Hey all,

When I started learning webdesign, it was just a means to an end. I wanted to get my music online but now I feel like doing something a little less comercial.

So I thought a musicians community would be a nice touch so I bought this domain yesterday & Ive already installed phpnuke to run it so I dont have to administer it too much.

I hope you guys can give me some feedback on what exactly the site should contain & what you as musicians would expect from a musicians site

God bless

Lewis

Music Lessons
Lessons that are tied into a forum for discussion/Q&A

What is hip section.
There is a whole generation coming up that has no idea what's out there besides the over saturated crap, I mean commercial product through MTV and clear channel. Ask most 14 year olds who Stevie Wonder is and you'll see what I'm talking about. (In the states anyway, I hear the UK is way more hip)

Product Section
From begginer to pro recording equipment/software and instrument reviews and recommendations.

Technique Section
Playing and recording technique columns

Promotional section.
Lewis, your the man on this. Articles and links that provide marketing and promotional resources that are either free or very cheap. Example: cafepress, online publications, etc.

Online Community Projects- whether they are albums, music lesson books, or building a web ring, a communitive project can be really fun and rewarding and will keep people coming back to see what's next.

Featured Artist.
Throw up a bio and a tune from a lesser known artist that would otherwise not be heard and put that persons article back to back with the "big boys" with the "what is hip" section so they don't become a section of their own that might get less explored by the user. I hate dead sections of a website.

Again, every article should lead back to a forum for discussion. This will help both you and your community grow.

Great name by the way!



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[This message was edited Thu Jan 15 9:05:23 PST 2004 by NFO]

Beau is setting an excellent example for the funk genre here: http://funkmusician.com

Victor Wooten has some good info for the jazz artist here: http://www.victorwooten.com/lessons.htm

Guitar Center: http://www.guitarschool.net/

Recording Info / Educational Resources: http://www.bluetrip.com/a...cesdb1.asp



A great point that's been brought up before though is spreading yourself too thin. Before starting a resource site like that you'd have to incorporate the "First who, then what" stratagy.

Example: If you could find enough people that have a whole lot of knowledge in those particular genre/fields that could help direct and guide the web designer and graphic designer into expressing that knowledge to a mass audience then you have solid ground to build up from.

Then finding those same people that are willing to donate that much time and energy for free. (that's a tough one)

Although you have a huge amount of talent and knowledge Lewis, that's a WHOLE LOT of work for one guy. It's a great and noble idea for a universal musicians community though.

Let's face it. Education is expensive. Some of us can afford it, most of us can't. Knowledge should be free though and a site like that would be most benificial to a lot of musically creative folks to get knowledge to help move their own projects forward.

Here's a good commercial video idea for you: Show a single mother getting home from work, doing the dishes and taking care of a screaming child. Flash forward to her putting the child to bed then walking over to her computer and going on-line. She tabs over to the music lesson section of the site, puts on her head-phones and begins to play and record. She is then interupted by the child needing to be burped, then goes back to the lessons. This shows that it doesn't matter her schedule, the resources are always there for her.

You could turn it into an info-mercial by showing her tab through the rest of the site that showed her how to create and print artwork for her CD / How to copywrite material / then show her putting it in the mail addressed to X-recording company. (or grandma)



Great marketing example from Apple: http://www.apple.com/ilife/video/


I talk too much.


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[This message was edited Thu Jan 15 9:06:55 PST 2004 by NFO]

Ok, nooo more ideas for you. I have to save them for our own site.

First establish your audience.

Second: find the people you need to make it happen.

Third: provide the audience with something they won't get anywhere else.

Forth: Someone will always take that un-patten (able) idea/service so you always have to make it better than the rest.

I don't know what's in the UK but in the states here are those examples:

Eckards vs. Walgreens
McDolalds vs. Burgerking
Wallmart vs. K-Mart

each company provides the same service but...

I'll shut up now.
Great idea though!


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[This message was edited Thu Jan 15 8:25:39 PST 2004 by NFO]

Or, as in the case of The One project I am doing, Lifeway Christian Bookstore vs. Barnes and Noble. Wow. That's a HUGE task.

Jason

I think I understand what your saying there, but that's not the case point of the above.

The examples were to illustrate how two names that are exactly the same in both product and servicing offers compete with each other by means of making themselves more efficient and effective than the other.

So...
Barnes and Noble vs. Boarders
or
Lifeway vs Lighthouse (both Christian book stores)

That was to help Lewis see what he'd have to grasp as to not create "just another music site"

Flashpointe said:

[This message was edited Thu Jan 15 9:46:25 PST 2004 by NFO]

By the way, I'm no authority on this. I just happen to be working on some marketing material for X - company to help them look better than their competators. I can't make their product any better than their team of developers.

Both products and services are almost exactly the same. How do you sell it to the public that yours is the better choice?

You either make the better product or increase your service ability.

But before you do that, you establish your customer or in our case - audience.

What's this got to do with music?
What can your site offer musicians that other sites don't, or can your site wrap several sites into a one stop shop instead of a link motel?

NFO said:

Oh, I see. Oops!

When it comes to demographics, where ever you see a McDonalds, there is a Burgerking either right accross the street or VERY close by as well as Ecards and Walgreens, K-Mart and Wallmart.

Trying to apply that to the web is just the same but more cost achievable as the big guys because both site costs could average the same bottom dollar. Which ain't much, if done right.

Actually, I'm almost finished with the real site. To me, the key to building a music community is to get the readers involved in the process, either through forum, comments, feedback - whatever. Especially in music, where every person has a different perspective regarding genres, styles, influences, etc.

Here's some of the stuff I'm adding:

article comments
The final site will have the ability to allow members to add comments to every article, as opposed to discussing it in the forum.

I found a lot of programmer sites with this feature and thought it was great, because the articles present information as absolute, but every reader will have their own perspective, and half the time, MORE information than the author of the article. Rather than taking the time to re-write the article as people write how idiotic I am, it's just easier to allow folks to discuss it right there.

freebies
real stuff - not files or online stuff. In my case - to get the ball rolling, I'm going to mail out a bumper-sticker to every person that joins. Period. They'll only cost maybe 25 cents to make, 35 cents to mail out. Of the ones I send out, maybe half actually end up on cars, and poof, there's the street-team guerrilla-style marketing.

member highlight
this is off the top of my head - each week, (or, as the membership grows, on every page) have a small block that features a member's name, avatar, bio. Just to continue to build up the community - because there's a thousand folks on this site, and I'd bet there's plenty of musicians that AREN'T posting in this section, but if you saw their bio posted, you might be interested in org-noting them to either pimp the NFO, the ONE, funkmusician.com, planet-musician.com, or my next site, LifeForGodsStraySociopaths.com. (that's how I got 2Funky to come get involved in this section) You get the idea.

Obviously, there would have to be an option in your profile as to whether you WANTED your bio posted or not.

ongoing projects
on my site, there's the Funkronology, where I'm trying to build a time table of funk classics versus popular music, so you can get a better perspective of what was happening in music culture when a given funk classic came out. For instance, what was on the radio when Sex Machine came out?
Let It Be and Band Of Gypsys. Which is odd to me. I thought Sex Machine came out a LOT earlier than that.

Anyhow. That project is on-going. Folks can add comments or email me and I'll continue to update the time line - it's fascinating to me.