Do you wanna go seriously Old School in your musician website? Forget the Flash! Forget the straight downlaod! Stream your music the old fashioned MP3.com way. Learn how with this sparkling tutorial.
This article was written long before the myspace phenomenon, but the essence of it still applies; some people either can’t, or won’t, go to that website.
I am not a writer or teacher, nor am I that well technically versed, so some of my explanations —especially on the purely technical aspects of computers and how they work through the internet— might seem moronic. I am also only an amateur web designer. However, in investigating web design for my band, I have learned something: too many great bands have terrible websites!
There are many aspects of bad web design — many of which I am still painfully discovering for myself — but the most important thing lacking in many band’s websites is the way they deliver their music.[1] These are the two most common methods independant musicians use to put their music on the web: the MP3.clone, and MP3 downloads; and they shouldn’t be the only methods you use!
The MP3-dot-clone
When I built my first website for all flesh back in the day, I used MP3.com for my ‘music’ page. But I couldn’t get their pre-formatted, prefabricated page to reflect the design esthetic of my website.
And we all know what happened when the Corporations became involved: they became more concerned with their own bottom line than your music — and their greed destroyed them. The pages became chock full of annoying banner adds, pop-ups and even spyware in many cases. Those Corporate add-ons cause the page to load much slower than normal, they ruin the esthetic of a page, and they just look plain silly and unprofessional.
The most important thing to remember about the MP3-dot-clones concerns this axiom — henceforth to be known as Billy’s Law: You get what you pay for; your visitors get what you don’t pay for: banner adds, annoying pop-ups, e-mail sign-ups, add-ware and spy-ware!
MP3 Downloads from the Band’s Website.
Most people still use a dial-up connection to the web — especially those in foreign countries; it takes a long time to download a large file with a a dial-up connection. Making new visitors wait to hear your music — especially those who have never heard you before — will drive them away faster than you can say, “download time: 52 seconds.”
In this instant-gratification society we live in, its utterly important to deliver your music to as many visitors as possible, and give it up as quickly as possible! You can address all of these concerns using MP3 ’streaming’ to deliver your music from the web. And streaming isn’t a complicated process at all!
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