because I wouldn't want to send someone to their sites.

To top it off, I'd just opened windows on a dozen Wisconsin-based music promoters - and one of those sites froze up my browsers! Had to close/re-boot. That's a heck of a way to promote bands!

And what's the deal with 'best viewed with x browser? If you can't build a website that looks good in all the major browsers, find someone else to build it!

Lots of music sites are so artsy-fartsy that they look cool at a glance, yet are less than friendly if you try to navigate or actually read them. I'm not just talking about subjective tastes here, I'm talking about basic user-friendliness.

I've seen sites with virtually nothing (one just said, "That's all." - and that was actually the entire content!) on them and I've seen sites with a schedule that expired three months ago even though one of the band members had a current blog-type post made very recently on the same page.

I've seen music that can be downloaded - you'd think musicians would know about media players!

Contact info is next to non-existent on many sites. How do you get bookings?

While I'm at it, though, I've seen some really cool stuff and I look forward to viewing many more ~ and sharing the BEST with everyone here at WisMusic!

Regards,
Keith

[stoney]

Originally Posted by keith

OK - a peeve - a lot of sites suck!


Contact info is next to non-existent on many sites. How do you get bookings?

While I'm at it, though, I've seen some really cool stuff and I look forward to viewing many more ~ and sharing the BEST with everyone here at WisMusic!

Regards,
Keith

I agree, but then this site could be the vehicle to joining music with developers to create a whole new way to conduct business.
art and science can join forces here!!!

[Lightning]

Originally Posted by keith

And what's the deal with 'best viewed with x browser? If you can't build a website that looks good in all the major browsers, find someone else to build it!

On the other hand, since cross-browser-compatibility is arguably the thing we do best at OnYourMark, LLC, that no one else does, maybe it's not such a bad thing that you're seeing so much of that. More business for us as people realize that they can indeed have a site that reaches Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Netscape, Konqueror, blah blah blah.

I've seen music that can be downloaded - you'd think musicians would know about media players!

Actually, I prefer sites that offer me the ability to download one or two songs off their album. I would rather listen to a file I have control of. If I like it I'm likely to put it on my iPod (which I can't do with streaming-only) and buy the rest of the album, maybe off iTunes. Most bands who do use streaming-only tend to pick just one media player and invariably it's one I don't have access to on whichever system I'm on at the time. That's especially the case on Macs. Real Media files are useless to me on a Mac.

Most music sites are neglected since the webmaster either has way more traffic than they could handle or they simply don't care. I think it's sad when they run a website for the wrong reasons.

[dgridley]

Poor website design.. the bane of the Internet.

99% of people designing a site overlook the number one reason for having a site: getting the information out there in a way it makes sense and is easy to use. Bells and whistles are nice but they should never cloud the issue to the point where it's virtually useless and unreadable.

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) should be a number one goal for any web designer.